SPE 95162

New Horizons in Wide-Bore Drilling and Completion Technology

D. Sinha, Maharashtra Inst. of Technology
Copyright 2005, Society of Petroleum Engineers

Theory:

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2005 SPE Annual Technical Conference and
Exhibition held in Dallas, Texas, U.S.A., 9 12 October 2005.

In vertical drilling, weight on bit is the major force that

penetrates the rock. However in Cantilever drilling, since
drilling is taking place in upward direction an effective rock
removal mechanism should replace the weight on bit factor.
Kerfing is done to unsupport the rock so that mechanical
cutters can more easily remove the rock. Unsupporting a rock
by producing deep and narrow kerfs can reduce specific
energy required to remove the rock by 50 to 75 percent.
Specific energy, S.E. is defined as amount of energy
required to remove unit volume of rock as follows:

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presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to
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Abstract:
Cantilever drilling technology (CDT) is a new concept of
drilling which will enable us to drill superwide boreholes with
radii of the order of a few feet selectively in zones of our
choice. We do this using the cantilever drilling tool. This
enlarged hole will facilitate better artificial lift and enhance
production among other things. This paper discusses CDT and
RESIN CASING technology which can be used to case holes
with such a unique geometry. Resin Casing is done using an
expandable wire frame balloon structure which forms a mould
for the specially modified resin forming a hard shell
overcoming the hurdle of casing and cementing the hole.

S .E . =

Energy Input
Volume Re moved

(J / cm ) .......................(1)
3

However S.E. is not a true measure of performance of a

kerfing device because little rock is removed in the kerf and
the function of the kerf is to provide a free face to which
fractures can propagate.
Various parameters associated with kerfing are shown in Fig.1

Keywords:
Kerfing, Selective zone widening, Resin casing

Introduction:
The width of a hole in the payzone is limited using the
conventional drilling methods. This is because hole size is
limited due to factors like cost of drilling a wide hole, sizing
of equipment involved, rate of penetration, power
requirements, size of BOP required, larger rigs required to
handle more power and more weight, hence dramatically
escalating the cost of the project.
Having a large borehole in the payzone is beneficial because it
would:
1. Enhance production
2. Control the problem of sand production
3. Accommodate a lot of downhole equipment.
Cantilever drilling allows us to enlarge the borehole radius up
to the order of a few feet selectively in zones we choose.
This is made possible by the Cantilever drilling tool, which
uses water jets and rotary drilling along with its unique
cantilevering action to drill a superwide borehole.

Fig 1: Kerfing parameters

Cutting Action:
Moderate pressure: The water jets at moderate pressure
unsupport the rocks by creating kerfs. This unsupported rock
is then removed by drill-bits far more easily.

SPE 95162

High pressure: At high-pressure, water jets can absolutely

shatter the rocks removing large chunks of rock
.
At high-pressure water jets disintegrate rocks by three main
fracture modes, as seen in Fig.2
1. Granular erosion
2. Shear craters
3. Tensile splitting

Fig 3: Cantilever drilling tool

Working:

Fig 2: Jet drilling mechanisms

The Tool:
The tool consists of two parts:
A] Upper Part:
It houses the
Hydraulic system Is connected to a plunger that pushes
outwards when the system is activated.
We use a rack and pinion type of arrangement between the
plunger and the cantilevering arm.
When the hydraulic system is activated the plunger pushes
outwards, the rack type gears on the plunger mesh with the
pinion type gears on the lower drilling arm thus moving the
lower arm upwards, providing a cantilevering effect.
Combustion chamber It has an electronic ignition system
that ignites the fuel that is fed into it, it has a check valve to
prevent the combustion gasses from entering the drillstring.
The combustion gasses which are used as a power fluid for the
jet assisted drilling, are channelized into the nozzles of the
drill-bits
B] Lower Part: It is fitted with several small jet assisted
rotary bits along its length. Jets are issued from the nozzles
placed in the bits. This is done by means of an ejector like
mechanism that acts similar to a jet pump.

After conventional drilling is completed up to the target depth,

the Cantilever drilling tool is lowered.
Combustion is started in the combustion chamber.
Exhaust gases of which are channelized through a conduit in
the lower arm, which leads to each of the rotary drill-bits.
Here exhaust gases are used as a power fluid as they flow
through an ejector like structure incorporated within the bit.
The outlets to the ejector are three oriented nozzles, which are
a part of the bit.
The power fluid (exhaust gas) drives the working fluid (water)
out of the jets with great force.
The thrust of the oriented jets gives a high r.p.m. rotary
motion to each bit about its own axis.
As this process is taking place, simultaneously the drillstring
is given rotation about its axis, and the hydraulic system is
activated, pushing the lower arm upwards, gradually changing
its orientation with respect to the drillstring from 180o to 90o,
thus creating a hemispherical hole.
Now the drillstring may be pulled upwards to cover the entire
payzone height with a large radius borehole.

