Spe 164171 Clean
Spe 164171 Clean
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Middle East Oil and Gas Show and Exhibition held in Manama, Bahrain, 10–13 March 2013.
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Abstract
The common limitation with a casing string is its inability to maintain hole inside diameter (ID) when run through an existing
casing string already installed within the wellbore. This instigated development of expandable metal tubulars to maximize the
open interval below existing casing, ensuring conventional wellbore designs can be maintained as well as managing
unexpected drilling hazards. With the introduction of expandable tubulars, existing wells could now be completed through
the ability to include an additional casing without increasing top-hole design or compromising on the planned
completion size.
Today’s industry demands further development in technology, with an ability to set a casing and run another casing string
without the additional hole-size reduction experienced with conventional casing or standard expandables. A monobore
solution is key to allowing operators increased control of the wellbore by isolating intervals, ensuring an efficient
fluid-management system, and continuing with the existing tool assemblies. This requirement has led to the development of
monobore expandable systems for intervals of the wellbore with common hole sizes of 12-1/4 in., 8-1/2 in., and 6-1/8 in.
Whether in their liner or clad form, isolating the respective interval without a loss in hole diameter provides new economies
to operators when accessing deep and more complex reservoirs. Wellbores can now be engineered with contingency solutions
without compromising on well objectives. Their ability to isolate intervals while not compromising on post-expansion hole
size is providing operators the ability to mitigate drilling hazards, slim tophole casing designs, or increase completion
diameters with minimal operational impact on their existing well plans. To date, operators have actively incorporated
monobore expandable solutions to mitigate drilling hazards in Norway, Oman, Turkey, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and
Azerbaijan, allowing for hazards to be overcome and well objectives achieved. This paper details design and implementation
of such monobore expandable systems while providing real results on a global scale of their implementation, advantages, and
operational efficiencies.
Introduction
The concept of expanding solid tubulars to overcome drilling challenges is not a new one. As long ago as 1863, the first
patent was issued for this concept, and in 1934, a patent was issued for an expandable shaped-OD (outside diameter) system.
The idea of expandables was conceived because of the reductions in hole size that conventional casing designs necessarily
caused, a situation which was exacerbated by encountering drilling hazards which mandated the installation of another casing
string, thus making the available hole size even less. Drilling in areas prone to sloughing shales, lost circulation, and other
downhole challenges necessarily added additional casing seats to the basis of a well design, which created a telescoping
effect with casings of smaller and smaller IDs, further minimizing the ID downhole and impacting the eventual well
completion and subsequent production capabilities. It was not until the evolution of jointed expandable connections, with
thicker-walled pipe to address longer lengths, that engineers were able to create a more robust system for problematic
openhole formations.
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From the beginning, the idea of expanding solid tubulars as a means to reduce nonproductive drilling time by covering
unstable formations and pressure events while minimizing the telescoping effect of standard casing programs was thought to
be the panacea over conventional well-construction techniques. However, the development and commercialization of this
technology has been driven by the increased production opportunities realized by improved well architecture and
completion-size optimization. Solid expandable systems are now commonly used in development, planning, drilling, and
completion, and during production decline.
In the late 1990s, this approach was introduced and, solid expandable systems initially were used only to confront drilling
and completion hazards and to reduce the slimming of the well that they created—the middle stage of the typical three-stage
life cycle of a well. Many operators considered solid expandable liners a last resort before downsizing the well, preferring
instead the comfort of conventional technology and procedures. Solid expandable liners have historically been viewed as
contingency liners when operators encounter trouble zones, whether due to setting a conventional casing string high or
covering unstable or lost-circulation zones or to improve drilling margins. In that event, the method of operation changes
from drilling the well to saving it and still reaching total depth (TD) with the designed production string. At this point, the
expandable liner typically is run in a high-risk situation when the operator is attempting to save the well. It is more beneficial
to design expandable system(s) in a hole section farther up the wellbore where the liner would be run in a much lower risk
environment.
However, though once considered a niche technology, over the years the use of solid expandable technology has gained
worldwide acceptance and has been expanded to a number of cost-reduction opportunities, such as increasing annular
clearance to improve cementing efficiency, improving well intervention, isolating kicks and flows, and covering low-pressure
events such as lost circulation. The most common use today is to cover instabilities in the wellbore to prevent stuck pipe and
twist-off events that can result in unwanted sidetrack operations. Optimizing production opportunities are common over the
life of the well by extending casing points and, later, in sidetrack operations. As production declines, solid expandable tubular
technology is now commonly used to overcome mature-field challenges associated with excessive water production. The
need for secondary hydraulic fracturing applications has also created demand for permanent zonal isolation while maximizing
completion capabilities.
