Member Info for adoubleuk

Genghis,

"t given the mud issues prevented oil flow to surface, would it still have been possible to leave a pressure gauge down there?"

Yes. But as others have pointed out (and as I did myself easily a year ago), any readings taken might be somewhat 'iffy'.

yuyus,

"So why haven’t they revisited it (Halifax) or planned to?"

We don't know that it's not planned! It may be part of the GLA drilling campaign next year.

My understanding is that Halifax will be a sidetrack / redrill, though I haven't a clue where I got that ifo from! Don't remember. The oil column was proved up there, but Halifax is 35 km from where the 'action' is, in the close vicinity of the FPSO. There's no infrastructure there right now, so immediately re-entering and drilling a suspended 'future producer' might be premature. Plus Whirlwind also still remains to be re-entered.

A poster on ADVFN wondered if there are memory gauges on Halifax. Personally I don't have an answer to that. But should that be the case, it may actually be serving a purpose as an 'observation well' right now. It's possible that gauges could be retrieved simply using an intervention vessel rather than a rig.

MCB55,

" I take it that we can assume the DST is in progress?"

Maybe not right now, but should be starting soon. Maybe even today.

"How long will this take?....... from the 2014 DST charts it appears to be about a week with multiple flows and shut in's..... Is that the perceived opinion on here?"

Maybe. Could be a week, five days, ten days. Dunno. But not a month.

"So that would mean an rns either late next week or most likely monday 1st July......thoughts?"

See above.

" AIM rules say that O&G companies must report on well completion......is that immediately after DST or a further few days to withdraw DST gear and complete the well for production?"

The plan is to 'suspend' the well for future production. In the past, Hurricane has usually issued an RNS during such operations, giving preliminary test results, followed by another indicating all operations complete and mobilisation of the rig to the next location.

* " I'm hoping to hear that someone's seen a bloody great flare coming from the TOL "

No. Expecting to hear...

GapingFracture,

"ADUK more hogwash based on incorrect assumptions on your part. If there's really been negligible losses that is not good news."

Stuff and nonsense. That's like saying 'well control' is essentially controlled by formation permeability, not hydrostatic pressure (including ECD). Sure, permeability plays a large part in terms of the speed a formation will 'react' to your inputs, be it in terms of taking losses or causing a kick. But that's all. It doesn't matter if your wellbore interface is a micro-millimeter-sized inter-granular space in a sandstone, or a dam great meter-wide crack in a granite block. The thing you're dealing with is the formation fluid pressure. (Unless you're talking salts, which are elastic, or under-compacted shales, where the rock itself is compressible and thus has it's own 'pressure').

Let's not confuse Fractured Basement oilwell drilling with Geothermal (summat I've also done, and not in peoples' backyards for cack-handed central-heating stuff sold to them by cowboys). The rocks are usually pretty much the same, and highly fractured. And sure, you can drill geothermal with 100% total losses, which is why one may use 'foam' as the circulating medium instead of 'mud', or even straightforward high-pressure air. Geothermal can be fun, but sometimes very scary!

Tell you what, why don't we just call it quits, for now? The infomation I've received is very secondhand, if not thirdhand, and that were there were negligible losses drilling the WD horizontal. But at the same time, I'm hoping to hear that someone's seen a bloody great flare coming from the TOL in the next two or three days.

Or maybe sooner. The DST's going in the hole, I couldn't give a witch's bosom whether I'm right or wrong about whether there's some hypothetical valve at the bottom of the 9-5/8", so let's wait for the result. Eh?

Oh and GapingFracture,

"Wellwell may not be a rig pig who knows the terninology but he obviously knows someone who is feeding him "

Unfortunately, that's where you're wrong. Wellwell knows the terminology, alright. It's just that most of the time he doesn't know what it means in an actual 'physical' sense. I know what the words bricks, mortar, RSJ, lintel-post, structural beam mean. But don't ask me to build you a house.

GapingFracture,

"Due to prolific losses in fractured reservoirs its common to run a permanent packer with a FSV towards the base of production casing to shut off the losses ahead of the DST. DST string then has shifting tool on the end to open it and access the reservoir."

OK, point taken. Maybe I've been 'coming on strong'.

However my information is that this well has been drilled with negligible 'losses', and I trust my sources.

WW,

"Bluffs"

No, mate. My second point was maybe a bit tongue in cheek, but that's all.

I might play poker, but I normally play a very 'tight' game. May not even attempt a single 'bluff' in an evening's session. But don't need to at the tables I play. Because I'm dead good at reading other peoples' bluffs.

Last week I was in an interesting hand with all sorts of dangerous cards appearing on the board, but it was me and another player left. And when he raised (the price of the pot) at the 'river', I knew that he'd missed his draw to a straight, and called instantly. And my paltry pair of fives beat his poxy ace-ten. As I knew it would.

