Hot spot for geothermal research - Connexus

 

The Christensen Diamond Products manufacturing plant opened in Celle, Germany, in 1957. The facility built diamond core heads and drill bits and later expanded to make downhole tools. In 1977, the Celle engineering and manufacturing team introduced the Navi-Drill™ line of downhole drilling motors.

After a series of mergers and acquisitions that began in the late 1970s, the facility became part of Baker Hughes in 1990 with the acquisition of Eastman Christensen. Other innovations developed in Celle include the industry’s first steerable motor system and the AutoTrak™ rotary steerable closed-loop system.

The Celle Technology Center (CTC), as it’s called today, was expanded in 2009 to support joint technology developments, including geothermal, with operators and local universities. Since its grand reopening, the CTC is also home to the Baker Hughes Center of Excellence for geothermal and high-temperature research and development.

In 2009, Baker Hughes and the Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) state government jointly launched a multimillion euro, five-year cooperative university research project aimed at improving the technology for generating geothermal energy from very deep (4000 m to 6000 m) [13,123 ft to 19,685 ft] geological formations. With guidance from Baker Hughes scientists in Celle, Lower Saxony’s technical universities will combine their acknowledged strengths in geosciences, material sciences, drilling technology and technical systems in order to generate leading-edge research results for Baker Hughes to integrate into the development of sustainable and marketable products and services.

The Lower Saxony state government is also providing financial support for Baker Hughes’ research and development of high-temperature electronics for use in drilling and evaluation, as well as completion and production applications. In addition, Germany’s federal government has awarded Baker Hughes a cofunded project to develop cost-efficient drilling technologies for geothermal wells.

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US Steel Tubular Products to open Innovation & Technology Center for industry customers

By Joanne Liou, editorial coordinator

U.S. Steel Tubular Products (USS) will open the Innovation & Technology Center at its Houston offices on 28 March. The 10,000-sq-ft facility will serve as a training and education facility for customers, stakeholders and the community; it will be open to host events, such as lunch-and-learn sessions, industry association meetings and employee training. The center features six areas of interest devoted to research and development innovations; services and connections; manufacturing; inspection and testing; raw materials; and an overview area showcasing the company’s history.

The six areas reflect the company’s integrated supply chain and vision. “We started this vision of customer-driven tubular focus within our tubular segment,” Douglas R. Matthews, senior vice president – tubular operations of USS, said at a media event last week. “We need to be a stronger supporter – supporting technology developments that help our customers do their job easier, faster, better, cheaper.” The display of artificial iron ore, coke and limestone show the process of selecting and mining the materials. In the manufacturing exhibit, visitors can learn about the process and how materials are refined.

USS’ technologies and services are featured in the products, services and connections area of the center. Some of the company’s latest advances, such as the USS Buttress Thread, are showcased in the R&D innovations area. The interactive inspection and testing exhibit allows guests to test the performance capacity of various products through a touch-screen virtual testing system. Throughout the center, videos, posters and simulations give visitors an in-depth look and understanding of different technologies and process involved within the steel and tube-making process.

“We’re excited about this step in the evolutionary process of being tubular focus and customer driven,” Mr Matthews said. “We’re making sure our customers are at the forefront and identifying what their needs are and being responsive and proactive to supporting those needs, and we feel that this grand opening of our innovation and technology center is a step in that direction.”

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Geothermal Energy Production - Connexus

Today, there is more interest than ever in geothermal power. A 2010 report by the Geothermal Energy Association called “Geothermal Energy: International Market Update” states that both the number of countries producing geothermal power and the total worldwide geothermal power capacity under development appear to be increasing significantly.

The report found that between 2005 and 2010, Germany was the fastest growing geothermal power producer in the world with a whopping 2,774 percent increase in installed megawatt capacity.

Increased awareness of “clean” energy to reduce CO2 emissions, concern over continued world oil production and rising costs of energy exports are all helping to expand Germany’s renewable energy market. But perhaps the biggest driver powering the growth is the country’s Renewable Energy Sources Act—a very ambitious plan to replace 30 percent of the total electricity consumption in Germany with renewable energy by 2030. By 2050, the goal is 60 percent.

Germany announced its new energy goals at the end of the last millennium and today is one of the leading industrial nations in the renewable energy sources sector, according to the country’s Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.

Helping fuel this trend toward climate-friendly energy are government incentives in the form of grants to industries and universities to research and develop enhanced geothermal technologies, and 20-year fixed feed-in tariffs to power plant operators that give priority to electricity that comes from renewable energy sources, such as geothermal—making higher risk and higher cost projects more feasible.

