SPE 121439

Taming the Grebe Sand – Tophole Drilling Success in the Ichthys Field
Andy Hinton, SPE, Bernt Eikemo, Vince Tilley, AGR drilling; Tom Nolan, INPEX Browse Ltd

Copyright 2009, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2009 SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition held in Jakarta, Indonesia, 4–6 August 2009.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract
Drilling surface hole in Australia’s Browse basin can be very difficult. The main problem is the massive, unconsolidated
Grebe Sand which tends to collapse or slump into the hole. This often causes stuck drill pipe or casing. To achieve the well
objectives on their recently completed Ichthys drilling campaign, INPEX implemented an aggressive well design with the 13-
3/8” (340mm) surface casing set at 2500m (8200ft). There is no 20” (508mm) casing. The long, 2160m (7090ft), section 17-
1/2” (444mm) and 16” (406mm) hole is drilled with mud and the Riserless Mud Recovery (RMR) system. This allows the
mud to be circulated back to the rig and reduces the risks of hole problems. After some ROV problems, the RMR system was
installed and the Grebe Sand was drilled without any hole problems. Below the Grebe formation, lost circulation problems
were overcome. The open hole remained stable over four days of downtime (due to rig mechanical issues) before the 13-3/8”
casing was run to the planned depth and cemented successfully.
The subsea pump ran without problems over 6 days at flow rates of up to 3800lpm (1000gpm). An estimated 5600mt or
more of cuttings were pumped back to the rig with the mud. The primary well objective of setting the 13-3/8” surface casing at
2500m was achieved. The mud and RMR system also helped in curing other problems such as lost circulation. The system
reduced risks of hole problems, such as hole collapse or stuck pipe. This resulted in a safer operation for the rig crew as well as
a more economical well for the operator. An added benefit was the provision of cuttings samples over this interval for the
geosciences department.

Problems in the Browse Basin tophole section

Slumping Grebe Sands

The primary tophole drilling problem in the Browse Basin, offshore North West Australia, is the Grebe Sandstone which often
causes major drilling difficulties. It can be over 500m (1600ft) thick and is unconsolidated. When drilled with seawater, the
soft sand tends to collapse into the wellbore. The slumping sands pack off around the drill string preventing circulation or
rotation. It can be difficult to jar free from these pack-offs, and impossible if the stuck point is above the jars. The stuck drill
string may be hung off and the sand washed out by running open ended work string past the stuck BHA. The soft sand can be
washed out but there is danger of sticking the work string as well as creating sections of overgauge hole and ledges.

Possible failure mechanism of slumping sands

Why do massive sands collapse into a well drilled with seawater?

When a hole is filled with seawater, and is open to the sea from the mudline to sea level, the pressure at the bottom of the hole
is seawater gradient (8.7ppg / 1.04SG). This exactly balances ‘normal’ formation pressure which is the seawater gradient.
When drilling, the pressure at the bottom of the hole increases to the Equivalent Circulating Density (ECD) because of three
effects. The first is the fine solids incorporated into the mud, despite full use of solids control equipment; the second is the
extra weight of the cuttings being transported up the hole; and the third is the Annular Pressure Loss (APL) / frictional
pressure required to ‘push’ the fluid up the well. Values for the Dinichthys North 1well were:

Weight (density) of seawater = 1.04SG (8.65ppg)

Mud Weight in pits = 1.12SG (9.3ppg)
ECD = 1.15SG (9.6ppg)
2 SPE 121439

When the Grebe Sand is drilled with seawater, the differential pressure is 480kPa (70psi) forcing water into the permeable
formation. There is no filter-cake to prevent this because there is seawater not mud in the hole. The pressure in the formation
near to the well bore increases to the value of the ECD. When the hole is circulated clean of cuttings and the rig pumps are
switched off for a connection, the Bottom Hole Pressure (BHP) will reduce to static mud gradient. There will be a differential
pressure of about 345kPa (50psi) into the well causing water flow back into the well bore. If the sand is unconsolidated, the
water flow will carry sand grains into well. This will create overgauge hole and expose more surface area for an increased
volume of seawater to be injected during the next stand drilled. Stronger sections of formation will stay close to gauge (bit
size) creating ledges that can cause the drill string or casing to hang up.

When enough sand is washed into the well at one time, it fills the annulus between the drill string and the hole. This is known
as packing off, or hole collapse. If pumping is continued, more water will be injected into the formations below the pack-off
rather than washing out the sand blocking the well. The normal response to stuck pipe is to try and jar the drill string free. If
the pack-off is above the jars, this will not work as there will be no jarring action. Even if the jars can be activated it does not
always help and it may destabilize the hole further. It is sometimes possible to back-off and hang off the drill string below the
rotary table and wash down past the pack-off with a second string of pipe and in some cases the main drill string may then be
recovered and drilling continued. This operation is time consuming and does not prevent the problem happening again.