The evolution over time of expandables is illustrated in Fig. 1. As the technology continued to gain acceptance and deep
exploratory wells became more common, so the industry further demanded a method by which such expandable technology
could be used to maintain tophole casing design, addressing the need for expandables that did not necessitate any slimming of
the well profile. Thus, the concept of monobore expandables was born.
Monobore Expandable Liners. The use of conventional solid expandable drilling liners that have to be tied back to the
previous casing can be cost prohibitive and lead to nonstandard equipment requirements for drilling and casing the following
section of the well. Designing a monobore solid expandable liner into the casing program enables the operator to significantly
reduce risks by incorporating another liner string in the well design without losing hole size. Additional benefits can be
achieved as the liner requires less pressure to expand, rather than running a smaller liner where expansion pressures are
higher, reducing associated operational risks.
Alternatively, the monobore design can also reduce the number of casing strings run to TD by drilling smaller holes and
using less mud and cement while maintaining the same size completion. This type of well-construction methodology can
lower the overall cost of the well and enable a smaller rig to drill a deeper hole. This methodology enables operators to use
conventional high-strength casing to address high-pressure trouble zones farther downhole where the expandable-liner
capabilities may be exceeded.
However, a noncemented, solid expandable monobore type of openhole clad (patch) liner can be installed remotely from a
previous casing to isolate problem formations so that the target setting depth can be reached with conventional casing without
sacrificing hole size. Installation of a solid expandable openhole clad will result in mitigation of problem sections and allow
drilling to continue with the same hole size. The problem formation is straddled with a short length of expandable liner or
clad with a resultant drift ID equal to the diameter of the original hole or drill bit. With this fullbore ID, further clads can be
run through, and deployed lower, in the same hole section.
In addition to reducing operational risks associated with expansion of long lengths of conventional tied-back, solid
expandable openhole liners, this option significantly reduces well costs and results in higher and earlier production associated
with the increased hole size in the reservoir section. Although not widely known, the openhole patch system has been used
extensively with excellent results in remote locations over the past 20 years and is currently poised for global
commercialization. This style system has also been used in the recompletion or remediation of wells, allowing in some
instances, full ID of the wellbore after the system had been installed.
The most common hole sizes that needed to be addressed in the development of monobore expandables were 12-1/4 in.,
8-1/2 in., and 6-1/8 in., and they posed several technical challenges. Following are the challenges which applied to a 6 1/8-in.
monobore expandable and those for the other two sizes were similar:
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• Two types of liner were predicated, referred to as clad and unclad. The clad version would have external attachments
such as elastomeric seals, etc., to augment the liner performance in depleted or lost-circulation zones, whereas the
unclad version would be used more in sloughing shale and hole-collapse applications. The design would also have to
accommodate a clad-through-clad capability so that multiple such liners could be run in the same hole ID if required.
This application is illustrated in Fig. 2.
• Most operators will typically run 7-in. casing in a variety of weights prior to drilling into the reservoir. Most of the
time this will involve 26 lb/ft, but in some ultradeep reservoirs 29 lb/ft could be used. To install an openhole liner
below 7-in., 29-lb/ft casing with an ID of 6.184 in. mandated the use of a 5 1/2-in. OD liner.
• Expansion of this size liner to an OD of 6.80 in., which would be needed to accommodate a clad version, would
require a significant pressure assist within the running tool.
• Developing a suitable expandable connection that can consistently and reliably expand the pipe a total of 27% and
maintain minimum required technical specifications.
• An openhole anchor would have to be developed to create a reliable system anchor while the pipe was being
expanded.
• The hookload requirements of the setting procedure could well be outside some rig capabilities.
• An underreamer is needed to create the required hole ID to recess the expanded liner—it must create a minimum ID
of 7 in. but only have a body OD of 5-3/4 in.
• The system must be capable of installation in a maximum of two trips in the hole, including drillout if required.
• The maximum overpull requirement to expand the liner must be limited to 200,000 lb.
• The post-expanded properties of the liner when fully expanded must be at least 1,500 psi in collapse and 4,000 psi
in burst.
