American Oil and Gas Reporter - PBIOS 2014 Official Program Guide - 190

Permian Basin Reports
"By utilizing advanced oil- or mineral-based fluid, our rate of penetration in
the lateral can be up to 140-200 feet an
hour," Davis relates, adding DTC drilled
one 10,812-foot lateral in four days.
That compares with ROPs that typically
ran 20-40 feet an hour using conventional
mud systems, Davis notes. He says the
penetration rates might be even faster,
except that drillers are working mainly
with produced water because West Texas
lacks an abundant supply of freshwater.
He explains that the weight factor for
produced water is about nine pounds per
gallon, which slows drilling.
On the plus side, with multiwell pad
drilling, Davis says drillers can transfer
the drilling fluid from one well to recondition and reuse in the next.
Unconventional plays in the Permian
initially focused on vertical wells with
multistage completions, and as the uptake
of horizontal drilling has spread across
the region, Davis says operators have the
ability to apply the significant knowledge
gained from drilling and completing longlateral horizontal wells in other plays.
"Everything we are doing in the Permian
Basin today is basically the same procedures we have been using in the horizontal
Bakken Shale play for some time," he
states.

are expected to halve the time it takes to
set the typical 1,400 feet of surface casing
for a Permian Basin horizontal well. He
mentions that Transcend Drilling has
been using an Atlas Copco RD20 rig to
drill a 121⁄4-inch hole and set 1,400 feet
of 95⁄8-inch casing.
In addition to its pick cutters, Atlas
Copco offers a range of PDC bits. Erickson
says Atlas Copco has been field testing
slight alterations in bit body and cutter
angle to tune its PDC bits for highest
productivity in red beds. He says fine
tuning the bits is possible through CNC
milling technology that is so superior to
the manufacturing equipment of early
PDC technology that bits now can be optimized to the exact drilling parameters
of the Permian Basin.
One of the greatest achievements, Erickson says, has been the development
of pneumatic percussion tooling strings
that can turn the corner. The steerable
downhole hammer systems are based on
existing technology, so accessories are
available to complete the strings, he adds.
Surface Hole Rigs
Another way companies are shortening
the time from spud to completion, ac-

Carbide Pick Bits
Advances in bit technology also are
helping improve drilling times. A prime
example, according to Delaney Erickson,
Atlas Copco's oil and gas business development specialist, is carbide pick
cutters that are placed at specific locations
and angles using a forced balance design
process to maximize penetration rate,
cuttings removal, and overall bit life. Unlike bits with polycrystalline diamond
compact cutters that have to be sent back
to the factory for replacement, carbide
pick cutters can be replaced on site, he
emphasizes.
"As the picks wear on the bit, you just
knock them out on the backside and put
in new ones," he explains.
Engineered especially for drilling soft
formations such as shales and clays, the
carbide picks "plow" the formation, resulting in large cuttings and highly efficient
formation removal.
Erickson says the carbide pick bits
190 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

Atlas Copco's carbide pick bits are engineered especially for use in shales
and clays. The carbide picks "plow" the
formation, resulting in large cuttings
and efficient removal. Unlike PDC bits,
which have to be sent to the factory for
replacement, carbide pick cutters can
be replaced on site.

cording to Erickson, is by employing
smaller rigs to drill the surface section of
wells. He says Atlas Copco uses a lightweight, hydraulic top-drive rig to drill
surface holes and preset casing in half
the time or less than it takes larger rigs.
A larger rig follows and drills the deeper
and/or horizontal segment of the well.
The result, he says, is that both rigs
work at maximum efficiency, since each
rig completes its piece of the drilling
project in the least amount of time and at
the lowest possible cost.
Erickson says Atlas Copco has between
15 and 20 of its smaller RD20 rigs going
in front of the larger rigs and presetting
surface casing. He mentions the company
also sold four or five of the small rigs to
water well drillers that are supplying
water to the oil and gas drillers.
The RD20 rigs began by drilling 500foot surface sections for a large Permian
operator, Erickson recalls, but within a
month, he says, it was going so well that
the operator required his contractors to
set 1,400 instead of 500 feet of casing,
and the RD20 worked just as well to that
depth. The dual-rig technique has been
used primarily in the horizontal Marcellus
Shale play, Erickson mentions, but has
made its way to the Permian in the past
few years as horizontal drilling has taken
off across the basin.
"It allows drillers to be more efficient,
and you can drill more wells per year,"
he comments. "The small rigs are more
efficient so the day rate is less."
Producers save money on the cost per
well, and more importantly, can get more
wells on line each year, Erickson says.
He says one operator estimated the savings
at $14,050 a hole. The smaller rigs also
enabled the company to drill 12 more
wells a year and start generating production
revenue that much sooner, he adds.
The smaller rigs are more mobile so
they take less time to set up, he goes on.
"The rigs come in, set up and start drilling
within a couple hours, where the big rig
usually takes a good day to get everything
moved and set up," Erickson compares.
"I would say the small rigs are at least
twice as fast coming in and doing the
surface section."
Because the RD20 does not have a
fixed crown, he goes on, the derrick is a
lot lighter. "The derrick is just a guide
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