Successful Deployment: Celebrating Over 6 Years of Delta?

Celebrating 6 years of Successful Deployment

Over the past 6 years, Grant Prideco? Delta? connection has proven itself time and again helping to drill some of the world’s most challenging wells, bringing to the surface much-needed natural resources to power our world.?To celebrate a promise delivered, we look back on the development, creation, and successes of Delta. ??Along the way, we highlight the most important lessons learned, our plans for Delta? and the industry in the years to come.

Why Delta??

The history of double-shouldered connections is one of incremental improvements over forty-two years. All the major intellectual property driving this development is owned by Grant Prideco?. ?We have come a long way from the industry’s first API connections, which offered satisfactory performance in comparatively shallow vertical wells, to double-shouldered connections utilizing API threads.?Intuitively the initial move to add a secondary shoulder increased the torsional performance by 100%.?We are now developing more complex proprietary thread designs offering higher torque, better hydraulics while maintaining the connection tensile rating. The drill pipe market, as many have often noted, has become challenging to navigate.

How can anyone be sure that the product they select will provide the promised return on investment?

Technology that works in one environment may be poorly adapted in another. Many products designed for offshore have proven expensive or disappointing when moved to land drilling. ?A perfect example: Rotary Steerable a successful product offshore in a market with relatively easy drilling, more downtime between runs and a financially larger support base; had to be adapted to new conditions in land drilling operations: smaller budgets, back-to-back runs, minimal downtime, and relatively harsh drilling conditions made it more difficult to be cost-effective, success was slower in coming.

In the world of Rotary Shoulder Connections, the fast-paced tempo of onshore operations, in a highly cost-aggressive environment with the constant drive to drill faster, coupled with less forgiving rig equipment, had resulted in more pipe and thread damages, higher rejection rate of connections and an overall more expensive Total Cost of Ownership. But the added torque, improved hydraulics, slimmer connection ODs and overall improvement in drilling meant money could be made with the right products. ?What had to be overcome was the cost of ownership differential which resulted from more recuts (running damages) uneven wear on the tool joints (more torque means more aggressive drilling with steerable assemblies) more pipe rejects, higher costs of connection repair, and longer trip times. There needed to be better alignment between cost and performance.

Grant Prideco? decided to launch Delta? with the express goal of addressing those concerns. ?We knew a true industry disruption would bring added value to drillers and the operators they work for. ??The concept and overall design of Delta? was to maintain performance while improving total cost of ownership.?Today, we celebrate the demonstrated success in reducing overall cost of ownership while improving performance.

We have delivered over 8 million feet of Delta? to the field; Drilled thousands of wells on both land and offshore, in over 20 countries; Hundreds of thousands of individual connection inspections have confirmed the performance and ruggedness of Delta.?

In the coming years, Grant Prideco?will continue to be there, solving the industries biggest challenges. We will continue to power our world by making the undrillable, drillable.

Case Histories

Delta? 425 connection – Latin America

Operator’s Objective

NOV Grant Prideco?’s 4? in. drill pipe with Delta? 425 maximizes rig and downhole tool efficiency, while setting new footage and an ROP record in Latin America

The well lateral section was completed in 18 days, beating the previous best run by 8 days.

Using 4? in. drill pipe with Delta 425 connection instead of 4 in. drill pipe provided improved hydraulics (lower pressure drop), giving the downhole motor more hydraulic power (pressure and flow). The larger pipe and improved motor selection, combined with higher standpipe pressure, all contributed to enhanced rig capability.

Results

Improved drilling efficiency was achieved by switching pipe size and using a streamlined Delta? connection. Combined with the optimization of other aspects of the operation, it contributed to reducing several days of drilling.

Delta? 527 connection – Middle East

Operator’s objective

A customer operating in the Middle East wanted to drill wells quickly and efficiently. ?Their conventional tapered string design using 5? above 5 in. drill pipe was changed to a single string 5? in. drill pipe with Delta?enabled higher operating torque and improved hydraulics. In addition, Delta is easier to run, more robust, and more forgiving than anything in the market.

Post-drilling inspection results

??????1,827 ends (97.4%) accepted,

??????26 ends (1.4%) to reface (corrosion and/or damage),

??????23 ends (1.2%) to recut (18 for seal/thread damage or thread corrosion and 5 for thread galling).

This recut rate is much lower than the 7% seen on the previously used connection used to drill these challenging wells.

Benefits

Besides improved performances, the user also benefited from:

??????Lower costs for the repair of the Delta? connection,

??????A reduction in stick-slip with the unified 5? in. string design,

??????Improved geosteering response from optimized run parameters,

??????Net saving 4.5 days compared to previously drilled offsets.

Additional feedback from the Drilling Engineer: “We saved a lot by reducing the number of accessories required to handle the unified drill string!”