Turbodrill

Last updated March 22, 2019

A turbodrill is a tool used mostly by petrochemical companies to dig wells for crude oil and natural gas reserves.

Petrochemicals are chemical products derived from petroleum. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable sources such as corn, palm fruit or sugar cane.

Natural gas is a naturally occurring hydrocarbon gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, but commonly including varying amounts of other higher alkanes, and sometimes a small percentage of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, or helium. It is formed when layers of decomposing plant and animal matter are exposed to intense heat and pressure under the surface of the Earth over millions of years. The energy that the plants originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of chemical bonds in the gas.

History of turbodrilling

Among the technical breakthroughs in the world oil industry in the 1920s, a special place is held by the invention in 1922 of the reduction-geared, single-stage downhole turbodrill motor by the Russian engineer Matvei Kapelyushnikov, which opened the way for the subsequent mass introduction of turbodrilling in the industry.^[1]^[2]
In 1924 the first US Patent was issued to a company called Scharpenberg for the first multi-staged turbodrill.
In 1982 the first steerable turbodrill was developed by a company called Neyrfor. This was steerable because it had a stabilizer that was offset from the rest, pulling the tool to one particular side. Using the law of inertia, one could alter the direction of the hole being drilled by changing the direction of the offset.
In 1992 the first steerable turbodrill using a bent housing was created by Neyrfor. The advantage to using the bent housing method of steering instead of an offset stabilizer, is that it provided a straighter hole with less of a corkscrew effect, which in turn made drilling more efficient, faster, and more accurate.
Continuing traditions of Russian engineer Matvey Kapelyushnikov the company JSC "NGT" constantly improves designs of turbodrills.

Matvei Alkunovich Kapelyushnikov was a Russian/Soviet mechanical engineer, inventor, and Hero of Socialist Labor.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

A patent is a form of intellectual property. A patent gives its owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, and importing an invention for a limited period of time, usually twenty years. The patent rights are granted in exchange for an enabling public disclosure of the invention. In most countries patent rights fall under civil law and the patent holder needs to sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce his or her rights. In some industries patents are an essential form of competitive advantage; in others they are irrelevant.

How a turbodrill works

Turbodrills use the mechanical energy of the drill itself, and the hydraulic energy provided by the oil rig’s mud pumps to deliver power to the drill bit. The drill bit on a turbodrill spins much faster than on a conventional motor drill. The result is that, though there is less torque, this is compensated for by the increased speed, which makes straighter holes, and can drill faster and easier through tougher ground materials. The process is very similar to a dental drill used by a dentist. These tools are able to dig faster, operate in a much higher temperature environment, deliver longer downhole life, and produce a better and straighter hole quality than a conventional mud motor. In many applications turbodrills can offer their customers significant cost savings over standard drilling systems by saving them time spent drilling the hole since they typically pay drillers by the hour.

Mechanical energy potential and kinetic energy associated with the position and movement of a physical object

In physical sciences, mechanical energy is the sum of potential energy and kinetic energy. It is the energy associated with the motion and position of an object. The principle of conservation of mechanical energy states that in an isolated system that is only subject to conservative forces, the mechanical energy is constant. If an object is moved in the opposite direction of a conservative net force, the potential energy will increase and if the speed of the object is changed, the kinetic energy of the object is changed as well. In all real systems, however, nonconservative forces, like frictional forces, will be present, but often they are of negligible values and the mechanical energy's being constant can therefore be a useful approximation. In elastic collisions, the mechanical energy is conserved but in inelastic collisions, some mechanical energy is converted into heat. The equivalence between lost mechanical energy (dissipation) and an increase in temperature was discovered by James Prescott Joule.

A mud pump, is a reciprocating piston/plunger pump designed to circulate drilling fluid under high pressure down the drill string and back up the annulus. A mud pump is an important part of the equipment used for oil well drilling.

Drill bits are cutting tools used to remove material to create holes, almost always of circular cross-section. Drill bits come in many sizes and shapes and can create different kinds of holes in many different materials. In order to create holes drill bits are usually attached to a drill, which powers them to cut through the workpiece, typically by rotation. The drill will grasp the upper end of a bit called the shank in the chuck.

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A drill string on a drilling rig is a column, or string, of drill pipe that transmits drilling fluid and torque to the drill bit. The term is loosely applied to the assembled collection of the drill pipe, drill collars, tools and drill bit. The drill string is hollow so that drilling fluid can be pumped down through it and circulated back up the annulus.

Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE) is an international industrial service company and one of the world's largest oil field services companies. As of December 2018 Baker Hughes is 50.4% owned by General Electric Company and 49.6% publicly traded (NYSE:BHGE). It operates in more than 120 countries, providing the oil and gas industry with products and services for oil drilling, formation evaluation, completion, production and reservoir consulting. Baker Hughes, a GE Company has its headquarters in the legacy BHI headquarters in Houston, Texas.

Drilling is a cutting process that uses a drill bit to cut a hole of circular cross-section in solid materials. The drill bit is usually a rotary cutting tool, often multi-point. The bit is pressed against the work-piece and rotated at rates from hundreds to thousands of revolutions per minute. This forces the cutting edge against the work-piece, cutting off chips (swarf) from the hole as it is drilled.

Directional drilling is the practice of drilling non-vertical wells. It can be broken down into four main groups: oilfield directional drilling, utility installation directional drilling, directional boring, and surface in seam (SIS), which horizontally intersects a vertical well target to extract coal bed methane.

Well logging, also known as borehole logging is the practice of making a detailed record of the geologic formations penetrated by a borehole. The log may be based either on visual inspection of samples brought to the surface or on physical measurements made by instruments lowered into the hole. Some types of geophysical well logs can be done during any phase of a well's history: drilling, completing, producing, or abandoning. Well logging is performed in boreholes drilled for the oil and gas, groundwater, mineral and geothermal exploration, as well as part of environmental and geotechnical studies.

A drilling rig is a machine that creates holes in the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to drill water wells, oil wells, or natural gas extraction wells, or they can be small enough to be moved manually by one person and such are called augers. Drilling rigs can sample subsurface mineral deposits, test rock, soil and groundwater physical properties, and also can be used to install sub-surface fabrications, such as underground utilities, instrumentation, tunnels or wells. Drilling rigs can be mobile equipment mounted on trucks, tracks or trailers, or more permanent land or marine-based structures. The term "rig" therefore generally refers to the complex equipment that is used to penetrate the surface of the Earth's crust.

In geotechnical engineering, drilling fluid, also called drilling mud, is used to aid the drilling of boreholes into the earth. Often used while drilling oil and natural gas wells and on exploration drilling rigs, drilling fluids are also used for much simpler boreholes, such as water wells.

A drilling rig is used to create a borehole or well in the earth's sub-surface, for example in order to extract natural resources such as gas or oil. During such drilling, data is acquired from the drilling rig sensors for a range of purposes such as: decision-support to monitor and manage the smooth operation of drilling; to make detailed records of the geologic formations penetrated by a borehole; to generate operations statistics and performance benchmarks such that improvements can be identified, and to provide well planners with accurate historical operations-performance data with which to perform statistical risk analysis for future well operations. The terms measurement while drilling (MWD), and logging while drilling (LWD) are not used consistently throughout the industry. Although these terms are related, within the context of this section, the term MWD refers to directional-drilling measurements, e.g., for decision support for the smooth operation of the drilling, while LWD refers to measurements concerning the geological formation made while drilling.

Mud logging is the creation of a detailed record of a borehole by examining the cuttings of rock brought to the surface by the circulating drilling medium. Mud logging is usually performed by a third-party mud logging company. This provides well owners and producers with information about the lithology and fluid content of the borehole while drilling. Historically it is the earliest type of well log. Under some circumstances compressed air is employed as a circulating fluid, rather than mud. Although most commonly used in petroleum exploration, mud logging is also sometimes used when drilling water wells and in other mineral exploration, where drilling fluid is the circulating medium used to lift cuttings out of the hole. In hydrocarbon exploration, hydrocarbon surface gas detectors record the level of natural gas brought up in the mud. A mobile laboratory is situated by the mud logging company near the drilling rig or on deck of an offshore drilling rig, or on a drill ship.

A drill stem test (DST) is a procedure for isolating and testing the pressure, permeability and productive capacity of a geological formation during the drilling of a well. The test is an important measurement of pressure behaviour at the drill stem and is a valuable way of obtaining information on the formation fluid and establishing whether a well has found a commercial hydrocarbon reservoir.