Over-gauge hole causing stuck pipe

If a section of hole is washed out, the annular velocity of the mud will be much less in the washed out section. This will reduce
the carrying capacity of the mud; and so cuttings will tend to build up in the wash-outs. As soon as the mud stops flowing
during a connection, the cuttings will fall back into the well bore. There is a high risk of these cuttings sticking the drill pipe. It
may be possible to free the pipe and to keep drilling, but it will cause lost time. These sections are likely to cause problems on
trips. The drill string may be pumped out of the hole which will help to clear the cuttings from the over-gauge sections of hole.
But this takes time and may not clear all the cuttings from the hole. Wiper trips often find there is a large amount of fill when
running back to bottom from cuttings that have not been cleaned out. When the casing is run it can hang up on bridges formed
by cuttings or on ledges caused by the washed out section.
When considering hole wash out; prevention is not just better than cure but it is the only way, once washed out sections are
formed they cannot be repaired except by running casing past the section.

Engineered mud prevents hole collapse

With RMR installed on the well, engineered mud was used to drill the massive sand. The mud contained Fluid Loss Control
additives to keep the fluid loss less than 8cc’s. As the sand was drilled there were some losses into the permeable formation
but a filter cake quickly built up on the hole walls to reduce the volume of filtrate penetrating the sand. Therefore there was not
a significant increase in formation pressure near the well bore. There was not a significant flow-back of water into the well and
no sand washed into the hole. Because engineered mud was used, it was not necessary to clean the hole of cuttings before each
connection; the viscosity and gel strength of the mud held the cuttings in suspension.

Lost Circulation below the Grebe Sand

After the Grebe Sand, below 1525m (5000ft), there were intermittent mud losses associated with hard layers. When the bit
broke through a hard steak, there were total losses. It is not known whether the losses were associated with fractures, very high
permeability or weak formations, or possibly a combination of everything. INPEX developed a method of cutting the losses.
The section was drilled fast with a low pump rate. Then the rig pumps were switched off and the bit picked up off bottom. The
cuttings helped to bridge the lost circulation zone and gave the mud fluid loss additives something to build on. Without mud in
the hole it would not be possible to stop the losses. Without RMR and returns to the rig, it would not be possible to identify
any losses. Not identifying the losses could have led to stuck pipe as the cuttings would not have been cleaned out of the hole.

Alternative solutions for drilling tophole with mud

Pump & Dump

Drilling the surface hole with mud can be done without a subsea pump if the mud is discharged to the sea. This is standard
procedure in the US Gulf of Mexico, where it is known as ‘Pump & Dump’. This technique requires a huge volume of mud at
the rig and is really only applicable in areas where there is a large logistics network dedicated to mixing and delivering huge
volumes of mud in a short time, This is not appropriate for the Browse basin. There is also the question of the much increased
discharge of mud to the environment.
SPE 121439 3

Extra casing
To drill the Grebe with mud and returns to the rig would need a 20” surface casing to be set at top Grebe at ~1150m (3775ft).
This would allow the Grebe to be drilled with mud to reduce the risk of hole collapse. However because there would be mud
all the way back to the rig this would significantly increase the ECD. This would increase the frequency and severity of lost
circulation. Even with ‘unweighted mud’, the ECD would be 1.14SG (9.5ppg) at 1150m (3773ft) when drilling 17-1/2” hole at
30mph (100fph) drill rate.

Subsea pumping provides a Dual Gradient Drilling (DGD) system. There is mud from the bit to the mudline, but above this is
the column of seawater back to sea level. The mud in the Mud Return Line does not influence the Bottom Hole Pressure.
Therefore with RMR the ECD would be 1.09SG (9.1ppg). The pressure at the top of the Grebe sand is reduced from 12.9MPa
(1864psi) to 12.3MPa (1786psi); a reduction of 550kPa (80psi).

Another example of using engineered mud in top-hole to avoid an extra casing / liner is given in Reference 1 (Hinton 2009a).
Again, there was massive, unconsolidated sand which was controlled by using mud rather than seawater. A subsea pump is
used to return the mud and cuttings to the rig.