Full technical specifications of the monobore expandable liner are shown in Table 1.
Technical and Operational Details. The system design that resulted took into consideration all of the above requirements:
• The method of expansion of the liner uses a hydraulic jack system and operates from the bottom up. It requires two
trips to achieve full expansion, but no subsequent drillout is needed.
• The expandable/collapsible cone system allows overexpansion of the casing to create a 6 1/8-in., post-expanded drift
diameter while facilitating the closing of the cone for tool retrieval.
• All the hydraulic pressure required to expand the casing is contained within the hydraulically activated jack, thus
minimizing stress on the casing and lowering the operational risk of the system.
• The clad-through-clad liner is applied only to the drilling-hazard area rather than to the full openhole section of the
wellbore. As a result, these installations are typically in the range of 100 to 300 ft in length, thus less liner is required,
minimizing the operational risk and consequent cost of the installation.
• The suitability of the connections used was tested in accordance with a testing regime that has been set up within the
recommendations of ISO 13679 and API 5C3 (Ring et al. 2007). While this connector testing is expensive, it is an
imperative process to authenticate the effectiveness of solid expandable products of which they are a part. Also, it is
important to assure the end user that the expandable-connector provider has taken the necessary steps and precautions
to deliver a dependable product. Substantiating the validity of the complete solid expandable system with this type of
testing helps reduce the operational risks associated with solid expandable products, and provides the industry with a
qualified and dependable system.
The operation of the system is illustrated in Fig 3. and Fig. 4. In Fig. 3, the running tool used for the initial pass of the
installation consists of a hydraulic jack and two cones. The first cone to expand the system is a 5 1/2-in. OD cone followed
by a 5 7/8-in. OD cone in tandem. These cones have fixed ODs. The running tool initiates the expansion: the first 5 1/2-in.
OD cone expands the bottom section of the liner and sets the openhole anchor. When the anchor is set, both the 5 1/2-in. OD
and the 5 7/8-in. OD cones move in tandem to expand the liner mechanically by direct overpull using the rig against the
bottom openhole anchor. The first expansion results in a 20% expansion of the liner with a post-expansion ID of 5.875 in.
The liner is thus fully expanded (bottom to top) and the first running tool is then tripped out of the hole.
In Fig. 4, the second expansion tool uses a collapsible cone that is run in the hole in its closed transport position with an
OD measuring 5.67 in. Once the cone is run below the liner, it is assembled by dropping/pumping a ball to the ball seat.
Pressure is applied to the work string causing the segmented cone to form, creating the required 6 1/4-in. OD and expanding
the liner by another 8%, resulting in a post-expanded drift of 6 1/8-in. ID (York et al. 2010).
Once the liner is expanded and the tool is in the openhole above the expanded clad liner, deconstruction pressure is
applied to uniform or collapse the segmented cone to an OD of 5.67 in. This facilitates its being pulled out of the hole
through the previous 7-in. casing string.
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Case Histories. Following are case histories of the installation of monobore expandable liners in Oman, Norway, the Black
Sea, Saudi Arabia, and Western Australia which demonstrate the advantages that the system offers for improving
operational efficiencies:
• In the south of the Maradi Huraymah field, the well was designed to be a vertical exploration well to evaluate the
Paleozoic-aged Haima group. While drilling the 12 1/4-in. openhole section below the 13 3/8-in. casing shoe, a large
fault was expected in the Fiqa section. Minor faulting/fracturing was also expected within the Natih interval. Based
on offset data, there was a requirement to isolate the Nahr Umr shale with the 13 3/8-in. casing, but not drill too far
into the Shauiba to risk crossing the fault in this section. The fault is one of the Graben bounding faults and appears
to be 300 ft to 500 ft thick, accommodated by one or multiple faults from offset data. It was not possible to position
this well to avoid this fault, as moving the well out of the Graben would position it significantly down structure at the
Amin level. The lower Khuff would be drilled with 9.6-lbm/gal oil-based mud (OBM), and then it would be weighted
up to 10.6 lbm/gal before drilling into the Gharif. The maximum surface temperature while drilling the 12 1/4-in.
section was 160°F with the bottomhole static temp at 7,500 ft being 270°F. A solution was identified to efficiently
manage the loss zone by splitting the zones into two to ensure an efficient mud weight model was used across the
formations in question. A total of 85 m of 14 1/2-in. monobore tieback shoe was installed on the 13-3/8 in., 72 lb/ft
(ID 12.250 in.) to allow an 11 3/4-in. VM50 tubular to be expanded in a bottom-up process. The monobore
expandable solution allowed the 13 3/8-in. casing to be extended to the base of the Shu’aiba formation from the Natih
A, while providing a 12.250-in. drift to eliminate the requirement to underream the section below and not telescope
the well profile.
