Weatherford operations in South America
Growing activity levels are increasing service and equipment demand across a broad scope of applications.
Weatherford operations in South America
By Kyle Chapman, Weatherford International
COLOMBIAN OPERATIONS Growing activity levels are increasing service and equipment demand across a broad scope of applications. In response, Weatherford has significantly expanded its footprint in Colombia with the recent addition of new service and product lines for well design and performance improvement. In line with the rapidly growing oil and gas market in Colombia, Weatherford is increasing its presence—and offerings—to support clients from the Barinas to the Marañon basin. The introduction of the Contract Drilling product line is one way Weatherford is progressing in Colombia. Two 1,500-hp drilling units are now in the country working on a three-year contract in the Castilla and Chichimene fields for Ecopetrol. The rigs are located in the Llanos area south of Bogotá, where multilateral wells are being developed. Anticipated increases in activity may soon require additional rigs to be added to the fleet. These drilling operations are using Weatherford service lines, including wireline services, well construction, cased-hole completions and artificial-lift systems. Fracturing, stimulation and coiled-tubing services have recently been introduced into the Colombian marketplace. A total of 12,000 hp of fracturing and stimulation equipment, along with a 1 1/2-in. coiled-tubing unit, are already at work. Engineered Chemistry and drilling fluids are now available in Colombia, offering one of the most complete portfolios for oilfield applications. Through-tubing operations will be used with our coiled-tubing services, providing inflatable, milling and fishing capabilities to our clients—offering up-front alternatives to potential workover operations. To date, successful milling operations have been carried out for several companies. Drillstem testing offers the first introduction of this service in the Latin American region by Weatherford. Work has already been performed for a number of oil operators. Conventional slickline units from Canada are now providing slickline service to Colombian clients. Heavy-duty wireline fishing (HDWF) brings a complete surface package to Colombia, and operator interest is high as many wells are shut-in because of wellbore and fishing-related problems. Initially the HDWF service provides an alternative method to working over existing production wells. Early production facilities (EPFs) are also part of the Secure Drilling services offering. This market typically involves facility construction and equipment sales that include operation and management. To date, there are ongoing projects with several oil companies. Solid expandables offer strong potential in Colombia. Various systems for cased-hole applications have been run for several clients to date, and
Brazil offers rich growth potential for Weatherford. Weatherford has the opportunity to grow well above the market because we anticipated client needs in Brazil, develop long-range strategic plans and take well-considered risks to meet those needs, all with a nationalistic approach. The company’s objective in Brazil is to increase its clients’ productivity and efficiency. After gaining a foothold in 1995, Weatherford steadily acquired technologies and in-country manufacturing capabilities, built infrastructure and expanded our services and capabilities. The company continues to expand our technological reach across all product and service lines to match Brazil’s challenges, with a focus on deepwater operations. Weatherford pioneered the development of a unique deep-water drillpipe riser system in Brazil that has been applied extensively in the Santos, Campos and Espiritu Santo basins. Most recently, it added surface logging systems, integrated laboratory services, wireline services and integrated well construction, drawing on our full range of competencies. Weatherford is building differentiating capabilities on existing technology platforms such as managed pressure drilling and drilling services. Additionally, we are introducing younger technologies, including the GC-TRACER surface gas detector and the SeaLance subsea drilling-with-casing (DwC) system, the world’s first DwC system designed explicitly to optimize drilling in deepwater environments. With Petrobras alone set to spend more than $118 billion on E&P in Brazil through 2014, and offshore exploration shifting to development drilling, Weatherford is well prepared. The company’s product and service portfolio in Brazil spans the life cycle of the well. Weatherford has 1,850 employees in Brazil, four service bases, three manufacturing facilities, and one laboratory facility, for samples analysis and core storage. In 2010, the company commissioned a new, very large artificial lift manufacturing facility just outside Rio de Janeiro, with Brazil as