1. CONNE US
SCAN WITH LAYAR
2014 | Volume 5 | Number 2
The Baker Hughes Magazine
Common Goals
Team concept heightens efficiency
gains in Colombian foothills
Drilling the “Eel”
New RSS drilling method
awakens Gabon’s mature field
H2O Pros
Strength of Water Management
organization runs deep
Revival in the
Heartland
New ESP technology extending
well life in near-abandoned
Mississippian Lime play

2. PhotoscourtesyofEquion
A study of the past leads to
the discovery of innovative
new solutions that deliver
a well program 25% more
cost efficient than that of the
operator’s original well plan.
It is also paving the way for a
sustainable future.
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esign
eliver
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5 | | 6bakerhughes.com

3. ith some wells
in Colombia’s
hydrocarbon-rich
Casanare foothills
taking more than
340 days to drill
and complete, at costs up to USD 80 million,
it is easy to see why Equion Energia Ltd.
sought a performance breakthrough in its
well-planning operations.
Equion is a joint venture company between
Colombia’s state-owned oil company
Ecopetrol and Talisman Energy, a Canada-
based exploration and production company.
Equion acquired BP’s assets in Colombia
in January 2011 when BP sold all of its
oil and gas exploration, production, and
transportation holdings there. Among the
assets were interests in five producing
fields in the Casanare foothills of eastern
Colombia that, for more than 20 years, have
been among the world’s most challenging
drilling and completion environments.
With a limited amount of time to recover
hydrocarbon reserves in some of its contract
areas (some as soon as 2020), and with
operations reaching a performance plateau
with current technology, knowledge,
and experience, Equion embarked on
an ambitious, sustainable plan in 2011.
Equion’s objective for its Well of the Future
project was to optimize the processes
necessary to construct and complete the
challenging wells, with the ultimate goal of
making each well 30% more efficient.
By applying the Define, Measure, Analyze,
Improve, Control (DMAIC) continuous
improvement technique, and with Baker
Hughes as its technology partner, Equion has
drilled and completed the first well under the
new philosophy—a dual-purpose (producer/
injector) directional well—at significant
savings compared to the original plan.
Although an unfortunate sidetrack due to
a catastrophic failure of a third-party tool
occurred, the first well still resulted in 23%
savings in time (65 days) and 25.3% savings
in costs (USD 17.4 million).
“This was an extraordinary achievement,”
says Carlos Vargas, vice president of Drilling
and Completions for Equion. “The original
goal for the Well of the Future project
was to get a reduction in cost and time
of 30% in the first three wells. Achieving
the savings in time and in cost that we
did on the first well is a great starting
point for our project. Clearly, we have the
opportunity to continue improving our
performance and we will adjust our goals
in subsequent wells.”
Along with this operational breakthrough,
Vargas says the Well of the Future project
has created another milestone: it has
defined a new way for Equion and
Baker Hughes to work together.
“The DMAIC continuous improvement
philosophy created a common collaboration
and cooperation environment between our
companies,” Vargas says. “This new way to
work created a tremendous improvement
in our performance through innovative
solutions to better manage the critical
technical and operational challenges in
our complex, deep foothills wells.”
Identifying major challenges
The Colombian foothills are characterized by
their geological complexity of high-tectonic
stresses, borehole instability, and high
geological uncertainty, along with deep,
hard-rock, and low-porosity reservoirs.Taken
together, these present costly and challenging
drilling and completion conditions.
“Traditional well planning operations in
the area typically followed a sequential
process that is usually sufficient for
designing ‘normal’ wells, but they didn’t
encourage cross-discipline innovation in
such a challenging drilling environment,”
says Alexander Valdivieso, project manager
for Equion. “Therefore, we created a
dedicated multidisciplinary team with its
own workspace and gave it enough time
to analyze past well-planning operations
through an interdisciplinary approach
aligned with the DMAIC methodology.
The project began with the identification
and categorization of the most important
nonproductive time [NPT] and invisible
lost-time [ILT] sources for the area, followed
by the root cause analysis for the most
important ones.”
Ranking highest on the list of challenges
contributing to NPT and ILT were issues
related to wellbore stability, hole/casing
size relationship, fluid systems, drilling
inefficiencies, and running the 7-in. and
5-in. liners to total depth.
