Articles

“Problem-solving leaders have one thing in common: a faith that there’s always a better way.”
Gerald M. Weinberg

The Challenge of High-Temperature Drilling

ProDirectional relentlessly pursues innovation and technology advancements to provide drilling services that are in a class of their own. The pursuit of energy has led to many technological advances, but it has also led to many technological challenges. One of those challenges is directional drilling in high-temperature environments. Hot hole wells are an increasingly puzzling challenge to energy providers as the oil and gas industry seeks deeper zones of pay, new plays, or expands into new energy sources such as geothermal energy.

As downhole temperatures increase, equipment capability is stretched to its limits. So, how does a drilling engineer mitigate the risks of drilling in high-temp environments?

Industry Demands and Regional Challenges

Existing plays in Texas such as the Eagle Ford Shale and Austin Chalk are current areas of exploration that have seen an increase in the demand for high-temp drilling experience. Other plays, like the Haynesville and Bakken have seen an increased need for successful hot-hole MWD tools. As temperatures climb in downhole environments, previously designed and used MWD tools are seeing failures that drive up costs for drilling projects. Time lost for repairs means time not drilling. Time lost drilling means time not producing. This is critical to major and smaller producers, both.

Advanced Testing and Preparation

How do we reduce the NPT that customers are exposed to? Our focus lies in deploying the strongest possible defense through rigorous testing and design processes that exceed industry standards. This commitment extends beyond our design phase to the pre-deployment stage of our tools. Before our equipment hits the road, we verify its ability to perform at the highest level. We defend against the unknowable in the best way possible by over-preparing.

The Power of Redundancy in Hot Hole Environments

While our equipment undergoes thorough preparation before leaving our facilities, we recognize that not every possible failure can be prevented. MWD tools face extreme and tortuous exposure while doing their job, with heat limits that can overcome current hardware and impact shock that can break even the sturdiest internal components. This reality drives our redundancy feature in gamma tool design, providing users with assurance that two is one and one is none.

The key to success in horizontal drilling lies in accurately knowing the bit’s location within the zone of interest. When this capability fails, drilling time is typically lost due to pulling out of the well to replace the gamma tool. Our tools, however, feature the ability to swap out the gamma tool live while in the well at depth through our redundancy approach. This capability saves critical hours of NPT, reinforcing our customers’ trust in keeping them on schedule, on budget, and on task.

Quality Through In-House Excellence

One of the biggest factors in our success working in plays that see temperatures up to 200° C is our in house maintenance and design. Standing behind our tools comes naturally because we oversee every aspect of their preparation for the field.

Building Long-Term Success

ProDirectional builds trust and strong relationships with customers because that drives mutual success. Twenty years under the ProDirectional banner, combined with countless years of individual experience amongst our team, demonstrates our proven ability to solve customer problems. Hot hole wells represent another arena where we answer our customers’ calls, creating better paths to profitable assets.

If you have directional drilling needs in hot-hole scenarios, give us a call to discuss how ProDirectional can help you reach your target.

We’re focused on your results

Continuous innovation, service excellence, and reliability. That’s what we’re known for at ProDirectional. However, we don’t innovate for the sake of finding a new way to do things. For us, it all comes down to enabling our clients to reach the kind of success they’re aiming for.

Whether it’s developing new MWD tools, enhancing industry-leading mud motors, or finding a more efficient way to repair and maintain equipment, we leverage our expertise to deliver value to our clients in a way they haven’t seen before. The collective best efforts of our application engineering, field operators, remote operations specialists, coordinators, project managers, and other team members is what leads to client success — and our clients always know they can depend on us.

It’s not enough to just say these things; however. With many success stories under our belts, we wanted to share a recent engagement with a client in the Eagle Ford / South Texas region that really encapsulates our commitment to excellence.

In fact, you can hear the words straight from the client themselves: 

“To the whole team, I commend you for your unceasing resolve to push for performance and influencing all our service partners to do the same!”

Why do they feel this way? Let’s find out!