its primary market focus. Brazil will remain a major hub of exploration and production activities, leading Latin America to represent a substantial share of Weatherford’s revenues by 2014. Brazil: Focus on offshore deepwater presalt projects Managed Pressure Drilling Some of the wells are going to be drilled in the exploratory area of the presalt with considerable pore pressure unknowns, coupled with narrow pore-fracture drilling window characteristic of HPHT conditions in offshore Brazil. Two MPD packages will be assigned for this scope. Some other wells are going to be drilled in mature fields where formation pressure depletion results in a very challenging problem at the moment where new wells will need to be drilled in order to maintain/increase the production quote of Marlim Leste and Sul fields that have also 1,500-to 2,000-m water depth as additional challenge. Drilling in this environment with normal drilling practices is basically and non-technically viable, extremely high circulation losses combined with gas kicks can make an operation also very unsafe as well as reaching TD a hard objective to accomplish. Two MPD packages, including two BTR RCD are going to be deployed and assigned for this scope. Underbalanced Drilling Performance Drilling New R&D facility and base in Macae New labs location in Rio de Janeiro Local content/manufacturing In Duque de Caxias, Westherford produces reciprocating rod lift pumps. All plants in addition to the Brazilian market also export to different countries in Latin America and abroad. In the beginning of 2010, Weatherford identified the need to create a group for local content in order to meet the needs of Brazilian market and ANP regulations. Toward that goal, today the company already has more than 100 local content certificates issued with a local content average percentage of 85%. The high percentage of local content is justified considering the three factories, five operation bases and one laboratory located in Brazil that use almost all Brazilian employees. Besides the Brazilian labor, the factories use raw materials and components of national origin in manufacturing equipment to maximize local content. Product lines in operations Control Systems WFT has an excellent reputation on this system based on the past projects with Petrobras and IOCs based on recent acquisition as EP-Solutions, BRISCO, SISCOM and CAC. Recently WFT has obtained from Petrobras the register on the Vendor List (CRCC) regarding Controls and Top Sides. This is the most important step to become a Controls supplier for Petrobras and their international partners on Pre Salt projects. In addition of this market development WFT is also supporting the EPCIs and SURF companies in Brazil with final projects with Controls Systems for Petrobras and their partners. Drill pipe riser Plus all WFT portfolio For production Weatherford helps maximize reservoir recovery and optimize field production through artificial lift, well optimization services and products, and intelligent completion systems that remotely monitor and control well, facility or field production. And finally for intervention, the company helps remediate wells that have mechanical or formation problems. Weatherford helps prolong the life of these wells by providing systems to extend production or access and to retrieve remaining or “stranded” oil and natural gas reserves. OTHER ACTIVITY IN SOUTH AMERICA Operations in the Amazon jungle Integrated drilling and completions in Mexico The infrastructure we established also paved the way for new contracts in other areas and other applications. Weatherford also is increasing its presence and share in the offshore Mexico market, due to the successful introduction of our larger-diameter RSS. The company has built a center focused on RSS and logging while drilling in Ciudad del Carmen to support these growing offshore applications. Nowadays Mexico is the largest country for Weatherford in Latin America as Weatherford is active in all areas where Pemex and other clients operate especially with our main projects being integrated drilling and completion contracts in the Burgos, Chicontepec, and Tabasco basins. In addition, the company has discrete service contracts with Pemex and has a very large presence with Artificial Lift both in the North and South Pemex regions. Weatherford is also working offshore in Cantarell and KMZ with fishing, rental and other services Shale development in Argentina Service offshore Peru and Ecuador |
- Applying ultra-deep LWD resistivity technology successfully in a SAGD operation (May 2019)
- Adoption of wireless intelligent completions advances (May 2019)
- Majors double down as takeaway crunch eases (April 2019)
- What’s new in well logging and formation evaluation (April 2019)
- Qualification of a 20,000-psi subsea BOP: A collaborative approach (February 2019)
- ConocoPhillips’ Greg Leveille sees rapid trajectory of technical advancement continuing (February 2019)