I trust the 'source' from whom I got the information that there have been negligible 'losses' on WD. And to me, that's excellent news. I don't know if the TOL is equipped for MPD, and suspect not. But even if it isn't, I bet the horizontal was drilled as close to 'balance' as possible. It's a long time since the last drilling, which was Halifax. Plenty of time to formulate a crafty strategy.

WW,

" Drilling into, what you hope is an open fracture network overbalanced-what does it mean if you have no losses? You say negligible!"

Yup.

Plus remember something. Or rather two things.

1. Hurricane has had bags of time to fine-tune the mud system (properties) since Halifax.

2. There isn't a man from OGA out on the rig checking the mud density!

;-))

Wellwell,

Sorry, I'd missed your link to the Expro ExACT circulating valve. Which is indeed pressure-actuated, I see. But it's PART of the DST string, not something already sitting downhole and 'isolating the reservoir' as SotB would like to have people believe.

Ta for the link.

SIPP,

"My understanding is that the fractures can be in two places at once, ensuring success. Quantum Fractures, I understand, is the technical term."

Who told you that? It was supposed to be secret. But such fractures might be thought of as 'fractures' and 'anti-fractures'. Hence no mud losses.

Wellwell,

"How do you displace an open fracture network to baseoil AK?"

OMG. Run pipe to 'bottom', pump horizontal volume of base oil, follow with brine, but leaving enough BO in the pipe to 'pump out along the horizontal, then continue pulling 'normally' (but initially quite slowly). Yr horizontal's full of base oil, doesn't affect the hydrostatic a jot. You're well's still perfectly under control.

"Losses in drilling will be the key sign to success - or not. No losses no fractures. Fractures and you get losses."

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Info I've gleaned is that there were negligable losses on WD. But that's also probably why they went directly for horizontal and no 'pilot hole'.

I've read more halfbaked nonsense about the drilling on this BB today than usually happens in a month. Remember, partial knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Mainly to the credibility of the person displaying it. Reminds me of my 'formative years', sitting in an Aberdeen pub on 'crewchange night', and there'd be someone at the next table banging on about 'the hole' and what was going on. And then surprise, next morning, there would be that person getting on the same chopper as oneself. And on arrival at the rig, you'd find out he was the laundry-boy.

Sure, I might be wrong in my description of the Schlumberger circulation valve in the DST string: it may be pressure-controlled as well. But that's simply 'cos I don't know EXACLY what tools are being run. But that's just detail.

You could displace the horizontal hole section to Golden Syrup, if you wanted. Give me the hole diameter, pipe details, pump displacement, etc., and I could figure it out with a simple calculator and without recourse to any sort of data tables. Because things like the equation for bbl/ft in a pipe of a certain diameter is still engaved in my brain. Same goes for annular volumes. And there wouldn't be any leftover Golden Syrup in the casing.

Don't know why one would want to do such a thing, though.

Oh I'm sick of arguing all this oilfield stuff and not being there!

So instead trawled around youtube and found this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yXzZTYjUl0

Never heard it before, and corny as they come, but I rather like it.

yuyus,

" surely there’s a necessary slick wireline facility needed"

No slickline needed for DST (thank goodness), and no plugs nor 'valves' downhole yet. Other the valves in the DST packer assembly, and they're controlled by annular pressure 'signals', or in the case of the 'circulating valve' by pipe rotation and pickup. (I think. It's new Schlumberger gear, and I'm more familiar with Halliburton stuff.)

SotB,

" I’m all in ,calling your bluff !"

Sorry, but in that case you've lost your stack and don't even have taxifare home.

It's a DST, goddamit. The permanent Production Packer / tailpipe assembly hasn't been run yet. That comes later, after the DST, when installing the temporary suspension completion.

And yes, I know (or strongly suspect, from information gleaned) that the horizontal may have been displaced to base oil, but as it's the horizontal, that has utterly no hydrostatic 'well control' impact.

They're not running the DST with the well underbalanced, for chrissake. No 'valve'.

SotB, "A valve has sealed off the reservoir'. Balderdash. Piffle. Utter horse-pucky.

SotB, If the well isn't 'open', how the eff are they running in the DST string? Behave yourself. Wellwell's had a tough day...

Wellwell is correct. Many hours to go yet. And anyway, in principle, one never starts a DST outside of daylight hours. If the co-man's any good at all, even if it entails some 'slack time', they'll wait 'till the 'morning call's' been done, 'morning meeting' done, and so on. No rush. A few hours is nothing. Even at 10,000 bucks an hour. Safety first.

I can't help noticing that once again RBD is one of the day's top performers, whereas UJO hasn't budged. Maybe some people are beginning to see the light...

Sundaysun,

".I read the article which has rather ripe language in it "

Yes. That, and the misspelling of Rathlin made me very doubtful about it. Plus also the author mentioning he'd 'topsliced' for what is really quite a lot of money for normal folk. If he's just made that tidy profit, what the heck's he doing wasting time writing semiliterate articles about the share?

I don't trust it. The volumes mentioned by the partners are already very good. Why try to hype them bigger without any evidence to back up such claims?