TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF THE PHILIPPINES

363 P. CASAL ST., QUIAPO, MANILA

CHE 121
Written Report

SUBMITTED BY:
ALARCON, HONEY JANE A.
CH41FB1

SUBMITTED TO:
ENGR. EFREN CHAVEZ

July 28. 2018

THE DRILLING PROCESS
The process of drilling begins months, and often years, before a drilling rig arrives on location.
Here, the following five stages of the process will be considered: planning, site preparation,
drilling, open‐hole logging, and setting production casing. Planning is the longest of these five
stages, and open‐hole logging and setting of casing are the shortest, often just 1–3 days for
each.

Planning
Planning begins with identification of target formations and their depths. The data used to
identify the target could include data from offset (nearby) wells, seismic data, and other
geologic insight. The data from offset wells includes all the drilling, logging, completion, and
production records.

Well design starts after the target is selected. For some targets, a vertical well is the correct
choice; but for others, a directional well may be needed. That choice depends on surface
topography, surface buildings, lakes, and the subsurface formations that will be penetrated.
The design will include drilling and casing operations.

An authorization for expenditure (AFE) is prepared after a detailed drilling plan is complete.
In general, the depth and complexity of the well will have the greatest impact on total cost.
Complexity refers to variations in formation properties for each formation that is encountered
during the drilling of the well. Completion costs usually dominate the cost of drilling shallow
wells. Completion and drilling costs are often comparable for medium‐depth wells. The cost of
drilling deep wells is usually dominated by drilling costs. The AFE will include tangible and
intangible costs, dry hole costs, completed well costs, overhead charges, and contingencies.

With the AFE completed, the production company must obtain stakeholder support from
anyone involved with the well. Stakeholders include asset team members, different levels of
management within the company, other partners, royalty owners, surface rights owners,
regulators, public interest groups, and anyone that has a say on what happens to the well.
Different stakeholders have different concerns or interests in the project that must be
addressed. To obtain permission to drill in the United States, an application for permission to
drill must be submitted to proper governing agencies, such as the federal government and
the state agency regulating oil and gas development. Getting that permission can be a slow
and iterative process, including site visits. Drilling operations must wait until permission is
obtained. Most production companies do not drill wells using their own personnel and
equipment, so they must find a drilling contractor. The drilling contract will specify the start or
spud date of the well and drilling costs. The drilling contractor will drill the well according to
contract specifications. There are three types of drilling contracts. A turnkey contract will have
a fixed price for drilling and equipping a well. All of the risk in this case falls on the drilling
contractor to meet the terms of the contract. Footage contracts are based on cost per foot to
a total depth (TD). In this case, the production company and the drilling contractor share the
risk of drilling the well. Day‐rate contracts are based on cost per day to drill and complete
the well, and all risk falls on the production company.
Site Preparation
The next step after obtaining all permissions is to prepare a site for the drilling operation. This
step includes building a road to the location, clearing and building the location, drilling for
and setting conductor pipe, drilling mouse and rat holes, and setting anchors (usually four) for
supporting rigs. The size of onshore locations varies from about 2 to 5 acres, largely depending
on the amount of room needed for equipment during completion operations. Topsoil on
location is pushed to one side and saved for later site restoration activities. Berms are often
built to control spills. One or two pits for used drilling and completion fluids are excavated
and lined as required by governing agencies. Conductor pipe is the first and largest diameter
casing to be cemented into place for a well. It serves as a foundation for the start of the
drilling operation. A small drilling rig, often truck‐mounted, drills the hole and sets the casing.
Conductor pipe diameter ranges from 18 in. to more than 3 ft; its length is 40–80 ft. Two
other smaller holes, the rathole and the mousehole, are often drilled within 10 ft of the
conductor hole. These holes are for temporary storage of pipe during the drilling process.

Drilling
After the location is fully prepared, the drilling rig, associated equipment, housing, and
materials are moved onto the location and “rigged up,” or MIRU for move in and rig up. For
remote areas, this move (or mobilization) may be 5–10% of the total well cost.

The first task for the drilling rig is to drill to the depth required for the surface casing, usually
500–2000 ft as specified by the agency that permitted the well. The surface casing has two
functions: first, it protects water in aquifers near the surface from contamination; second, it
provides mechanical support for the well. The drilling fluid for the surface hole is typically
freshwater. When the required depth is reached, the surface casing is lowered into place and
cemented by pumping cement down the casing and up the annulus between the casing and
the surrounding formations to the surface. The last step in cementing is to push a cement plug
with drilling fluid down the casing until it reaches the bottom of the casing. After the cement
has cured, a casing head is attached to the top of the surface casing, and the BOP is attached
to the top of the casing head. The BOP is used to shut the well in emergencies. To continue
drilling, the drilling crew feeds the BHA and drill pipe through the top of the BOP and into
the surface casing, tripping down to the top of the cement plug. The bit on the BHA must be
small enough to enter the surface casing. After starting circulation of drilling mud, the crew
can drill through the plug and cement and past the bottom of the surface casing. For many
wells, the next drilling objective is the depth of the target formation. While drilling to this
depth, the crew will adjust the composition of the mud as needed to clean the hole and
maintain pressure control. Throughout the drilling process, a company employee submits
daily reports to management of drilling activities and costs. In some cases, the drilling plan
may need adjustment if an unanticipated event occurs. At some point after setting surface
casing, a separate contractor arrives on location to create a continuous tabular record, or log,
of the drilling process and results for a well. This contractor is the mud logging company and
its employee on location is a mud logger, usually a geologist. The mud logger installs
hardware and software to monitor operations as requested by the production company. The
hardware usually includes computer displays of the log in the doghouse on the drilling rig, in
the office of the company employee, and in the mud logger’s workspace. The mud log
consists of four to six columns of information. In the first column of the table, the ROP of the
bit is recorded, typically in minutes per foot. Other operating parameters (such as rotation
rate, WOB, pumping rate, mud weight and viscosity, and mud composition) are included as
notes in this column. In a second column, lithology (sandstone, shale, limestone, etc.) of
cuttings are recorded by the on‐site geologist at 10 ft intervals. The geologist also enters
detailed descriptions of cuttings collected at the shale shaker in another column. This column
includes notes on oil or gas shows. Composition of hydrocarbon gas that evolves from the mud
is continually recorded in the last column. The organization and extent of the mud log varies
from company to company. As the first source of data from the subsurface formations, the
mud log is vital for drilling management, hydrocarbon exploration, and completion designs.
When drilling reaches the target depth, the drilling crew circulates mud until the hole is clean
and then trips the drill pipe out of the hole. The well is ready now for the next stage of the
drilling process.

Reference:
Fanchi, J. R., & Christiansen, R. L. (2017). Introduction to Petroleum Engineering. Hoboken, New
Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.