Publications

Deep-water exploration wells, like all exploration wells, have the twin objectives of data acquisition and drilling the well in a safe manner to its target depth. But deep-water oil/gas wildcat wells present additional challenges. These wells often have a narrow margin between pore pressure and fracture pressure, which increases the risk of drilling incidents including riser gas, gas kick and lost-circulation. One mitigation is to provide contingency casing strings information, but a side-effect is increased uncertainty and complexity in well planning and operational execution. Another mitigation is Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD). Although MPD usage has been growing for more than 10 years, deep-water application is still evolving according to the actual requirements dictated by the well concerned. This paper will focus on how MPD assisted an Operator to drill a deep-water exploration well in Indonesia, which encountered major problems in several hole-sections, whilst enabling well data acquisition. A method of applying automated systems to control equivalent circulating density (ECD) allowed drilling of this well, which was previously considered impossible.