Saving time and costs on a challenging well pad

Any operator will tell you that when you’re dealing with a challenging well pad with multiple wells that have long laterals, your bottom line isn’t always going to look the way you want it to. At ProDirectional, when we’re faced with such conditions, we bring in our application engineers — industry-leading minds with extensive experience in this area — to devise a drilling plan that exceeds client expectations.

• 6-well pad 
• Two 4-K laterals and four 6-K laterals
• One science pilot hole well

Our team developed a well plan which included:

• Motor: [Name motor and link to motor page]
• MWD tools: [Name MWD tool and link to tool page]
• [Any other tools] 

The result? The drilling performance on this pad outshone every other pad since the beginning of this operator’s drilling program.

• All-time basin records: 2,937 FT/DAY and 2,853 FT/DAY
• On average records: 538 FT/DAY over goal
• All-well average: 2,200 FT/DAY
• Schedule: 9.7 days under plan
• Costs: $1.9 million under plan
• Work breakdown structure: 13% under plan

More than impressive numbers

The level of client success this operator achieved may sound unique, but it is only one story with many others just like it. Our commitment to client success is something we focus on every day and with every client.

Here is what this client noted as part of our standout performance:

• Navigating challenging conditions: Normally when you see this type of drilling performance, it correlates with a flat lateral path. However, with this pad, we drilled laterals containing over 250 ft of vertical throws caused by several faults and over 38 degrees of plan changes in the lateral alone.
• Attention to health, safety, and the environment: Over the course of this engagement with the client, there were zero accidents, incidents, or spills.
• Professional operations: We monitored and followed clean-up cycles, trip speed, and excess drag protocols to ensure a clean wellbore after trips for production casing runs.

• Impeccable communication: ProDirectional was in continuous communication with the geosteering team to adjust the optimal drilling window while navigating through 250+ ft of vertical throw in the lateral.
• Consistent downhole tool reliability: The client was continuously impressed with the reliability of our MWD tools and mud motor equipment. This is as a direct result of our repair and maintenance program, ensuring each piece of equipment can perform reliably under challenging conditions in the field.
• Remote operations support: Our Remote Operations Center provided a wealth of expertise to the field operators, the team was ready to troubleshoot any issue that arose on any well in the pad.
• Minimal non-productive time: We averaged under five hours of non-productive time on all non-science wells. 

On top of all that, what really stood out to the client was our team’s collaboration with their rig crew and service partners. We are all working on the same project and we’re on the same team. This means that our field crew is there to support the operator’s rig crew and other service providers that are there at the well — because we know we are only as strong as the weakest link.

Your success is our mission 

Client success means everything to our team, which is why we are constantly focused on innovative solutions to challenging situations. Whether you’re dealing with a difficult well pad with long laterials or something else, our application engineers are ready to roll up their sleeves and figure out a well plan that will help you reach your goals — and most likely exceed them, too.

Get in touch with ProDirectional today to learn more about our commitment to client success and our innovative approach to drilling.

Enabling operators to drill wells without non-productive time is what we do everyday.

Our customers know us for our constant reliability, in everything from our equipment to our service. 

So, what makes us so reliable in the first place? It has everything to do with our application engineering process. 

Instead of taking an off-the-shelf approach and purchasing all of our motor components, we optimize the equipment to better meet the needs of each operator and the environment in which they are drilling. Mud motors are an incredible piece of equipment that is responsible for faster and more efficient drilling, and we take great pride in the motors that we produce.

Ever wondered how a mud motor actually works and the different components it contains? You’re about the find out.

The mud motor: breaking down each major component 

A mud motor has four main sections: the lower-end bearing pack, the drilling motor transmission, the bent housing, and the power section. At ProDirectional, our mud motors are based on the industry’s most trusted power sections, which we combine with our highly engineered lower-end design in the bearing and transmission sections. Together, this creates the most reliable mud motor in the industry. 

The lower end bearing pack

This section of the mud motor includes the flow diverter, upper radial bearing, axial bearings, lower radial bearing, near-bit removable or fixed stabilizer, mandrel, and bit box.

The lower end bearing pack transfers the torque and RPM, which is generated by the power section and the top drive of the rig, to the drill bit. It also connects the rest of the mud motor to the drill bit. The lower end bearing pack includes a number of bearing surfaces and shafts which are designed to transfer power by carrying the weight on bit and transmitting torque.