Operations on Dinichthys North-1 Well

Deployment of RMR equipment

The surface equipment was installed as the rig was anchoring up and preparing to drill (Figure 1). The well was spudded by
the rig Songa Venus on 27th April 2007. The 36” (984mm) hole was drilled with seawater and sweeps from mudline at 265m
(870ft) to 339m (1112ft) and the 30” (820mm) conductor cemented into place. The Subsea Pump Module (SPM) was
deployed over the side of the rig on its umbilical. It was lowered to the mudline with the sections of 6” ID Mud Return Line
run as the pump was lowered. The deployment does not need the derrick and so it is done ‘off-line’, at the same time as
drilling the 36” hole. As the 17-1/2” BHA was being made up, the Suction Module (SMO) was run on a tugger wire (Figure
2). There was no rig time (‘critical path’) spent installing the equipment. However, the ROV is needed to carry the suction pipe
and signal line from the SPM to the SMO. Unfortunately, as the ROV was being deployed operational difficulties were
experienced, resulting in damage.

Drilling 17-1/2” surface hole to 1000m

Because of the ROV problems, the top section of the 17-1/2” hole was drilled to 1000m (3280ft) with seawater and sweeps
without the RMR system. This was not ideal but the formations above the Grebe sandstone are not as troublesome to drill. The
~670m (2200ft) section was drilled in an overall time of 26 hours (compared to the Technical Limit of 16.5 hours set by the
team). When the ROV was operational, the final hook-up for the RMR system was made (Figure 3). There were some delays
due to the high current in the area and poor visibility. It is an additional advantage that once the RMR pump is running, the
visibility around the wellhead is very good because all the mud and cuttings are returned to the rig leaving the sea clear. Figure
4 shows the clear interface between the mud in the SMO and the surrounding seawater.

Drilling 17-1/2” surface hole with RMR

The hole was displaced to an unweighted bentonite / Polymer mud system. From this point the well was drilled using the RMR
system with returns to the rig. The Grebe Sandstone was drilled from 1147m to 1545m in 25.5 total hours with no Non
Productive Time (NPT). This compares well with the Technical Limit of 20hours set by the drilling team. The overall drill rate
(with connections) was 15.6mph (50fph). The instantaneous drill rate was restricted to 40- 60 mph (130 to 200fph). This
restriction was not because of any concerns about the RMR system, but to prevent overloading of the annulus with cuttings.
This would create too high an ECD which could fracture the formation. There were no downhole mud losses in the Grebe and
no pack-off or stuck pipe incidents.

Drilling continued below the Grebe sand down to 2166m (7107ft). There were serious downhole losses at 1851m, 1849m and
1866m. Sealing the losses was helped by stopping circulation for 5 minutes after picking up off bottom. The drill cuttings
helped the Fluid Loss additives stop the losses before drilling ahead with a reduced circulation rate. The pump rate was then
gradually built back up to the ‘normal’ drilling rate of 3800lpm (1000gpm). This ~560m section took 51.5 hours (TL= 16.25)
mainly due surface equipment problems and time spent curing losses.

There was then a pre-planned round trip to change to a 16” bit, with more Formation Evaluation While Drilling (FEWD)
tools. The trip out was very smooth with only one tight spot at 1930m which had an overpull of 14mt (30kips) and was reamed
out. The 16” section was drilled to the section Total Depth (TD) of 2500m (8203ft) with the only downhole problems being
mud losses at 2134m and 2184m and these were cured as above. There were no problems on the trip out.
4 SPE 121439

13-3/8” casing
There were 4 days of NPT incurred before the 13-3/8” casing could be run while rig equipment was being repaired. The mud
system became degraded due to bacterial action and required a wiper trip to change out the system. However, the hole
condition remained good despite the long delay. The 13-3/8” casing was run in and hung up at 2071m and 2280m; requiring it
to be to washed and worked down. The casing was subsequently landed and cemented according to program.

Solids Control
Subsea pumping is used so that engineered mud can be used in the top hole rather than seawater and sweeps. Therefore the rig
solids control equipment has to process the mud and cuttings from the surface hole which is more typically discharged at the
mudline. This causes some concern and has created some problems on other jobs. (This is especially true when the hole size is
26” rather than the 17-1/2” x 16”). In Dinichthys North-1, the hole size was 17-1/2” but the drill rate was high at up to 60 mph
(200fph). The rig had only three shakers but they were high quality equipment, double-decker shakers. Very coarse screens (20
mesh) were installed on the top deck of two of the shakers with fine screens (175 and 210 mesh) on the bottom. The coarse
‘scalping’ screens removed all the coarse cuttings, estimated to be about 90% of the total. The fine lower deck screens
removed the rest of the fine cuttings which were generally individual sand grains. The problem in the past had been that the
sand grains had blocked the intermediate size mesh blinding the shakers and causing significant mud losses at the surface. The
finer mesh (175 & 210) used on this well separated out the sand grains without being blocked.

