American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2019 - 39

SpecialReport: Tubulars Technology

More Complex Well Designs,
Challenging Environments
Driving OCTG Innovations
Editor's Note: A number of technical and operational
factors are pushing the boundaries of tubulars technology
and driving new innovations in oil country tubular goods,
accessories and services.
More complex well designs, more challenging operating environments, and more demanding economic
drivers are all impacting the state of the art in OCTG
technology. How are extended-reach horizontal architectures impacting tubular engineering and design in
onshore resource plays? What kinds of products and
services are being introduced to improve performance

and lower cost in these wells? What are the latest
solutions for wells in deepwater and high-pressure/hightemperature offshore fields?
To find out, AOGR presented a series of questions to a
panel of engineering and tubular technology experts. Panelists are Charles R. "Rick" Stone, chairman and chief executive officer of Signa Engineering Corp.; Darren Santeler,
senior technical sales manager at Vallourec USA Corp.;
and Luca Zanotti, president of U.S. operations at Tenaris.
Questions are in italics, followed by the panelists'
responses.

HIGHER-LEVEL ENGINEERING

Q:

In the first quarter of 2019, U.S. operators drilled
twice as many wells with 10,000+ foot laterals
than they did wells with laterals less than 6,000 feet
long, according to Spears & Associates. Will laterals
continue to grow longer, or is the industry now approaching
the point of optimizing lengths based on the cost/benefit
and risk/reward balances?

as operators target multiple horizons in stacked plays
and drill infill child wells to fully develop lease positions.
How do you summarize the primary challenges that more
complicated laterals present to tubular systems run in the
wells? How are these factors impacting casing and tubing
designs compared with shorter-lateral wells drilled in the
same plays in the past?

STONE: In shale development, lateral lengths follow the
adage that "more is better." From a productivity view, this is
true, assuming the driller can remain in the target formation.
From an engineering perspective, lateral lengths will continue
to increase until the physical limits-such as hole cleaning and
getting enough weight to bit-are reached. Likewise, the lateral
cannot be so long that casing cannot be run to total depth.
Completions also present another limit. Frac jobs are now
reaching 60 or even 70 stages, with pressure cycles reaching
10,000 psi. In extended-reach laterals, surface pressures approach
the working capacity of the production string, which is often 51⁄2inch P-110 (23 or 26 pounds). This is the popular choice for production casing/fracture stimulation strings, since it provides good
burst strength and relatively good fatigue resistance to fracturing
pressures. However, there is a definite number of frac cycles
beyond which the probability of P-110 failure increases dramatically.
If a stress riser exists on the pipe or interstitial to the material, the
potential for premature failure also increases.
It will be interesting to see which parameters-whether drilling
or completion-become the final restraints to lateral length.

STONE: Many operators drill complex laterals (multiple azimuth changes or vertical depth) without considering the
difficulty of running casing to TD. Unintentional well path
changes are common in conventional bent-housing, rotarydrilled laterals. We can plan for the intentional changes in the
well path, but the unintentional deviations must be mitigated
with good drilling practices. The primary challenge in complex
lateral wells is to run and place uncompromised production
casing that will also serve as a fracture stimulation string.
The stiffness of pipe increases to the fourth power of the diameter. Therefore, a lateral drilled with 4-inch drill pipe may
not allow placement of 51⁄2-inch casing. The primary challenges
to placing casing in a long lateral are drag related. These
include compression of the casing to the point of buckling, the
surface methods used to install the casing, the use of rotation in
the installation, and the prevailing myth of "floating" casing to
bottom by reducing hydrostatic head inside the casing.
Casing design in long shale laterals is impacted by the drag
issues and the engineering anticipation of casing stress during
fracture stimulation. Placement of casing may drive the decisions
to choose a connection that has consistent and repeatable
makeup torque at the drill floor and can withstand rotation as
well as downhole agitation. In addition, the connection should
be robust enough to afford extra overpull at the rig floor due to

Q:

In addition to lateral lengths, the overall complexity
of horizontal well architectures also is increasing

SEPTEMBER 2019 39



American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2019

Contents
American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2019 - Intro
American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2019 - 1
American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2019 - 2
American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2019 - 3
American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2019 - 4
American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2019 - Contents
American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2019 - 6
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