Prototype Evaluation of a Casing Drilling System

Research output: ThesisMaster's Thesis

Abstract

In the last four years BAUER AG has developed and built two drilling rigs, called Tiefbohranlage 300 and Tiefbohranlage 200. Both rigs are state-of-the-art Super-Single-Rigs and have like the most Super-Single-Rigs the disadvantage of very low tripping speeds compared to double or triple rigs. To overcome this problem, casing drilling techniques can be a solution for single rigs by saving the drill string tripping process. BAUER AG is interested in the implementation of these systems to overcome the tripping time issue. As first point all on the market available casing drilling systems have been analyzed and benchmarked by their drilling parameters and have been compared with each other, to find out which systems are even interesting for the implementation on the BAUER rigs. Also the advantages, disadvantages and the application areas of the different techniques were discussed. After the evaluation phase the implementation of the analyzed casing drilling systems on the BAUER rigs were assessed to determine all arising modification costs and all technical issues which can occur while installing the systems on the rig. The last point covers the Casing Drilling System FRS2500 which was developed by BAUER AG in cooperation with B+N Geothermie. Primarily the system was developed for casing running which is able to run casing while circulating, reciprocating and rotating the casing string at any time. BAUER AG also realised that their system has the potential to be a cost friendly and competitive casing drilling system which allows the casing to be washed and reamed to bottom any time a tight hole or a fill is encountered. As it is a prototype only a small part of theoretical maximum loads were known or in some cases not even this information was available. To find out all the missing specifications, empirical tests and a casing running operation have been conducted. The plan to carry out a Casing-Drilling operation could not be brought to fruition during this work as technical and safety issues were observed in a earlier testing phase. After all tests were accomplished and the results were analyzed, different recommendations for further modifications on the Casing Drive System are discussed.

Details

Translated title of the contributionPrototyp Evaluierung eines Casing Drilling Systems
Original languageEnglish
QualificationDipl.-Ing.
Awarding Institution
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Wenger, Roland, Supervisor (external), External person
  • Thonhauser, Gerhard, Supervisor (internal)
Award date17 Dec 2010
Publication statusPublished - 2010