Advantages
1. Increase in fluid flow:
Darcys equation for radial flow is given by:

q=

2hk ( p e p w )
...............................................(2)
re
ln
rw

Considering change only in radius of the borehole and all

other parameters constant, we get ratio of the flow rates as:

SPE 95162

qbig
q small

r
ln e
rw small
=
..................................................(3)
re
ln
rw big

The ratios of borehole areas are:

Abig
Asmall

rbig
rsmall

............................................................(4)

2. Sand control:
Sand production is dependant on critical flow rate. Critical
flow rate is a function of flow area. In our calculations we see
that rate of increase of area >> rate of increase in flow.
Hence flow rate < critical flow rate
3. Skin damage:
If there has been any skin damage caused due to incorrect mud
system during the conventional drilling, it may be removed
while enlarging the borehole, this time the mud-weight can be
chosen carefully.
4. Stimulates the well:
The high temperature condition in the borehole due to the
exhaust gas may reduce viscosity of oil surrounding the
borehole thus increasing flowability.
A large sized bottomhole will also be beneficial for thermal oil
recovery and enhanced oil recovery.
5. Effective artificial lift:
The large borehole provides a large sump for collection of oil,
also with the increased flow rate more oil flows into the well
and gets collected.
This could mean that SRPs, which currently have to be
switched off intermittently to wait for the oil to collect into the
borehole, need not be stopped or stoppage time may be
reduced considerably
The large sump that is created downhole enhances the
capillary effect, thus raising fluids to a greater height, thereby
improving gas lift, since gas lift valves can be installed at
higher levels.
6. Large bottomhole:
Instead of a single SRP we could install 2 or 3 submersible
electrical pumps.
Instruments like a downhole gas liquid separator, which are
not currently in use due to space restraints, can be installed
which would help solve gas locking problems currently faced
by SRPs.
Also we could add a lot of downhole instrumentation and
equipment in the payzone to continuously monitor various
parameters in the field, which would not only have business
interest but also scientific interest

7. Drill string not pressurized:

Because the pressure is developed in the combustion chamber
in the tool itself the entire drill string does not have to be
subjected to high pressure hence no modification in the
pressure rating of the drillstring is required.

Disdvantages
Cantilever Drilling is a niche application: all formations/wells
may not necessarily be good candidates for this technology
application.
As a qualifier individual formation sand/rock strength and
local borehole stresses need to be studied carefully prior to
applying this technology

Wide- hole casing & completion

RESIN CASINGTM:
A point of major concern in enlarging the borehole to such a
large extent, only in payzone, is wide-hole instability. A
collapsible, spring-loaded, wire frame structure is currently
under development. High strength composite fabric binds the
wire frame. When released, the wire frame expands to form a
reinforced balloon in the enlarged borehole with some
clearance. Pre-designed polymer slurry with strength
enhancers is pumped into the annulus between enlarged
borehole and balloon structure. The slurry is allowed to harden
and cure, thus forming a hard shell lining the enlarged hole
and providing wall stability. Strength and other properties of
the resin are designed in such a way that need for casing is
eliminated. Resin shell can be perforated by conventional
means with some modification in charge and gun design and
the zone may be completed as desired by the well planning
team

Polymer formulation test results:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Viscosity 200 to 600 centipoise

No effect of toughness additives on viscosity of
formulation
Cycloaliphatic amines provide highest fracture toughness
Curing time 2 to 4 hours
Good chemical resistance
High thermal stability
Yield tensile stress 13000 psi
Flexural modulus 1.92 GPa

SPE 95162

Fig 6: Tunnelling electron microstructure of set formulation

Fig 4: Artists impression of expanded balloon structure with set

resin shell & perforation operation.

Fig 5: Curing mechanism of epoxy resin

SPE 95162

Sample Case Study:

Conclusions:
1.

Cantilever tool configuration:

Size of lower cantilever arm: 2 ft (0.6 m)
Diameter of resulting borehole: 4 ft (1.2m)
Size of jet assisted bits: 3 in
No. of bits on the tool: 4
No. of nozzles per bit: 3
Nozzle size: 2 mm
RPM: 30
Traverse speed: 1.9 m/sec
Kerf depth: 3.6 mm
Kerf width: 2 mm
Pressure: 69 Mpa

2.
3.
4.
5.