The drilling motor transmission

The job of the mud motors transmission is to connect the rotor to the lower end bearing pack. It also converts the motion of the rotor, which is eccentric, into a concentric rotary motion, which results in more consistent energy transfer to the drill bit. The drilling motor transmission essentially carries the torque and rotary motion that is created by the power section to the lower end.

At ProDirectional, we have motor sizes for every interval from surface to slimhole drilling applications. 

The bent housing

Sometimes, the bent housing section is considered to be a part of the mud motor transmission section. However, because it plays such an important role in directional drilling, we are detailing it as a separate component. 

In directional drilling, the bent housing is what enables curved drilling. It is made of a premium-grade steel which has a slight angle that can range from 0 to 3 degrees. Using this segment of the mud motor, the directional driller can orient the motor to drill in a specific direction, rather than drilling a straight line. To achieve the desired well geometry, operators have to carefully calculate the direction of drilling using highly reliable MWD tools. 

The power section

This section contains the top sub, rotor catch, stator, and rotor. Here is where the hydraulic energy of the drilling fluid is converted into rotational horsepower. 

At ProDirectional, our power sections are tuned for hard rock, soft shale, highly inter bedded rock, and many other drilling environments. We also have elastomers for water or oil-based mud that can be used for standard or high-temperature drilling environments.

The difference application engineering makes

There are many service providers that offer operators mud motors drilling equipment. What makes our drilling motors different? It has something to do with the 100,000,000+ feet of drilling experience we have under our belts, combined with our focus on application engineering.

Unlike other service providers that simply purchase or rent mud motors technology from manufacturers and then use them in the field, we take a different approach. 

In order to exceed the performance goals of our customers, we optimize the drilling technology based on our extensive field experience. Every time our team goes out into the field, we learn from the challenges the different geographies create and then use that information to further optimize the equipment.

This results in less downtime and minimizes non-productive time because our mud motors are highly reliable. They have been tried and tested, optimized, and then tried and tested again. 

Not only that, but we also repair and maintain all of our own equipment instead of letting third parties provide that service. This enables us to be well-informed about the wear and tear on each mud motor component so that we can get ahead of any issues before they arise. Quality control is something we take very seriously.

 

ProDirectional’s application engineering highlights

Here’s how we ensure our mud motors technology never fails in the field:

• Optimization and refinement: We have engineered the proprietary drive line and lower end based on our field experience to minimize non-productive time. 

• Extreme power: We have sourced the most reliable power sections in the industry to ensure maximum power is delivered to the drill bit.

• Quality control: We reinforce our stringent quality standards with a full department that is dedicated to the repair and maintenance of our equipment.

• Innovative processes: Instead of a manual approach, we digitally track each mud motor component to ensure all repair and maintenance is up to date. 

• Professional expertise: Our application engineering team consults with customers to determine the best mud motor configuration for their geography and performance goals.

Continuous improvement: The job is never done at ProDirectional. Our engineers are always updating our design and equipment to better perform in the field.

Reliable mud motors drilling for your application

Don’t settle for any mud motor. If you want to avoid non-productive time on your well and eliminate extra trips downhole, get in touch with ProDirectional today to learn more about our mud motors technology, how it works, and what configurations our application engineers recommend for your well.

Highly customized MWD equipment and mud motors get the job done

If you consider the different basins and geographical areas in the continental United States, there is a lot of diversity in the formation, well construction requirements, and reservoir temperatures. That means that the way you drill wells in these different basins needs to be diverse also — you cannot use the same MWD tools and mud motor technology in the Permian as in the Haynesville because you’re dealing with a completely different application. 

That’s why when you’re considering which MWD and directional drilling service provider to work with, it’s important to look at their diversification of technology and skill. If they can’t offer a way to customize the drilling equipment based on the characteristics of your specific application, you may end up in a situation where you’re dealing with non-productive time as a result of downhole equipment issues — costing you a lot of time and money.

At ProDirectional, we pride ourselves on our ability to adapt to any drilling situation. We understand how important it is for our clients to avoid NPT, so we come prepared with the right tools for the task at hand.

