Directional Drilling

Practices & Application

Day-1
- By Nitin Kulkarni
1
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 Agenda – Day 1

• Introduction to Directional Drilling

• Basic Directional Drilling Terminology
• Types of Directional Wells
• Deflection Methodology and tools

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Defining Directional Drilling

• Directional Drilling is the science of deviating a

wellbore along a planned course from a start
point to a target location as defined by a
coordinate system.
• Directional Drilling aids in the production of
subsurface deposits that could never be
reached by any other means.

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Basic Directional Well Terminology

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 Basic Directional Well Terminology

• Kickoff point (KOP)

• Build up section
• End of Build section
• Tangent section
• Start of drop
• Drop section
• End of drop
• Hold
• Target depth

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 Basic Directional Well Terminology
• True vertical depth (TVD)
• Measured depth (MD)
• Turn rate (TR)
• Build up rate (BUR)
• Inclination (INC)
• Azimuth (AZI)

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Basic Directional Well Terminology
Features of a Directional Drill Profile Azimuth Quadrant

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 Why drill Directional Wells?

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Side tracking
• Sidetracks are performed in situations where drilling
cannot continue due to a fish in hole.

• or to explore a different area.

• or to make multiple producing wells from the main

wellbore.

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Inaccessible locations
Urban areas, rivers, railways or difficult terrain may
all be reasons to drill a deviated wellbore into a
target reservoir

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Salt Domes
• Salt Domes contain hydrocarbon traps that have
accumulated beneath the cap rock.
• Salt formations are difficult to drill, so a directional wells
are drilled to avoid the salt dome.

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Fault Control
• Enables drilling into a faulted subsurface
without crossing the faults.
• Faults can cause huge problems.

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Onshore to Sea
• This is a cost-saving technique to reach reservoirs
under the sea,
• This is possible only a few thousand feet from land.

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Multi-lateral Wells
Enables numerous legs to be drilled into
productive zones through one mother bore.

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Multi-slot wells
• Enables many wells to be drilled from one platform. This type of
application is commonly seen offshore.

• The economy of scale necessitates platform wells to extend out as far

as possible to maximize the reservoir contact area

• Ant-collision is the main challenge. Several application are available to

determine and avoid collision.

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 Relief Well

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 SAGD Wells

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 Types of Directional Wells?

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Directional Well Profiles

• Build and hold

• Build, hold, & drop (S-Shape)
• Continuous build
• Horizontal wells

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 Requirements for Directional
Well Drilling

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 Deflection Tools in
Directional Drilling

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Deflection Tools in Directional
Drilling
Deflection tools are devices that are used to cause
a drill bit to deviate and follow preselected
trajectory of a well.
The tools that are currently available and are in use
include:
• Whipstocks
• Jet bits with Oriented Nozzles
• Downhole Steerable Systems
Turbines
• Conventional BHA Hookups
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 Whipstocks

• Can be used in open hole as well as

cased hole
• Mainly used for cased hole side track.

• Retrievable whipstocks are ideal for

drilling multiple laterals from a single
wellbore.

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Jet Bits

• Applicable in soft formations.

• The jet is oriented in the
direction desired, and mud flow
is initiated to erode
approximately few feet pilot hole
• Conventional rotary drilling is
initiated to open the hole.
• The advantage is that tripping is
not needed.

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 Downhole Steerable Systems
There are two types of downhole motors
• Positive displacement motors (PDMs)

• Turbine mud motors

There are advanced systems

• Rotary steearable systems (RSS)
• RSS cause a deviating force against the side of
the wellbore to push the drill bit inward along
the preselected well path.

• Their main advantage is that the drilling is

always in rotary mode
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 Positive displacement motors (PDMs)

Mud Motors
Complete PDM

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Requirements for Directional Well
Drilling
• Use of downhole steerable systems and measuring while drilling (MWD)
tools
• Deflection tools
• Use of higher hydraulics for effective annular hole cleaning Use of articulated
drill pipe in short-radius drilling
• Engineering calculations for directional plans for the preselected wellbore
trajectory
• Unique makeup of bottom hole assemblies (BHAs) for maintaining on course
trajectory and effective transfer of weight to the drill bit
• Special steering tools to direct drill bit along preselected paths
• Use of rubber protectors on drill string to protect pipe/casing wear in highly
deviated wells
• Use of special lubricating additives in drilling muds to reduce torque and drag
requirements
• More centralization of casing string
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 DRILLING ENGINEERING – DIRECTIONAL
WELL PLANNING
Directional Well Profiles

Design of directional plans involves the use

the equations of that require the
mathematical following
information:
TVD and horizontal departure (HD) to
target KOP
Turn-off depth (TOD)
Build rate angle (BRA)
Drop rate angle
(DRA) Lead angle
(LA)

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 DRILLING ENGINEERING – DIRECTIONAL
WELL PLANNING
Directional Well Profiles

Target Location
Specified in terms of its TVD, its departure in the
horizontal plane, and the desired radius target.

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 DRILLING ENGINEERING – DIRECTIONAL
WELL PLANNING
Directional Well Profiles

KOD

A point below the surface at which the incremental

building of the hole angle of inclination begins.
The hole-angle building is generally specified in
degrees per of drilled section

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Directional Well Terms

• A point below the surface at which the

direction of the hole is changed.
• Hole direction - an azimuth angle that is
measured clockwise from north.
• The difference between magnetic and
true north - the magnetic declination

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 Directional Well Profiles
BUR

The BUR is an incremental increase of the hole

inclination angle, as measured from the vertical. This
rate is specified in degrees per 100 feet of hole section.
The range of BUR can be subdivided into three
categories:

• Long-radius drilling

• Medium-radius drilling

• Short-radius drilling
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 Bottom Hole Assembly (BHA)

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 Bottom Hole Assembly (BHA)

• Drill Bit
• Subs (Crossover Subs, Bit Sub, etc)
• Drill Collar (DC)
• Heavy Weight Drill Pipe (HWDP)
• Stabilizers
• MWD
• LWD
• PDM
• Drilling Jars
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 Thank You

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