DOE Digest

Stripper Well Consortium Selects 10 Projects

Following a May proposal review meeting in Golden, Colorado, the Stripper Well Consortium's (SWC) Executive Council selected 10 projects to receive 2004 funding. SWC will provide $1.726 million funding while project performers will supply $0.986 million or 43% cost share. Selected projects represent a variety of technologies for either natural gas or oil wells. Although project demonstration work may occur in a selected geographic area, most technologies are broadly applicable.

  • Building and Testing a New Type of Compressor for Stripper Well Production Application - W & W Vacuum Compressions, Inc.

  • Hydraulic Fracture Imaging - Universal Well Services

  • Advanced Technology for Infill and Recompletion Candidate Well Selection - Texas A&M University

  • Plunger Lift Process Optimization Using a Surface System for Plunger Generated Acoustic Noise Detection and Digital Signal Processing for Wellbore Plunger Location Monitoring - Tubel Technologies, Inc.

  • Resolving Discrepancies in Predicting Critical Rate in Low-Pressure Gas Stripper Wells - Texas Tech University

  • A New Look at Foam for Unloading Gas Wells - Colorado School of Mines

  • Design, Construction and Evaluation of An Accurate, Low-Cost Portable Production Tester - Oak Resources Inc.

  • PVT Study of the Interaction of Nitrogen and Crude Oil, Stage II - The Pennsylvania State University

  • Low Friction Production Tubing for Stripper Gas Wells - Dynacoil

  • Field testing of the Vortex DXR Retrievable Insert Tool in Conjunction with other Lifting Methods - Vortex Flow LLC

Full information on the selected projects is available on SWC's website (www.energy.psu.edu/
swc/).

Benchmarking Deep Drilling Costs, Practices

Within its Deep Trek program, DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory supported a study by Schlumberger Data Systems to benchmark deep drilling costs and technologies. For these studies, DOE defined "deep" as greater than 15,000 feet True Vertical Depth (TVD). Accessing an IHS database, 3,015 deep well locations were identified. Locations were subdivided into 14 different groupings considering major geologic or geographic regions and, for the Gulf Coast, geologic age of the deepest formation penetrated. Selecting only operators that had significant experience in deep drilling in a specific geographic areas, the study was confined to 140 operators, representing 78% of the IHS deep well population. Fifty operators were contacted, with 12 ultimately responding and contributing 22 usable data sets.

Since AFE systems varied, a data management system was established that would categorize costs in a consistent manner across companies. Each AFE line item was analyzed to determine its category. Costs could then be grouped into the larger components, such as drilling, and in subcomponents, such as tangible completion-packer. The system also allowed individual AFE cost components to be associated with technology areas. Once AFE costs were standardized, relevant deep well scenarios could be developed.

Ultimately, benchmarks or averages were established for 11 cost categories across seven drilling scenarios. The full article presents cost data in both dollars and percentages for the seven drilling scenarios. Cost categories comprising high percentages reveal where research or advanced technologies could potentially have the largest impact. Percentages varied by drilling scenarios. Knowing how those percentages vary in different scenarios/locations will help operators beginning deep drilling in a new region to have an idea what to expect and where to focus their attention. Readers are encouraged to view the charts (Figure 5) in the full article.

Excerpted from "Benchmarking Deep Drilling and Completion Technologies," GasTIPS, Spring 2004. Available online at www.
gastechnology.org/webroot/
app/xn/xd.aspx?it=enweb&xd=
4reportspubs\4_7gastips\spring
2004\spring2004tofc.xml.

Drilling Waste Management Information System (Website) Launched

Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) launched the recently developed Drilling Waste Management Information System (DWMIS) website (http://web.ead.
anl.gov/dwm). DWMIS includes a technology description module to familiarize readers with available management options, a regulatory module to summarize existing state and federal regulations concerning drilling waste management and to provide links to agency websites, and an interactive technology identification module to help users identify waste management options available for their region.

The Technology Description Module provides basic information about practices that are currently employed to manage drilling wastes. The module divides management practices into three sections - waste minimization, recycle/reuse, and disposal. Users can click on any of the listed technologies to access separate fact sheets describing each technology and including references for additional information.

In the interactive Technology Identification Module, users are asked to answer a series of questions (mostly "yes" or "no" answers). The replies to these questions lead users through a decision tree, resulting in a suggested subset of waste management options that would make the most sense for a given geographical or environmental setting. The Technology Identification Module does not attempt to tell a company exactly which technology should be employed; rather, it helps to eliminate options that are not appropriate to the user's specific location.

Funding for DWMIS was provided by DOE's Office of Fossil Energy and the National Energy Technology Laboratory through the Natural Gas and Oil Technology Partnership program. Argonne developed the technical and regulatory material and designed and built the website, working closely with industry partners ChevronTexaco and Marathon for selecting and reviewing website content. During final development, DWMIS was also reviewed by an external panel with representatives from state and federal government, major producers, independent producers and service companies.
 

10
Network News