Drilling advances

Oct. 2002 Vol. 223 No. 10  Drilling Advances

Robert E. Snyder,  Executive Engineering Editor

17th World Petroleum Congress. From September 2 – 5, Rio de Janeiro’s huge Riocentro complex was the site of the 17th WPC, last held in Calgary in 2000. The WPC Conference was held in conjunction with Rio Oil & Gas Expo 2002, one of the world’s five largest oil industry exhibitions. This combined venue made for four days of concentrated emphasis on politics and the petroleum industry, from pumping a 20-bopd oil well in northeastern Brazil, to supplying the world with hydrocarbon energy for the next 50 years – without disturbing the environment in the process. English was the official language of WPC, but Portuguese dominated the exhibition.

The final appraisal of the Brazilian Organizing Committee, chaired by João Carlos de Luca, showed that 3,461 delegates registered, an increase of 15% from Calgary’s 16th WPC – some 50% of these were from outside Brazil. Also participating were 200 students, 480 accompanying persons, and 650 journalists.

The Congress was organized with major plenary sessions in the morning featuring top-level international speakers. These were followed by technical sessions, comprising: 25 Forums with 5 – 6 papers each, 12 major Review and Forecast papers, and four, two-hour "Brazil sessions" on Wednesday. Technical sessions were presented daily in four Blocks organized by exploration / production, refining / petrochemical, natural gas and management issues.

Principal themes discussed highlighted new business opportunities in the oil industry – among which, the Brazilian market was noted as one of the most promising. Discussions on industry’s contribution to sustainable development and its social responsibility showed that it is "coming to grips" with developing "clean" technologies. Pricing policies, synergies between automotive and petroleum industries and the potential of natural gas as a principal energy source were topics of interest. Considerable time was devoted to application of e-business tools.

Example speakers from the 30 world leaders participating in presentations and debate included: OPEC’s secretary general, IEA’s director, energy ministers of India and Norway, Saudi Aramco’s president, OPEC’s president (Rilwanu Lukman) and PDVSA / ChevronTexaco / TotalFinaElf CEOs. Petrobras’ president (Francisco Gros) was part of the Brazilian speaker delegation, which also included the minister of energy, the National Petroleum Agency, and president of the Brazilian Petroleum Institute.

A Social Responsibility Arena was incorporated by the WPC in the exhibit area. It gathered 42 keynote speakers for its seminars and exhibited projects in areas of sustainable development and social responsibility. This involved 35 NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and 12 "cultural" presentations.

The Rio Oil & Gas exhibition drew 10,000 visitors each day, or 40,000 over the four days. The exhibition area encompassed over 30,000 m², 50% more than in 2000. There were 850 exhibitors from 32 countries, with about 4,000 people working the booths. Having spent more than a few years walking around show exhibits, it was a little different to see a high percentage of the familiar company names presented as Brazilian subsidiaries and manned by Portuguese-speaking personnel. It was also refreshing to see booths representing the many countries and companies we typically see only in print, for example: Angola, Cuba, China, India, Kuwait, Russia, Venezuela, Qatar and Romania.

The overall effect of participating in the WPC was a rather sobering realization that petroleum is a world project, and the people working in all those other countries are really oil people – not all that different than those in Houston, or West Texas or New Orleans. And they are developing their oil and gas resources with protection of the environment and optimum resource utilization very much in mind. The 18th WPC will meet in September 2005, in Johannesburg, South Africa – Rio will be a tough act to follow.

Ring drive drilling. An interesting new, recently patented development introduces the concept of a new type of top drive featuring a special ring shape. At the center of the drive is a removable core, which, when removed, opens a center hole in the drive. This allows the ring drive to be lowered or raised over drill pipe, while the portion of drill pipe being added or removed from the drillstring is being either made-up or broken-out of the string.

This hole allows the drive to be continually raised and lowered without waiting for stands of drill pipe to be either removed or added. The inventor says the new system can achieve minimum trip cycle time that is theoretically possible when drilling with fixed-length drill pipe, i.e., the time it takes to raise and lower the top drive in the derrick with no waiting.

Besides time savings, other inherent advantages claimed for the new system are features that reduce occurrences of stuck pipe, quicker recovery from stuck pipe, as well as features resulting in easier / safer drilling operations. Additional information is available in US Patent No. 6,412,576; or from the inventor, William J. Meiners, at +1 (813) 283-3698; or email: rddrilling@insightbb.com.

Slow U.S. land rig recovery. Lehman Brothers’ Drilling Permit Monthly says drilling permits for the 30 states it monitors decreased by 6.0% during August, from the July count, adjusted for comparable numbers of filing days. The decline was led by Montana (down 48%), New Mexico (down 35%), West Virginia (down 34%) and Wyoming (down 13%). Permit data suggests that a meaningful recovery won’t begin until October, and will probably only be moderate in the fourth quarter.

In another development affecting land rigs, as noted in IADC’s September Drill Bits, the IRS has proposed changing the definition of "highway vehicle" and, by so doing, eliminate a long-standing exemption from a variety of fuel and highway-vehicle taxes. If implemented, these changes would have substantial impact on the cost of operating certain types of land rigs.

This would apply tax on equipment sales, fuel use and tire purchases for trailer-mounted rigs, cranes and other oilfield equipment mounted on a chassis that is either pulled, e.g., trailer, or is self-propelled. They are seeking to do this by an administrative rule change in the definition of what constitutes a "highway vehicle."

Through the efforts of IADC and other affected industries, the deadline for comments on this proposed rule was rescheduled from September 4 to Dec. 4, 2002. The IADC staff is soliciting information on the possible effects of this rule. Contact Brian T. Petty, +1 (203) 293-0670; brian.petty@iadc.org; or Joe Hurt, ext. 224; joe.hurt@iadc.org.   

Comments? Write: snyderr@worldoil.com