This increase in geothermal drilling and production has made geothermal the fastest growing business for Baker Hughes in continental Europe. Plus, with the Baker Hughes Center of Excellence for geothermal and high-temperature research and development in Celle, Germany, the company is well positioned to support the growing demand for products and services, as well as the government’s ambitious target.

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Special webcast: Defining challenges and potential solutions for MPD in deepwater drilling

Posted on 27 March 2012

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IADC group VP/publisher Mike Killalea sat down with David Pavel, global director of business development for Weatherford International, and Gavin Humphreys, manager – technology and new business for Stena Drilling, at the 2012 SPE/IADC Managed Pressure and Underbalanced Operations Conference & Exhibition in Milan, Italy on 20 March to discuss the challenges and possible solutions to MPD applications in deepwater. Key barriers to implementation include issues related to planning, procurement and operations. “Right now the challenge for drilling deepwater MPD is getting the fleet that exist in the world today … to a point where we can deploy this type of equipment and procedure on these rigs,” Mr Pavel said.

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Continuous circulation systems build healthier wells, reduce risk in difficult environments

 

By Linda Hsieh, managing editor, and Katherine Scott, editorial coordinator

Just as humans can be injured even by a short interruption of the blood supply through our arteries and veins, wellbores also need continuous flow through the pipe and annulus to prevent potential harm. That was the analogy used by Angelo Ligrone, vice president logistics for Eni, at the 2012 SPE/IADC Managed Pressure Drilling and Underbalanced Operations Conference and Exhibition on 20 March in Milan, Italy. He presented Eni’s work on two proprietary technologies – a circulation device called the e-CD and a near-balance drilling technology called e-NBD. The company has used both to significantly reduce risks during the drilling process, particularly in difficult deepwater drilling environments.

Angelo Ligrone presented work related to Eni’s e-CD and e-NBD are proprietary technologies, which that enable the company to maintain constant bottomhole pressure with continuous circulation, at the 2012 SPE/IADC Managed Pressure Drilling and Underbalanced Operations Conference and Exhibition on 20 March in Milan, Italy.

“If we can get performance but without safety, this is not performance. Safety and performance have to come hand in hand,” said Mr Ligrone, who until recently served as vice president of drilling technology for Eni.

The e-CD, introduced in 2005, is a system that allows for continuous mud circulation to maintain constant bottomhole pressure while making up or breaking out drill pipe connections during drilling operations. “We have controlled the ECD (equivalent circulating density) throughout the drilling process, thus eliminating mud pressure fluctuations,” Mr Ligrone explained. This in turn prevents problems such as wellbore instability, as well as reduces nonproductive time.

In 2010, Eni introduced e-NBD, a technology born out of the company’s success with the e-CD. “By adding a rotating BOP and bringing it down on top of the conventional BOP stack and the active choke system, the e-CD becomes the e-NBD system,” he said. The technology allows for the maintenance of constant bottomhole annular pressure at all times while circulating and to manage the annular dynamic hydraulic pressure profile. “The benefits indeed are well control and safety first of all … and improving hole conditions.”

He added that e-NBD is an enabling technology helping Eni get to targets where conventional technologies cannot, particularly for operations within narrow pore/fracture pressure gradients, as well as for HPHT and underbalanced operations. In March 2008, for example, Eni completed its first e-NBD HPHT well in Egpyt at 5,450 meters TD; this “nightmare” scenario involved 2.25 sg mud, 2.23 pore gradient and 2.26 equivalent mud weight fracture gradient.

In another example offshore Libya, the e-NBD system was deployed from a floating rig to reenter a temporarily abandoned exploration well where drilling activities had been stopped due to conventional drilling limits. The bottomhole target was reached without problems using e-NBD, Mr Ligrone said.

Onshore as well, the technology has been used in difficult drilling environments. A vertical land well in Pakistan used e-NBD to drill the 10 5/8-in. and 8 ½-in. sections to reach the gas targets. “The decision to drill the section with the e-NBD system was taken based on the fact that such phases were explorative, and the only data available from one reference well in the area was showing a high formation pressure with an incremental trend of the pore pressure gradient,” he said. The reference weight had been suspended due to continuous formation pressure increase and strong gas showed a high percentage of gas present and well construction limitations, he continued.

“I will stress again that safety and performance have to go hand in hand. We cannot have performance without safety or safety without performance,” Mr Ligrone emphasized. “They are essential in ensuring a sustainable drilling business. Continuous circulation is recognized as a key factor for safer and faster drilling.”

e-CD and e-NBD are trademarks of Eni.

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