Gas Technology Institute Catoosa Test Facility

GTI Catoosa Site Geologic Column

Catoosa Rig  Location

Texas Tech Center for Advanced Production Research Operations (CAPRO)

Baker Hughes Experimental Test Area (BETA)

BETA Test Site

Summary of Facilities

Centers Provide Valuable Service

Oilfield Testing Centers: Nurseries For New Ideas
by Karl Lang
Excerpts in PTTC Network News, 4th Quarter 2003

An endangered species that once prowled major companies, known as "the R&D group" (departmentsis researchii developmenta), has for all intents and purposes become extinct. Wall Street pressure for short-term profit performance proved just as deadly as a Permian meteor. A few service companies have evolved organizational units to partially fill the ecological niche, but the overall level of industry expenditure on upstream R&D has dropped to less than one percent of total annual E&P expenditures, roughly half of what it was ten years ago. Much of the research infrastructure has slowly disappeared as well, including wells and drilling sites that both E&P and service companies maintained as part of their R&D centers. Such sites provided a very well understood yet relatively risk-free subsurface environment where new tools and techniques could be tested and evaluated under proprietary conditions, without the need to shut in or interrupt field operations.

But a few sites have managed to escape extinction and are actively in use as test centers. At least one new facility is under construction. Highlighted below are some better-known examples. If the E&P industry is to continue its record of continued technology advances, facilities like these will be needed as "nurseries" for new ideas. Also, as smaller companies take on a larger role in developing and commercializing new E&P technologies, facilities such as these become even more important.

Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center

The Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center (RMOTC) includes a management and administrative office located in downtown Casper, Wyoming, and an extensive field test site at the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 3 (the Teapot Dome field) located 35 miles north in the southern end of the Powder River Basin. RMOTC was created in 1994 as a way to convert a portion of the Naval Petroleum Reserve into a field laboratory for the advancement of technologies that support domestic oil and gas production. The NPR-3 field test site is a 10,000-acre operating oil field offering a full complement of associated facilities and equipment on-site. There are approximately 900 well bores and 500 producing wells in nine producing reservoirs ranging in depth from 250 ft. to 6,000 ft. Average production in fiscal year 2002 was 500 bopd and 40,000 bwpd. Production is primarily light, sweet (low sulfur) crude. Some production from the Tensleep formation is sour.

Conditions at Teapot Dome field are representative of sedimentary basins throughout the Rocky Mountain west. The geologic column at NPR-3 extends from Upper Cretaceous marine sandstones and shales down to metamorphic and intrusive Pre-Cambrian basement. RMOTC is available for both technical and environmental testing of new technologies associated with regional energy developments. Accordingly, RMOTC has established a Western Energy Development Office. From the wide range of possible energy development opportunities and their associated issues, this office selects those few to which RMOTC resources can be most effectively applied. For the issues selected, stakeholders are identified and alliances formed to find solutions that are technically and environmentally sound, and to communicate those solutions back to decision makers.

The on-site facilities and equipment significantly reduce the cost of field testing at RMOTC. Should a field test require equipment not already on site, because the oil and gas industry is active in the region, it is commonly available in the local area. In-place facilities and equipment include: test batteries and test satellites, treaters, tanks, transfer pumps and a 10 MMcfd gas plant.

RMOTC also operates a completely equipped, winterized truck-mounted rotary table rig rated for drilling safely to a depth of 6,500 ft with 4-1/2 inch drill pipe. The rig has a 112 ft high mast rated to 300,000 lbs with eight lines. The rig can be utilized for testing on the current test well or can be moved to other wells and/or locations in the field.

RMOTC field equipment includes workover and well servicing rigs, available for field test projects: two Kremco K-600 double drum units with 103'/217,000 lb. hydraulic raised derricks capable of standing double tubing and hanging triple rods, and one Wagner Morehouse T-34 double drum rig with a 63'/150,000 lb. hydraulic raised single piece derrick capable of standing single tubing and hanging single rods. The center also maintains a variety of earth moving equipment and trucks.

During 2002, a total of 18 newly funded testing projects were undertaken at RMOTC related to drilling, production and environmental site remediation technologies. While four of these involved large industry partners (e.g., Schlumberger, Weatherford, Baker-Atlas) the large majority involved small companies. Many EOR methods have also been used and field tested at NPR-3. The equipment and facilities necessary to support steamflood, enhanced waterflood, microbial and other EOR methods are available for field tests. Currently, RMOTC is partnering with Anadarko Petroleum Company and a number of universities and national laboratories to conduct carbon sequestration studies in association with Anadarko's CO2 flood at its adjacent Salt Creek field. RMOTC has also been tabbed as a preferred location for new microhole and directional drilling test facilities.

For more information, contact Doug Tunison, RMOTC Manager, phone 307-261-5000 ext 5006, E-mail doug.tunison@rmotc.doe.gov. For online information visit www.rmotc.com.

