Deep-water drilling in Indonesia.

Clean subglacial access: prospects for future deep hot-water drilling.

Accessing and sampling subglacial environments deep beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet presents several challenges to existing drilling technologies. With over half of the ice sheet believed to be resting on a wet bed, drilling down to this environment must conform to international agreements on environmental stewardship and protection, making clean hot-water drilling the most viable option. Such ...

Deep drilling moves ahead

Deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico could resume within weeks under a policy by the US government, which has come under increasing criticism from the oil industry and politicians in the region over the impact of the drilling halt and worries from scientists that the full impact has not yet been assessed. Oil and gas exploration in the gulf’s deep waters has been stopped since May, when Ob...

A Dynamic Simulation of Annular Multiphase Flow during Deep-water Horizontal Well Drilling and the Analysis of Influential Factors

A gas kick simulation model for deep-water horizontal well with diesel-based drilling fluid is presented in this paper. This model is mainly based on the mass, momentum, and energy conservation equations. The unique aspect of this model is the fluid-gas coupling and the change of mud properties after the gas influx from the formation. The simulation results show that the gas in an annulus disso...

Spiralling in BTA Deep-hole Drilling: Models of Varying Frequencies

Feasibility of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide as a Drilling Fluid for Deep Underbalanced Drilling Operations

Feasibility of drilling with supercritical carbon dioxide to serve the needs of deep underbalanced drilling operations has been analyzed. A case study involving underbalanced drilling to access a depleted gas reservoir is used to illustrate the need for such a research. For this well, nitrogen was initially considered as the drilling fluid. Dry nitrogen, due to its low density, was unable to ge...