A series of peer-assist meetings followed
among Baker Hughes and Equion subject
matter experts, third parties, and partners,
where ideas and solutions for the main
problems in each discipline were captured
and compiled.
“Some 600 suggestions came from those
initial peer meetings,” says Mario Pacione,
project manager for Baker Hughes. “Once
the team received an actual well, we
categorized possible solutions based on
the particular risks and hazards identified
for that well, and delivered the final well
program, which included a totally new well
casing architecture.”
Applying the right solutions
„„ Borehole/casing sizes
Using technical and statistical analyses with
the assistance of engineering students from
a local university, the Well of the Future team
challenged the traditional casing design used
in the area with a new casing architecture
based on standard hole and casing sizes.
“Based on experience from another field,
Equion had started using nonconventional
hole sizes and running nonconventional-
sized casings and liners,” Pacione says.
“The conventional design had less clearance
between the open hole and the casing,
which has worked well in less-challenging
environments. However, in our case, this
resulted in additional costs because of the
need for special-sized drilling tools and
fairly long delivery times.”
The nonconventional-sized casing had also
introduced severe operational challenges
while trying to run equipment in a tight
hole across unstable formations. “Just by
changing the mechanical design, compared
to the previously planned well-spend using
the conventional way of thinking, we were
already expecting to save 13% in time and
almost 18.5% in costs,” Pacione says.
In addition, the team found that the use of
conventional hole and casing/liner sizes in
the upper sections decreased drilling time by
having less rock to remove. It also simplified
logistics and reduced equipment costs.
“From the beginning, Equion made it clear
that it wanted a technical partner to develop
fit-for-purpose technologies,” Pacione says.
“Not only did the Baker Hughes completion
teams design, build, and test new 7-in.
and 5-in. ZXP-D™
compression-set liner
packers, but they did it in record time.
This was a perfect example of how
Baker Hughes—not just the Well of the
Future team on the ground in Bogota—
was committed to this project.”
„„ Wellbore stability/fluid systems
The instability of the Carboneras formation
(overburden) is one of the biggest sources
of NPT. Stuck pipe, pack-off incidents,
liner-top packer failures, nonadherence to
procedures, and squeeze operations are
the main culprits, representing 53% of all
NPT in the Piedemonte field. Hard reaming,
extra circulation, and controlled rate of
penetration were major contributors to ILT.
However, after 20 years of drilling in the
foothills, the root cause for the instability of
the Carboneras formation remains unknown
mainly because of the lack of information
across this interval, which had no production
interest and had never been logged.
Because of these underlying circumstances,
the Well of the Future team realized that
real-time geomechanical services would be
critical to the project’s success.
The team, therefore, chose the Baker Hughes
SoundTrak™
acoustic logging-while-
drilling service, which enables real-time
pore pressure prediction and geological
characterization.The team also introduced
the Baker Hughes OnTrak™
measurement-
while-drilling service, which delivers
resistivity data for pore pressure prediction
and identification of weak zones, along
with azimuthal gamma ray data, which
enables dip picking even in larger hole sizes.
This real-time data was used to identify
bed boundaries and formation dips, aid
directional control, and update the geological
and geomechanical models to help determine
the correct mud weights for hole
stability in an assertive
manner.
W
This new way to work created a tremendous
improvement in our performance through innovative
solutions to better manage the critical technical and
operational challenges in our complex, deep foothills wells.
“
Carlos Vargas, vice president of Drilling and Completions for Equion
”
D M A I C
[ Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control ]
| 8bakerhughes.com7 |

4. “Real-time drilling geomechanics
services verified the existence not only of
microfractures but also of natural fractures
of unknown sizes in the upper sections,” says
Carlos Almeida, a Baker Hughes real-time
drilling geomechanics engineer assigned to
the project. “One of the potential causes
of the instability was the fluid invasion/
lubrication of these microfractures,
particularly while using oil-based muds.
Considering that, our fluids experts
formulated a sealing strategy based on a
wide coverage of particle sizes in the mud
system, from ultrafine nano-materials for
sealing microfractures to a variety of coarse
materials for sealing natural fractures.”