Power Required

SKE RD
0.5 ........................................(5)
4H

6.

advance rate=3.6 m/hr

P= 570Kw
At an advance rate of 18m/hr:
P= 2850 Kw

7.

Change in flow charachteristics

Consider a 1 acre well spacing, therefore re is 100 ft
rw is well bore radius
Original 4 in (0.33 ft)
Expanded 2 ft
Increase in flow
Substituting values in eq. 3
q(big)=1.46 q(small)
46% increase in Flow
Increase in flow area:
Substituting values in eq. 4
A(big) = 6.06 A(small)
600% increase in flowarea
Change in flow velocity:
Using the continuity equation
Q = A x V........................................................................ (6)
0.46Q

6.06A

0.07V

46% inc. in flow = 600% inc. in flow area x 7% increase in

velocity

Cantilever Drilling provides a solution to selective

zone wide-bore drilling. Calculations show that there
is a 46% increase in fluids inflow after wide-bore
completion.
Other advantages that ensue are improved artificial
lift and increased downhole instrumentation
possibilities.
Cantilever Drilling is a seed technology and its
related planetary technology sets have to be
developed.
LWP (logging while production) is an upcoming
concept in the Oil & Gas industry, however, it has its
restraints due to the space crunch downhole.
Having an enlarged hole in the payzone affords us a
lot of space to install reservoir-monitoring modules
that could send real-time data of various reservoir
parameters, which would enable better reservoir
management & asset planning.
Data thus obtained will not only be in business
interest by aiding maximum deliverability of the
reservoir, but also of great academic value and will
aid researchers to formulate better reservoir modeling
techniques and in turn help the industry ultimately.
The advantages afforded by this radically new style
of drilling are of great importance to current day Oil
& Gas industry where the focus is on harnessing
maximum production from mature and depleted
fields.

SPE 95162

Effect of Traverse speed

Appendix

Table. 4

Table-1
Comparison of different kerfing devices
Drill
SKE(J/cm2)
Water jet
Laser
Electron beam
Cavitating jet
Plasmas

Effect of traverse speed in Berea Sandstone

(0.58 mm nozzle diameter)
(Summers and Henry, 1972)

250-500
1000-2000
3000-6000
20,000-40,000
50,000-100,000

Specific
Kerf
Kerfing
Width
Energy
(cm)
(J/cm2)

Water
Jet

Rock
Type

0.58mm
@69
Mpa

Berea
Sand
stone

4.9

214

0.36

0.2

63

0.25mm
@490
Mpa

Sand
stone

23.8

150

0.64

0.1

250

28.8

150

0.32

0.1

500

0.25mm
Barre
@490
Granite
Mpa

Pressure
(Mpa)

Kerf
depth
(cm)

Kerf
width
(cm)

Power
output
(kw)

15.4
36.1
54.3
71.3
214.0

69
69
69
69
69

1.71
0.81
0.69
0.72
0.36

0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2

4.9
4.9
4.9
4.9
4.9

Effect of Nozzle diameter

Table-2
Water Jet kerfing data
Power Traverse Kerf
Output Speed Depth
(kW) (cm/sec) (cm)

Traverse
speed
(cm/sec)

Effect of Jet pressure, Traverse speed, Nozzle diameter,

Standoff distance on SKE:
SKE is decreased by:
1. Decreasing jet pressure Table.3
2. Increasing traverse speed Table.4
3. Increasing nozzle diameter Fig.4
4. Decreasing standoff distance Fig.5
Effect of Jet pressure
Table. 3

Effect of jet pressure kerfing in Berea Sandstone

(0.58 mm nozzle diameter)
(Summers and Henry, 1972)
Pressure
(Mpa)

Traverse
speed
(cm/sec)

Kerf
depth
(cm)

Kerf
width
(cm)

Power
output
(kw)

34.5
69.0
103.4
138.9

214
214
214
214

0.12
0.36
0.61
0.95

0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2

1.71
4.9
8.9
13.8

Specific
Kerfing
Energy
(J/cm2)
66
63
68
68

Fig. 4

Jet kerfing data in Berea Sandstone

(McClain and Cristy, 1970)

Effect of Standoff distance

Fig.5

Submerged jet Kerfing Data

(Cheung and Hurlburt, 1976)

Specific
Kerfing
Energy
(J/cm2)
186
167
130
96
63

SPE 95162

Nomenclature
A= Area
h= height of payzone
pe= pressure at reservoir boundary
pw= pressure at Wellbore
q= flow rate
re= effective drainage radius
rw= radius of wellbore
R= Advance rate
D= diameter of hole
H= Inter kerf spacing

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