Sept. 15, 2009


Description

Unexpected tar encounters have derailed many drilling programs in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. In late 2007, while drilling Chevron's Big Foot #3 appraisal well, an extremely mobile tar formation was encountered below salt.  Numerous unsuccessful attempts were made to drill through the tar before determining that it would need to be cased off for drilling to continue.
 
Due to extreme tar mobility, and because of high torque seen during conventional drilling, a novel approach to liner drilling was pursued.  This presentation, based on SPE 118901, details how Chevron worked in conjunction with its partner and service providers to implement the new casing drilling tool in order to resume drilling operations and get the Big Foot well back on track.  Details on the tool's application, lessons learned and future tar casing drilling tool enhancements will also be presented.

Featured Speakers

Speaker John Connor

Drilling Superintendent
Chevron
John graduated from the University of Manitoba with a BSc Civil Engineering in 1991 and was hired directly out of University by Chevron Canada to work as a Drilling Representative on land wells in Western Canada. He worked in various fields performing drilling, completions and workovers before transferring to …

Drilling Superintendent
Chevron

John graduated from the University of Manitoba with a BSc Civil Engineering in 1991 and was hired directly out of University by Chevron Canada to work as a Drilling Representative on land wells in Western Canada. He worked in various fields performing drilling, completions and workovers before transferring to Angola, West Africa in 1996 to work offshore as a drilling representative. In 1998 he transferred to St. John’s Newfoundland and worked initially as a drilling representative on the Glomar Grand Banks semi-sub before moving into the office as Lead Operations Engineer and eventually Drilling Superintendent. In 2001 John moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia to work as Operations Engineer for the deepwater Newburn well drilled with the Deepwater Millennium. In late 2002 he transferred to Chevron Deepwater in New Orleans and was Lead Drilling planning engineer for the Tahiti development. In 2004 John transferred with the Chevron Deepwater Group to Houston to continue with Tahiti development planning, returning to the Discoverer Deep Seas in 2006 to drill and complete Tahiti Phase One wells. In 2007 John took over as Drilling Superintendent for the Ensco 7500 semi-sub drilling deepwater subsalt wells. In the fall of 2008 John took over as Senior Drilling Superintendent for the Discover Deep Seas and has drilled three record deepwater wells to date with that rig -Lewis, Turtle Lake and currently Northwood.


 


John is married and has three sons -the eldest Donald, is a junior studying Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M

Full Description



Organizer

Jack Colborn


Date and Time

Tue, Sept. 15, 2009

11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.
(GMT-0500) US/Central

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Location

Greenspoint Club

16925 Northchase Drive
Houston, TX 77060