Innovation: Taking Charge of Completion Innovations

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President's column The essence of most drilling operations in our industry is to open the maximum length of reservoir formation with the mini-mum damage to the rock surface. This should allow maximum efficient flow of the desired reservoir fluids into the wellbore and to the surface. The proper completion of a well will ensure that production is not denied or restricted, and enough care is taken to ensure that all the investment made in drilling the well is safeguarded. The term “completion” covers a gamut of activities related to stopping the movement of wellbore material into the well, the running of tubing and attachments needed to flow the reservoir fluids to the surface safely, the installation of subsurface equipment to increase production, and to provide well protection. One short article will not be adequate to do justice to this very important element of providing energy for the world. My first experience with well completions was in the Niger delta where the producing formation is friable sandstone, which is prone to dislodgement when production commences. We used a mixture of sand consolidation chemicals to “glue” the sand matrix through perforations in the production casing. The process required preparation of chemicals at the surface properly tailored to the prevailing temperature and pumped into the selected part of the pay zone. The placement had to be very accurate, as any unconsolidated part of the open reservoir could play havoc with production and surface equipment after the well was brought into production. These wells were relatively simple, as they were vertical and shallow. Since the first wells were brought into production, a number of completion innovations have been introduced that have permitted the safe and profitable production of oil and gas. Some of them are now routinely used and their process of evolution is now buried in history. Today’s wells are in general much deeper and more complex and therefore have benefitted from innovation to ensure maximum inflow per length of reservoir. Operators carefully choose the form of completion that best suits the formation—including gravel packs, open hole, and multizone, to name a few.