Gas Technology Institute Catoosa Test Facility

Built in the mid-1980s by Amoco as a proprietary testing ground for downhole tools and equipment, Catoosa was divested by BP after its purchase of Amoco in the late 1990s. Now officially named the Gas Technology Institute Geophysical and Drilling Technology Testing and Evaluation Facility (or more commonly as GTI Catoosa), the 80-acre site is commercially available for customer-directed R&D related to drilling, formation evaluation, geophysical, completion and any other oilfield or environmental research. The GTI leasehold allows new wells to be drilled or any of 26 existing wellbores to be utilized for testing. Permanently dedicated "reference" wells are available for use in calibrating or comparing the responses of downhole instruments. On-site equipment (drilling rigs, wireline unit, drilling fluids laboratory) and surface infrastructure (data acquisition facility, office, warehouse, welding shop) are all available to support field-based research efforts.

The site boasts a variety of geological formations at relatively shallow depths (down to 3100 ft); a feature that enables a broad range of testing options. The first 1250 ft is a mixture of Pennsylvanian reservoir-quality sandstones with shale and limestone sequences. These include the Oswego Limestone, the Skinner, Red Fork, and Bartlesville Sandstones, and the Upper and Lower Brown Limestone. From 1250 ft to 1600 ft is found a very dense and high-compressive strength formation (Mississippi Lime). A thick Cambro-Ordovician limestone (Arbuckle Group) extends across the interval from 1600 ft to a granite basement at 3000 ft.

GTI Catoosa Site Geologic Column

The rock types represented in this section, having compressive strengths ranging from 1,000 to 60,000 psi, provide an ideal environment for testing bits and downhole tools. In addition, the fluid content of the porous rocks includes connate water and (in certain sections) hydrocarbons, providing for a degree of variability in fluid character. The shale and sandstone sections in the upper 1250 ft of the subsurface are good for testing equipment across a transition from soft to hard rock and back. A wealth of electric, acoustic and radioactive log data, as well as a continuous core from the surface to 2500 ft, are also available. The 26 wells at Catoosa include straight, directional and horizontal holes with casing sizes of 22-, 23 3/8 -, 9 5/8 -, 7- and 5-inches. Openhole wellbores of 12 1/4, 8 1/2 and 6-inches are also available. There are two horizontal wellbores (TVD/MD:1187'/2118' & 1200'/1700').

Rig equipment includes a top-drive drilling rig with a 107 ft double mast derrick and a drawworks rated at 220,000 lbs. A trailer mounted Chicago-Pneumatic workover rig, rated to 20,000 lb and capable of horizontal drilling is also available. The drilling rig also incorporates the Sperry-Sun Services Integrated System for Information Technology and Engineering (INSITE™), which allows for real-time data acquisition and viewing.

Catoosa Rig on Location

Practically any sort of onshore drilling and formation evaluation equipment can be tested at Catoosa, including rotary steerable systems, MWD and LWD, and both open and cased hole wireline logging. The Catoosa site offers a unique setting for testing deep-reading formation evaluation and high-frequency seismic tools, and for the calibration and verification of new logging tools. The closely located wells, controlled conditions, the existence of cores, and the well-described geology of the site are unique and easily accessible.

The site is also an ideal test bed for new geophysical methods and techniques, from numerical models to field validation. Potential tests could include: vertical cable seismic tests, new seismic techniques, data sales, converted-wave seismic tests, and horizontal-well seismic tomography. The site can also be used for assessing the environmental performance and acceptability of new drilling mud systems or environmental monitoring devices (such as ground penetrating radar, laser-based subsidence systems, or leak detection equipment).

For more information about the GTI Catoosa Test Facility, visit the Gas Technology Institute website (www.gastechnology.org), or contact Ron Bray, phone 877-477-1910, E-mail rbray@gticatoosa.com.

 

Texas Tech Center for Advanced Production Research Operations (CAPRO)

The Texas Tech University Test Well (Red Raider No. 1) is 4006 feet deep and completed with 9-5/8 inch, 43.5 lb/ft., N-80 casing. The geology is typical of the northern Permian Basin. The purpose of the well, drilled by the university in December 2001, is to provide a location for training undergraduate students in oil field operations. In addition, this well can be used as a full-scale research facility for the installation, testing, and development of oil and gas production equipment by industry. The test well is operated under the Center of Advanced Production Research Operations (CAPRO) at the university. The well and its related surface equipment provide the West Texas oil and gas industry with an ideal location for the evaluation of new artificial lift technologies in particular.

The Test Well Facility is located on 8.7 acres of university property in Lubbock, Texas. During 2004, the Department of Petroleum Engineering will continue its expansion of the production equipment associated with the test well. New equipment scheduled for installation will include crude oil and water storage tanks, a gas sales pipeline connection, pump stations, metering and measurement packages, separation units, and treating units. When completed, the Texas Tech Test Well Facility will be capable of testing all forms of artificial lift at anticipated rates as high as 10,000 barrels per day of liquid and three million cubic feet per day of gas. Future plans include the installation of a series of horizontal flow loops for the study of multiphase flow.

