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Another tough year has passed since the last coiled-tubing feature in JPT. In spite of the difficult economic climate, the SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing and Well Intervention Conference and Exhibition moved to a new venue this year, the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, because of the continued growth of the exhibition in prior years. Attendance was down by only a small percentage, which, I hope, is an encouraging sign. As mentioned in last year's feature, the coiled-tubing industry is adapting to the changing environment. Several papers at this year's conference discussed various aspects of subsea work performed with coiled tubing.
This time last year, there was uncertainty as to what the future held for our industry as a whole and the coiled-tubing sector in particular. Today, the mantra appears to be "lower for longer." With the price of oil hovering around USD 50/bbl, is this really the case? Looking at the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data for West Texas intermediate and Brent spot crude oil prices, it was not until 2005 that prices rose and consistently stayed above the USD 50 mark, with a short dip below that in 2008. On the cost side of the equation, the US Consumer Price Index in 2005 was 195 (1982 is the base year of 100) and 240 for 2016. Looking at US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, oil and gas extraction employment rose from 1,287,000 to 1,932,000 in the US between 2005 and 2015, peaking in 2014.
- Government > Regional Government > North America Government > United States Government (1.00)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
ABSTRACT From January, 1993 through July, 1994 Marathon Oil Company completed ten newly drilled gas wells using coiled tubing as the initial production string. This paper reviews the operational aspects of each job and summarizes the areas where improvements in equipment and technique were implemented. The use of coiled tubing allows the tubing size to be closely matched to the performance of these relatively low rate wells, minimizing the tubular costs and improving the well's ability to stay unloaded. The main areas of improvement from one job to the next involved the use of a pressurized, hydraulically operated access window, ensuring that all frac sand was cleaned out prior to landing the coiled tubing and employing a "hot cut off" system to make the final cut on the coil tubing. Lessons learned include keeping the coiled tubing size large enough to run smaller coiled tubing through it for clean out and slickline work, care in closing the BOP rams to avoid damaging the pipe and the use of wellhead equipment specifically designed for coiled tubing. This technique is especially suited to low pressure and water sensitive reservoirs where loss of fluid is of concern. An additional benefit is the cost savings from reducing the hole and casing sizes to match the reservoir potential. This completion technique is often quicker than using a conventional completion rig and jointed tubing. INTRODUCTION Marathon has used coiled tubing for initial production tubing in several wells in order to match the tubing to the well productivity, unload frac fluids as quickly as possible and to minimize cost by reducing the time the drilling rig stays on location. An additional benefit is that no fluid is lost to the formation during the completion.
- North America > United States > Texas (0.47)
- North America > United States > New Mexico > Lea County (0.28)
The use of coiled tubing (CT) to conduct well-intervention services is well established. According to industry experts, its use continues to grow at an Additional Technical Papers average rate of 10% per year, even as other services show declines in the last year. As with all technology, the appropriate and effective use of any selected technique is a fundamental prerequisite for success. If these specialized techniques are to be used effectively, candidate selection, along with effective prejob planning and project evaluation, plays a much more important role in today's intervention and completion activities. The combined use of sound engineering planning, the speed and convenience of CT, and creative integration with other complementary equipment can provide today's engineer with the tools to return even the toughest well to profitable production.
It has been said that there is nothing new under the sun, which, if true, would imply that, in a mature industry such as ours, there is little opportunity for innovation or original thought. Another oft-quoted idiom is "to think outside the box," which raises the questions for me of "What box?" and "Who keeps making these boxes?" Are we really in an industry that is so mature that it is devoid of new thoughts and incapable of generating new concepts to meet the challenges that we face? The coiled-tubing industry has always been defined by energetic and innovative people meeting the new challenges they encounter. Wells in which coiled tubing is used have become deeper, have longer horizontal sections, have higher pressures, and are less accessible because of platform and crane limitations.