"Deep Oil"-High Tech Drilling Techniques
Tuesday, January 30, 2007SUSIE GHARIB: Oil companies are spending billions of dollars in hopes of producing billions of barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico's deep water. But deep water drilling is risky. As we continue our series "Deep Oil," Diane Eastabrook looks at the cutting-edge technologies the oil industry is using to make deep-water drilling safer and more effective.
DIANE EASTABROOK, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Five years ago, Chevron drilled an exploratory well here and found oil beneath 4,300 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico. Was it a lucky strike on Chevron's part? Not quite.
BARNEY ISSEN, GEOPHYSICIST, CHEVRON: Right there, believe it or not, as ambiguous as that image looks, we're looking at about half a billion barrels of oil.
EASTABROOK: Chevron geophysicist Barney Issen is viewing a 3-D computer image of the Tahiti field in the Gulf of Mexico. These seismic images created by sound waves convinced Chevron that peaks in a salt layer were created by oil.
ISSEN: Oil wants to migrate uphill, so this suggested to us that oil would have migrated up until it couldn't move any further, when it reaches the salt layer and there it would sit for several millions of years waiting for us to drill it.
EASTABROOK: Cutting-edge technology like 3-D imaging is helping the oil industry explore and produce crude in hard-to-reach areas beneath the ocean floor. Paul Siegele, Chevron vice president of deepwater exploration projects, says technology is reducing the risk of deep water drilling, making it more viable.
PAUL SIEGELE, V.P., DEEPWATER EXPLORATION, PROJECTS, CHEVRON: Just about anywhere you turn, there is some really exciting technological challenges that are being met in order to make this commercial.
EASTABROOK: Deepwater drilling isn't an exact science. Engineers can't be absolutely certain what geologic obstacles they might encounter or what the consistency of the oil will be. To prevent and solve problems in well-drilling, Halliburton is placing sensors in drill assemblies. These are the tube-like structures directly behind the drill bit. The sensors relay seismic information about the drilling process to computers that convert it to 3-D images. At an off-site laboratory, Halliburton manager of geo-science Nicholas Purday can monitor drilling.
NICHOLAS PURDAY, MANAGER OF GEOSCIENCE, HALLIBURTON: We can real time adjust the well and this is a good example here where we're adjusting a well real time. We've kind of come in, we've hit the top of the reservoir. Then we've come out of the top of the reservoir again, so we would use Halliburton's tools to real time steer the well back into the reservoir.
EASTABROOK: Getting to the oil is only half of the battle. Getting it out is the other half. That is where drilling fluids come in. They are used to carry out rock, mud, and sand at the bottom of oil wells. During deepwater drilling, the fluids are subjected to very extreme temperature changes. Baker-Hughes deepwater operations manager Gerry Authement says chemists are developing new drilling fluids that should adapt to those changes.
GERRY AUTHEMENT, DEEPWATER OPERATIONS MANAGER, BAKER HUGHES: We have to design the fluid to where it doesn't get too thin, so it can carry the cuttings out or too thick, to where you can still pump it. So, we have to make sure, under those conditions, it's pumpable fluid and doesn't cause any problems while drilling.
EASTABROOK: Since the Tahiti field is in such deep water, a traditional fixed oil platform can't be used. So, a floating one like this will be used. Mustang Engineering is designing the platform that Chevron will use at the Tahiti field when it starts producing oil there next year. The Tahiti project is presenting unique challenges. Because it is so far from land, redundant systems must be built. Those redundancies add to the weight of the platform. Mustang upstream project manager Gary Wilkes says engineers are getting around the problem through innovation.
GARY WILKES, UPSTREAM PROJECT MANAGER, MUSTANG ENGINEERING: We used a lot of fiberglass. We used some aluminum and then we tried to limit the design. We tried not to be too extravagant with what we actually put out there in terms of facilities.
EASTABROOK: While all of this innovation makes deepwater drilling possible, it also makes the process more expensive. But oil companies believe the money spent on technology now will result in increased oil production and healthier profits in the future. Diane Eastabrook, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Houston Texas.