• In the Norwegian Heimdal reservoir wells are designed as multilaterals. As the laterals are drilled into the reservoir,
unpredictable irregular reservoir boundaries caused by faulting and sand remobilization create a torturous well path
that sometimes makes the avoidance of shale stringers impossible. Once these shale stringers are encountered, they
will become unstable within a couple of days, causing the need for expensive sidetrack operations. This created the
need to selectively isolate each of the Lista shales as they were encountered and drove the deployment of a monobore
clad-through-clad system, which allows for selective isolation of drilling challenges as they are encountered. The
object was to run 8.5-in. openhole clad to a depth of 2,699 m, expand the clad as per procedure, and deactivate the
cone and drain pipe, and retrieve the expansion tools through the previous casing. The hole was underreamed to
facilitate a monodiameter post-expansion. During installation, several tight spots were encountered around the
multilateral windows, but the string was worked through. The string took weight again at 2,075 m (6 m into shale)
worked for 12 hours. From the time the shale was drilled to TD until the clad was run it took 48 hr. Much of the lost
time was due to problems passing obstructions in the 9 5/8-in. casing. It should also be noted that the hole was only
opened to 9-1/2 in. instead of 9-7/8 in. as planned, which resulted, among other factors, in a higher than expected
expansion pressure. Forming the cone and expanding the cone cover went as planned, and good pressure signatures
were seen on the data-acquisition system. The expansion was cut short due to leakage in the work string. Normally, it
would be possible to continue the expansion with straight overpull, but with the possibility of a washout in the string
and the calculated pull needed for the expansion being too close to the maximum overpull capacity of the work
string, the decision was made to deconstruct the cone and pull out of hole. Further pressure testing confirmed the
leakage in the 3 1/2-in. inner string was the reason for the loss of pressure integrity not allowing expansion of the
entire length of casing. However, the success of running in the hole and activation of expansion assembly and
continued expansion of 66 m by resetting and stroking the expansion jack 55 cycles, and the deconstruction of the
expansion cone went according to plan.
• In the Black Sea while drilling of the upper-hole sections of the original deepwater well, damages were sustained to
the high-pressure wellhead housing. The well was temporarily abandoned, and it was decided to deploy an 11 3/4-in.
expandable monodiameter openhole liner system, which consists of the 14 1/2-in. tieback shoe that acts as a
receptacle to house the expanded 11 3/4-in. casing. A special wellhead adapter was successfully installed and the
blowout preventer (BOP)/riser package was installed and tested with special precautions being taken to allow
re-entry into the original well and drilling resumed. The well was sidetracked and drilled to the casing point below
the 16-in. casing. The 13 5/8-in. casing equipped with a 14 1/2-in. tieback shoe, with six pretorqued14 1/2-in. integral
bow-spring centralizer subs, was successfully installed, landed, and tested. Drilling of the next hole section was
completed, and instead of running the planned 11 3/4-in. expandable monodiameter liner, a conventional 11 3/4-in.
polished bore receptacle (PBR)/packer/hanger was run. The key factor that contributed to the decision not to run the
11 3/4-in. monodiameter liner was the inability to maintain constant weight on bit (WOB) or hookload using the
active-heave drilling system. The variance in the compensation of the drawworks and fluctuation in these parameters
increased the risk of the execution of both the expansion of the 11 3/4-in. monodiameter liner and subsequent
operations performed after pipe expansion. However the 14 1/2-in. tieback shoe extension was successfully installed,
cemented, and drilled out in anticipation of running the 11 3/4-in. monodiameter liner. After drilling the pilot hole
section below the 16-in. casing with a 14 3/4-in. bit and 17 1/2-in. underreamer, surge modeling predicted the correct
running speeds using the autofill float collar and a surge reduction bypass tool, enabling the 76 m of 14 1/2-in. ×
13 5/8-in. casing string to be successfully run to bottom and landed in the wellhead housing without incident. The use
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of integral centralizer subs resulted in a formation integrity test greater than anticipated, which enlarged the drilling
window in the next hole section by approximately 0.5 lbm/gal equivalent mud weight.