Underbalanced drilling, or UBD, is a procedure used to drill oil and gas wells where the pressure in the wellbore is kept lower than the static pressure then the formation being drilled. As the well is being drilled, formation fluid flows into the wellbore and up to the surface. This is the opposite of the usual situation, where the wellbore is kept at a pressure above the formation to prevent formation fluid entering the well. In such a conventional "overbalanced" well, the invasion of fluid is considered a kick, and if the well is not shut-in it can lead to a blowout, a dangerous situation. In underbalanced drilling, however, there is a "rotating head" at the surface - essentially a seal that diverts produced fluids to a separator while allowing the drill string to continue rotating.

A mud motor is a progressive cavity positive displacement pump (PCPD) placed in the drill string to provide additional power to the bit while drilling. The PCPD pump uses drilling fluid to create eccentric motion in the power section of the motor which is transferred as concentric power to the drill bit. The mud motor uses different rotor and stator configurations to provide optimum performance for the desired drilling operation, typically increasing the number of lobes and length of power assembly for greater horsepower. In certain applications, compressed air, or other gas, can be used for mud motor input power. Normal rotation of the bit while using a mud motor can be from 60 rpm, to over 100 rpm.

In the oil and gas industries, coiled tubing refers to a very long metal pipe, normally 1 to 3.25 in in diameter which is supplied spooled on a large reel. It is used for interventions in oil and gas wells and sometimes as production tubing in depleted gas wells. Coiled tubing is often used to carry out operations similar to wirelining. The main benefits over wireline are the ability to pump chemicals through the coil and the ability to push it into the hole rather than relying on gravity. Pumping can be fairly self-contained, almost a closed system, since the tube is continuous instead of jointed pipe. For offshore operations, the 'footprint' for a coiled tubing operation is generally larger than a wireline spread, which can limit the number of installations where coiled tubing can be performed and make the operation more costly. A coiled tubing operation is normally performed through the drilling derrick on the oil platform, which is used to support the surface equipment, although on platforms with no drilling facilities a self-supporting tower can be used instead. For coiled tubing operations on sub-sea wells a mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) e.g. semi-submersible, drillship etc. has to be utilized to support all the surface equipment and personnel, whereas wireline can be carried out from a smaller and cheaper intervention vessel. Onshore, they can be run using smaller service rigs, and for light operations a mobile self-contained coiled tubing rig can be used.

A rotary steerable system (RSS) is a form of drilling technology used in directional drilling. It employs the use of specialized downhole equipment to replace conventional directional tools such as mud motors. They are generally programmed by the measurement while drilling (MWD) engineer or directional driller who transmits commands using surface equipment which the tool responds to, and gradually steers into the desired direction. In other words, a tool designed to drill directionally with continuous rotation from the surface, eliminating the need to "slide" a mud motor.

Oilfield terminology refers to the jargon used by those working in fields within and related to the upstream segment of the petroleum industry. It includes words and phrases describing professions, equipment, and procedures specific to the industry. It may also include slang terms used by oilfield workers to describe the same.

A drilling stabilizer is a piece of downhole equipment used in the bottom hole assembly (BHA) of a drill string. It mechanically stabilizes the BHA in the borehole in order to avoid unintentional sidetracking, vibrations, and ensure the quality of the hole being drilled.

A bottom hole assembly (BHA) is a component of a drilling rig. It is the lowest part of the drill string, extending from the bit to the drill pipe. The assembly can consist of drill collars, subs such as stabilizers, reamers, shocks, hole-openers, and the bit sub and bit.

IntelliServ is a National Oilwell Varco brand that manufactures and sells a broadband networked drilling string system used to transmit downhole information to the surface in a drilling operation.

References

↑ Matveichuk, Aleksandr (2011). "The Turbodrill of Engineer Kapelyushnikov". Oil of Russia. Moscow: LUKOIL-Inform (1-2011).
↑ Прозоров, Ю. И. Турбобур М. А. Капелюшникова (in Russian). Polytechnical Museum . Retrieved 4 Apr 2012.

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[1] Matveichuk, Aleksandr (2011). "The Turbodrill of Engineer Kapelyushnikov". Oil of Russia. Moscow: LUKOIL-Inform (1-2011).

[2] Прозоров, Ю. И. Турбобур М. А. Капелюшникова (in Russian). Polytechnical Museum . Retrieved 4 Apr 2012.