The well was drilled using donations from industry. Approximately $625,000 of equipment and services was received from more than 20 contributing companies. CAPRO is continuing the procurement stage for the production facilities. Donations include a two-phase separator and heater treater, a Lufkin C456D-305-144 pumping unit with pump-off controller, a gas compressor, an electrical submersible pump pumping unit, a sucker rod wellhead assembly and sucker rods, and a complete plunger lift system.

CAPRO is pursuing a connection to an existing natural gas pipeline to provide fuel for the surface facilities, to enable the commingling of gas, oil and water for production testing and multiphase equipment testing, and to operate gas lift and plunger lift equipment.

For additional information on the status and availability of the test facility, contact James "Chris" Cox, Assistant Professor Texas Tech University at (806) 742-3573 or vial e-mail (chris.cox@coe.ttu.edu). For online information visit http://129.118.21.70/.

Baker Hughes Experimental Test Area (BETA)

In 1997 Baker Hughes began construction of a field research facility 24 miles south of Tulsa at Beggs, OK. Since coring the first observation well in 1997, Baker Hughes has drilled roughly 100,000 feet in 40+ wells. Primarily employed as a field laboratory for testing of new Baker Hughes-developed drilling and completion equipment, it is not generally open for outside testing. The BETA site has been part of the development of a number of new Baker Hughes products including: the CoreDrill wireline coring system, the CoPilot vibration measurement tool, Autotrak rotary steerable system, e2Tech expandable tubulars, and PDC bit cutters.

The geology is very similar to that of the Catoosa site, which is only about 50 miles away. A Pennsylvanian section extends from the surface to 2,250 ft, followed by a Mississippian section from 2250 to 2660, and an Ordovician section from 2660 to a granite base at about 3000 ft. The formations include sandstone, limestone, shale, coal, dolomite and granite. Shale is the predominant rock type above 2400 feet (more than 70 percent of the section, with sandstone and siltstone making up the rest). Below that depth, limestone, sandstone, shale and dolomite are encountered in approximately equal proportions. Numerous thin coal beds are encountered and many of the formations still contain residual amounts of oil and gas. A large variation in rock strength makes the BETA site ideal for testing downhole tools and systems. Because the entire section between the surface and basement has been cored and extensively logged, detailed petrophysical descriptions are available for any formation of interest.

Drilling at BETA is accomplished with a carrier-based Ideco H35 truck-mounted rig with a freestanding mast capable of 350,000 lbs hookload. At 110 feet, the mast can handle doubles and hold 60 stands of pipe. The substructure is mounted on a skid system and can be quickly moved from one hole to the next. Rotation is with a Tesco 150 ton topdrive operated by a 550 hp Caterpillar 3406E engine. The mud pump horsepower (1300 hp) rating is higher than normal for the area, driven by the need to test LWD, MWD and mud motor tools.

BETA Test Site

The BETA data collection system is designed to allow high-speed data collection and real-time frequency domain analysis. Sensors are used to measure torque, rpm, pump pressure, flowrate, vibration and hook-load. Pump flow rate is measured with both stroke count and magnetic flow-meter systems. A surface Dynamics Measurement System (SDMS) sub placed directly beneath the top drive is capable of sampling four dynamic channels (axial force, axial acceleration, torque and torsional acceleration) and four static channels (hook load, torque, rotary speed and standpipe pressure).

The BETA site also boasts state-of-the-art data collection software, still photography and video capabilities, and a local file server supporting the BETA website. Baker Hughes does not open the BETA test facility to commercial use by the E&P industry and has no plans to do so in the future. However, several collaborative joint ventures have utilized the facility recently, for example: Shell Expro (E2 Tech and Expandable Reamer) and Chevron Texaco (Drill Out Steerable Ream While Drilling (DOSRWD) Technology. Baker Hughes has also run non-competitive service company tools at the site to test for compatibility with BHI products and services.

Hughes Christensen contacts include, Allen Sinor (phone 281-363-6460, e-mail allen.sinor@hugheschris.com) or Jim Powers (phone 918-267-3911, e-mail jim.powers@hugheschris.com).

For a more "readable" version of this table, click on the table.

Centers Provide Valuable Service

While not the only field testing centers in existence, the four centers highlighted above are perhaps several of the better known examples operating in the US. Two other test facilities that incorporate actual wellbores, one operated by Schlumberger and the other by Louisiana State University, are described in the online version of this article at (www.pttc.org). Not all are available to the public for testing and development, a function that is critical for smaller companies developing exploration and production technologies for the more mature producing areas in the US market. PTTC would like to catalog field test facilities available to the public, so please contact Lance Cole (lcole@pttc.org) if you are aware of facilities not mentioned in this article.

For further information, contact Lance Cole at lcole@pttc.org.