Tuesday, 22 October, 2024 / Edition 30

We as a society gobble up incredible amounts of energy, and all indications are that our appetite is only increasing. It behooves us to explore and optimize all forms of extraction, whether that’s continued improvement in drilling for fossil fuels, or exploring ways to harness all the excess energy our planet puts off.

This week, we will start by exploring a new bit (see what I did there?) of drilling technology that can improve efficiencies before diving into wave power.

Sarah Compton

Editor, Enspired

Efficiency is King

noomcpk/Shutterstock.com

Directional drilling has revolutionized the oil and gas industry (understatement of the year there!)

The latest: World Oil reported that Abu Dhabi-based TAQA has launched a new drilling technology, the Threlix, aimed at addressing challenges found in rotary steerable systems (RSS), such as vibration and torsional oscillations.

Context: Creating a horizontal wellbore is generally done using one of two tools:

1. Conventional BHAs and mud-motor set ups, in which steering is done using a combination of rotation from the top drive and a mud motor at the end of the bit (called sliding)

2. Rotary steerable systems (RSS), which are designed to steer while continuously rotating from the surface, so there is no sliding with a mud motor

A study from January 2023 found these differences:

• The average foot/hr rate was generally higher for RSS, though there was a section where the mud motor achieved faster rates.

• Hole tortuosity was greater for the mud motor than the RSS.

• Drilling the 6 1/8-inch hole for the RSS had a total cost of more than $120,000, while the mud motor costs rolled in at $40,000.

Operational objectives and costs are driving factors in decisions around which system makes sense for a given project, so any shortfall in wellbore quality or tool efficiency could have amplified downstream effects in situations where margins are thin.

How Threlix is upping the game:

• A proprietary helical spring and fully sealed internal components minimize friction and prevent fluid intrusion.

• The results include increased consistency in cutting depth and smoother drilling operations.

Yes, but: When I first read about these improvements, I initially thought, “So…they’re improving the parts of the process for which RSS are already better, while likely exacerbating cost.” But it is a bit more nuanced than that.

The decision to use RSS is often driven by environments where operational efficiencies are paramount and rig time is the main cost saver, so improvements in efficiency carry more weight than it might appear at first glance.

Where’s the geoscience? Teasing out geomechanical properties from drilling data is becoming a bigger business, as things like depletion begin to play a bigger role in drilling and completion decisions.

Tools that can increase consistency and/or reduce vibrations caused by drilling operations (as opposed to the rock/bit interaction alone) can help advance this field.

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Catching a Wave

Kelly Headrick/ Shutterstock.com

While surfing is fun (I’ve literally only caught a few baby waves in Australia during a surfing lesson, but it was a blast), when you consider the energy of waves, it seems like so much free energy is wasted because we have yet to figure out how to effectively harness it. But researchers are working on that.

Wave energy technology seeks to harness the energy of ocean waves using a variety of techniques:

• Some are oriented parallel to the waves to harness the kinetic energy that turns a turbine.

• Others are oriented to use the vertical motion of the wave to drive the turbine.

• And yet another kind uses the actual water of the wave to fill a column, which, once a sufficient height and volume are achieved, releases the water to (you guessed it…) move a turbine.

It’s easy to see the lure of harnessing waves to generate electricity, but there are challenges:

• The ocean is a harsh environment, both in terms of weather and materials. Salt water is not very forgiving to materials, and material failure can lead to pollution.

• Even when functioning appropriately, placing foreign objects in a natural environment can negatively impact the wildlife.

• Generating enough electricity from waves is harder than it sounds: you can generate electricity, but generating enough and transmitting it somewhere useful is very hard.

Companies have been hard at work to overcome those challenges, and one of those companies is Stockholm-based CorPower Ocean.

How it works:

• Its wave energy converters are point absorber type, with internal controls that pull the buoy down as its “at rest” state.

• Waves force the buoy up, and the mechanical energy of the up and down movement caused by the wave and adjustments made by the buoy generate electricity.

• Phase control technology, the big innovative addition to the buoys, maximizes electricity extraction and improves stability adjustments during storms by “detuning” the buoy, solving two big problems (sufficient energy extraction and storm durability) at once.

My big question, though relates to the “detuning” phase that the technology enters during storms. I’m not sure if a storm could turn off power generation or not, but I could see a big problem if it does, since a weakness of any power grid is failure during storms.

I’m a fan of all power generation, regardless, and am excited to see where this tech goes—especially since geoscientists have a big role to play with helping understand the wave energy that different parts of the ocean have/will experience. That knowledge would likely help with optimal placement and layout of these systems.

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✉️ To get in touch with Sarah or suggest a topic for Enspired, send an email to editorial@aapg.org.