Exporting USA Percussion Tools and Techniques to Australia: Underbalanced Hammer Drilling Significantly Increases ROP On First Attempt Drilling Ultra-Hard/Abrasive Formations

Abstract

The Mereenie development project is targeting oil and evaluating natural gas reservoirs in the lightly drilled Amadeus Basin. In 2012, an operating company started searching for methods to improve rate of penetration (ROP) drilling the 8¾″ vertical hole section through the difficult Stairway and Pacoota sandstone formations. The lithology consists of very abrasive and hard siltstone/sandstone with UCS up to over 30,000 psi. The hole section starts at 500 m and generally requires 700 m of total wellbore to reach KOP at 1200 m. The section has historically been drilled with PDC and Roller Cone bits with mud as the circulating medium. Both types of BHAs produced unacceptably slow ROP and required multiple trips to reach TD. The operator required a new approach. To accomplish the objective, the operator wanted to switch from mud to underbalanced drilling using an air percussion BHA equipped with a hammer bit. However, an analysis using a well records database showed that only short (10–30m) shallow surface intervals had been drilled in Australia with percussion air hammers mostly in mining applications in the 1980–90's. To increase the chance for early success, the operator wanted to import the latest air hammer tools and drilling techniques from North America. The provider suggested taking lessons learned from the Northeast USA where air hammer drilling plays a major role in developing oil and gas reserves in the region. The two applications are similar with regards to formation characteristics and the drilling team concluded the provider's downhole tool technology, service culture and experience/expertise would be integral to project success. In Q4 2013 the provider drilled the fastest and deepest percussion air hammer run in Australia's Oil and Gas history at 24 m/hr, 700% faster than the previous ROP achieved with PDC or Roller Cone.