Jairo Peñuela, fluids advisor for Equion
Energia, adds, “The introduction of the
nanotechnology also resulted in a good
cost and benefit replacement for traditional
graphites. This technology was part of a new
stability strategy implemented in the area,
which included the use of fluids with tight
filtrate, wide selection of sealing agents
with broad particle-size diameter, use of
asphalts, and correct mud weight. All of this
contributed to delivering one of the best
records in terms of borehole stability ever
achieved in the field, especially along the
12¼-in. and 8½-in. sections.”
The 8½-in. section was drilled through a
4,000-ft [1219-m] overlapped and folded-
down section of the Florena structure for
more than 100 days with no instability
issues. “We proved that the correct mud
density and sealing strategy were the most
important factors in controlling the borehole
stability,” Peñuela says.
„„ Drilling services/drill bits/liners
Drilling challenges in the 17,272-ft (5265-m)
well were numerous. First, high formation
dipping tendencies in the overburden
affected directional control. To counter this,
the Baker Hughes drilling team introduced
to the Colombia market the 26-in. AutoTrak™
rotary steerable system (RSS), which helps
control verticality without limiting drilling
parameters such as weight-on-bit (WOB).
Together, with the Baker Hughes Kymera™
hybrid drill bit, drilling performance
improved 10% in the 26-in. section.
Hybrid bit technology combines advanced
technologies from roller cone and PDC bits
to address difficult-to-drill formations where
neither of the conventional bit technologies
alone delivers satisfactory performance.
Better borehole quality was achieved in
the other sections, using the Baker Hughes
AutoTrak™
G3™
RSS with longer-gauge
PDC bits, which reduced hole spiraling. This
assisted in reducing torque and drag on
subsequent well operations.
In addition, the team deployed the
Baker Hughes CoPilot™
real-time drilling
optimization service, which captures and
analyzes downhole data concerning WOB,
torque, bottomhole assembly bending
moment, annular pressure data (for
equivalent circulating density/hole cleaning
monitoring), and other downhole conditions.
This service was supported by application
engineers in the Baker Hughes BEACON™
advisory center and in Equion’s Smart Room,
both located in Bogota.
Problems associated with running liners to
section total depth was another historical
major source of NPT and ILT. “This
happened because of the hard reaming
that normally was needed due to poor hole
quality and hole spiraling and/or borehole
instability,” says Juan Diego Santander, an
Equion drilling engineer. “In several cases,
the hard-reaming operation resulted in
damage to the top liner packer with long
remedial works and sometimes liners could
not be run to total depth due to excessive
torque that exceeded the ratings of the
liner couplings.”
To alleviate these problems, the team
proposed the use of the ZXP-D liner hanger
equipment and the SDD™
liner hanger
system with high-torque connections
for tubulars. “This technology had been
successfully used in the area in a different
size, but the design did not exist for the
required sizes of this particular application
[7-in. x 95
/8-in. and 5-in. x 7-in.],” Pacione
says. “Once again, the Baker Hughes
completions team rose to the challenge,
and, in record time, created new designs,
tested, approved, built, and delivered
them—another key component of this
successful project.”
The future
Equion’s license for this field expires in six
years, so there is limited time to drill the
remaining wells. The Well of the Future
team is adding more subject matter experts,
geologists, reservoir engineers, and other
people with the right skillsets to target a
next goal.
“The team’s goal was on improving well
construction,” Vargas says. “As we move
into the second phase of the project, we are
setting the more ambitious goal of focusing
on productivity based on a sustainable
performance in the construction of the well.
During the execution and evaluation of the
first well, we were able to identify several
areas of improvement and lessons learned
that we will incorporate into our plans to
evolve the concept going forward.
“The Well of the Future is the beginning of
a new collaboration—a cooperative way
to work between Equion and Baker Hughes
in which we are one team looking for ways
to share our goals based on our needs.
By applying this new way to work, we
can envision a vast array of opportunities
opening up for our companies.”
>> Mario Pacione (left) and
Alexander Valdivieso, Well of
the Future project managers
for Baker Hughes and
Equion, respectively
Just by changing the mechanical design, compared to
the previously planned well-spend using the conventional
way of thinking, we were already expecting to save
13% in time and almost 18.5% in costs.
“
Mario Pacione, project manager for Baker Hughes
”
| 10bakerhughes.com9 |