• In the Browse basin offshore Western Australia the risk of setting 14-in., 100-lb/ft, Q125 casing shallower than the
objective depth of 4,000 m would significantly impact further drilling operations. In order to reduce this risk, 80 m of
14 1/2-in. tieback casing was run below the 14-in. primary casing. Having the ability to expand 11 3/4-in. casing as a
contingency casing string into a 14.50-in. tieback shoe allowed the 14.000-in casing to be extended to isolate a
problematic zone while maintaining the 12.25-in. drift and preventing the loss of hole size. Tieback casing strings are
commonly run in the event that an additional casing string is needed to mitigate unstable formations. The same sort
of risk mitigation of having a planned contingency enabling the extension below 13 5/8-in. casing has also been used
in the Caspian Sea, whereby setting the intermediate string above planned depth compromises the future economics
of the well.
• An operator in Saudi Arabia had a need to mitigate drilling trouble zones within smaller wellbores. They had
identified a 6 1/8-in. solid expandable monobore openhole casing clad as a solution to this drilling challenge without
the loss of any hole size. This expandable casing clad became an enabling technology when drilling through oil
reservoir sections that often harbor naturally fractured/loss zones. Due to the short length of these trouble zones and
the need to isolate them with casing without losing any hole size, the 6 1/8-in. openhole clad was seen as an effective
solution. The clad was expanded ~27% in diameter to isolate multiple loss zones in the reservoir in either new or
re-entry workover wells without hole-size reduction. The nontied back openhole clad provided fullbore access
post-expansion, offered effective zonal isolation, and allowed multiple runs if required in the same hole section of the
well. (See Fig. 5.)
Conclusion
Since the idea of expandable casing was first conceived, it has seen a steady growth in its use to mitigate all manner of
drilling hazards and gone through several iterations in its applications to address the problems associated with the need to
maintain maximum hole size and well completion as planned. This type of liner is available in all the three common sizes
initially chosen and has been successfully deployed in many operational locations from the Gulf of Mexico to Australia and
Norway to the Middle East. What does the future hold? No doubt there will be additional iterations of the expansion principle
to address the problems of the future as operational horizons continue to expand.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Weatherford for permission to publish this paper and encouragement to do so.
References
1. Ring, Lev, Deltombe, Philippe, York, Patrick et al. and 2007. New Level of Expandable Connector Qualification Helps
Minimize Operational Risk in Solid Expandable Liners. Paper SPE 110920 presented at the 2007 SPE Annual Technical
Conference and Exhibition held in Anaheim, California, USA, 11–14 November 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/110920-MS.
2. York, Patrick, Gandikota, Raju, Ring, Lev and 2010. Mitigating Multiple Trouble Zones with Solid Expandable Monobore
Openhole Clad, Enabling Extended Reach Drilling and Better Production. Paper IBP3441_10 presented at the Rio Oil and Gas
Expo and Conference 2010 in Rio de Janeiro, 13−16 September 2010.
6 SPE 164171
Appendix
Fig. 2—Clad-through-clad application for running multiple liners in the same hole ID, if required.
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Fig. 3—Operation of system, including running tool, which consisted of a hydraulic jack and two cones.
Fig. 4—Operation of system, including the second expansion tool, which consisted of a collapsible cone.
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Fig. 5—Solid expandable monobore openhole casing clad used as a solution to drilling challenge in Saudi Arabia.
Openhole
Hole Section = 6.125
Underreamed ID = 7.000
Expandable Casing Pre-Expansion Expandable Casing Post-Expansion
Pipe OD (in.) 5.750 Pipe OD (in.) 6.800
Weight (lb/ft) 18.0 Weight (lb/ft) 19.0
ID (in.) 5.142 ID (in.) 6.246
Drift (in.) 5.017 Drift (in.) 6.125
Wall (in.) 0.304 Wall (in.) 0.280
Yield (psi) 50,000 Yield (psi) 60,000
*Internal Yield (psi) 4,626 *Internal Yield (psi) 4,941
*Collapse (psi) 4,000 *Collapse (psi) 1,500
*Tensile Strength (lb) 180,000 *Tensile Strength (lb) 170,000
Compressive Strength (lb) 100,000 Compressive Strength (lb) 100,000
Minimum installation length 100 ft
Maximum installation length 2,000 ft
*based on minimum of pipe or connection