MWD services and mud motors for the oil and gas industry

We are experienced in drilling in every major basin across the United States, from the Eagle Ford Basin to the Permian or Haynesville, and a multitude of others. With this kind of diverse experience, we have had the opportunity to develop the range of drilling equipment required for each type of geographical area.

Mud motors for directional drilling

We offer our customers over 30 different types of directional motor configurations — far more than the typical directional drilling service provider on the market. Our application engineers carefully select the downhole motor configurations our customers need by evaluating the different formations and temperatures we have to drill through, resulting in a job that remains on schedule and maximizes efficiency. 

Measurement while drilling (MWD) tools

Not only that, but we also have four different MWD equipment platforms — Sprint MWD, Octane MWD, Octane XT MWD, and Electromagnetic MWD — allowing us the ability to accurately, safely, and successfully drill in any area regardless of the challenges our clients are facing. 

We don’t try to force fit generic technology for every application. Instead, we customize the drilling motor and MWD tools to meet our customers’ unique needs on location. 

Drilling with mud motors and MWD technology that’s fit for purpose 

Our application engineers and operational teams recommend which MWD equipment and mud motors our customers should use based on the unique characteristics of each basin. 

• Eagle Ford Basin: In this area of Texas, speed is a driving factor. It’s important to choose powerful equipment that can drill quickly and efficiently. In addition, downhole temperatures can be elevated in this region, so it’s important to have equipment that can withstand extreme heat while performing reliably. 
• Permian Basin: In this region, there are a multitude of target formations that are produced, so one of its unique characteristics is the diversity itself. We have a range of downhole drilling equipment that can be customized to meet the needs of each benchmark in the Permian — that goes for both the Midland and the Delaware basins. 
• Haynesville: Temperature is an important factor here because it gets extremely hot in this harsh drilling environment. This area also requires equipment that is going to be highly reliable — because if an issue occurs in the production interval, it can take a day or more to get back into the hole. We always aim for some speed here; but we really focus on going for reliability to lower well costs. 
• Marcellus and Utica: In these regions, we frequently drill on air. Here we utilize electromagnetic (EM) MWD tools for the right results. Plus, we’re dealing with extremely long extended reach laterals, which require highly specialized knowledge and capabilities.
• Powder River and the Rockies: In these areas, the drilling applications vary a lot, and  there are also challenges around getting the MWD equipment and steerable motors where they need to be on time, especially in the winter months. This requires a regional presence as well as specialized logistical and operational experience along with proper job planning. 

Pivoting with downhole drilling tools and steerable motors 

Across the board, ProDirectional has the most diverse asset base which we can customize according to the needs of the many different applications clients have. What this also means is that we have the ability to pivot faster than other service providers.

For example, if we encounter an unexpected issue while drilling that requires a different type of mud motor or MWD tool — in any basin — we have the technology available in house we can deploy right away, minimizing NPT for our customers.

Unrivaled expertise in downhole mud motor design and MWD tools

Having the ability to offer customized MWD equipment and mud motor tools is one thing; you need the application engineering expertise to oversee it. That’s why we have an application engineering team that supports each of the different regions we operate in, with dedicated personnel for key basins. In addition, we also have operational teams to support each basin, along with our well planning team. 

Our experts become specialists in their areas  by focusing their time and effort on the unique characteristics of the location and the challenges that can arise because of them. This helps us to be ready with solutions that we can apply whenever a problem emerges, saving our customers time and money. 
Supporting our application engineers, operational teams, and well planning teams is our Remote Operations Center, which consists of highly experienced personnel that have knowledge of all the major basins. They are available 24/7/365 to provide guidance on any issues that occur.

You need the right MWD tools and downhole motors for the job 

Don’t settle for service providers that want to jam a square peg in a round hole. You simply can’t achieve the results you want by using generic technology for specific applications. Reduce non-productive time and increase performance — while saving your time and money — by choosing fit-for-purpose technology that is highly customized for your application and managed by personnel with specialized knowledge. 

Get in touch with ProDirectional today to discuss the specific characteristics of your drilling application.