Mud Weight
INPEX has drilled several wells in this area and knew that the Grebe Sand did not contain shallow gas and also that the sand
was not overpresured. They also knew that lost circulation was a significant risk, both into very permeable sands and weak
zones / fractures in the formations below the Grebe Formation. Therefore an unweighted mud system was chosen to have the
lowest possible differential pressure between the ECD of the mud and the normal formation pressure. In areas that are not so
well known and for exploration wells, AGR would always recommend drilling with weighted mud so that there is always a
positive overbalance (even with no cuttings in the well and no circulation) from the hole to the formation. This means that if
shallow gas is drilled, it will be identified by mud logging and LWD but will not flow into the well. If a shallow water flow
zone is drilled, it will not flow into the well when weighted mud is used with the RMR system.

Mud Logging in surface hole

With RMR, the mud and cuttings from the surface are returned to the rig. This means there is full mud logging in the top-hole
section. There are cuttings for geological description and mud gas readings. This improves the knowledge of the surface
formations which helps for the efficient drilling of future wells and field development. In some cases, the drilling team did not
know the nature of the problem formation until RMR was used with cuttings returns to the shakers. This is good for appraisal
/ development wells but can also be very useful in exploration wells where it is very important to gain the maximum amount of
information from all hole sections.

Other application for drilling topholes with mud

Using engineered mud and subsea pumping for full circulation means that topholes can be drilled in the same way as deeper
sections. There is full control of the mud properties and more information from the mud logging as well as good control of the
mud volume by monitoring of the mud level at the SMO.

In this case, mud was used to control a sand which is thick and normally pressured. Another example of this is described in
Reference 2 (Vernon 2007). In other areas of the world, such as the Caspian Sea it has been used to control very reactive and
over-pressured shallow clays. (Alford 2005). It has also been used to comply with strict environmental regulations in Russian
waters offshore Sakhalin Island (Brown 2007).

Overall the RMR is a good risk reduction tool for tophole drilling in areas with known shallow hazards as well as for
exploration wells where the drilling problems may not be so well known.

The RMR also has an application in Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD) and this is being engineered and trialed in-house at
AGR. (Hinton 2009b).
SPE 121439 5

Conclusions

Using engineered mud in the surface hole reduces the risk of hole collapse / sand slumping problems when drilling massive
unconsolidated sands such as the Grebe Sandstone.

Using engineered mud in the tophole also reduces the risk of creating hole wash-outs and over-gauge sections when compared
to drilling with sea water and sweeps.

Using a subsea pump, such as the RMR system, is an optimal solution; allowing engineered mud to be used before the rig riser
is run.

On Dinichthys North – 1, using the RMR and engineered mud meant that a long, 2150m (7100ft), section of surface hole was
drilled in only 6 days, including a planned bit trip. Using mud and RMR meant that the section could be drilled in 17½” / 16”
hole without the need for a 20” casing string. Without mud, the risks of hole problems would have been greater and an
intermediate casing string would have been necessary to achieve the objectives of the well.

INPEX used the RMR and engineered mud in their Browse basin topholes on two additional wells in 2008 with increasingly
better performance. This has now become a ‘routine’ operation to mitigate the risks in drilling the massive 500m thick Grebe
Sand.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the managements of INPEX Browse Ltd and AGR drilling services for their permission to publish
this paper.

References
(Alford – 2005)
SPE92769 ‘Silicate Based Fluid, Mud Recovery System Combine to Stabilize Surface Formations of Azeri Wells’
S E Alford, A Asko, M Campbell, M-I Swaco; M S Aston, E Kvalvaag BP Exploration. 2005

(Hinton -2009a)
SPE/IADC 119815 ‘BP Egypt uses RMR on Jack-Up to solve a To-Hole Drilling Problem’
Andy Hinton, SPE, Kjartan Seim, Gerhard Becker SPE, AGR drilling services, Edvin Kvalvaag, SPE, Arthur Jongejan, SPE BP Egypt. 2009

(Vernon 2008)
SPE 111422 ‘Riser-less Mud Recovery Solves Top-Hole Drilling Problems’
Roger Vernon, SPE, Stewart Buchan, CNR International (UK) Ltd.; Jim Hewson SPE, Marianne Halland, AGR Subsea AS. 2008

(Brown – 2007)
SPE105212 ‘Deployment of a Riserless Mud Recovery System Offshore Sakhalin Island’
J D Brown, V V Urvant, J L Thorogood, CJSC Elvary Neftegaz; N L Rolland AGR. 2007

(Hinton – 2009b)
IADC/SPE 122201 ‘A New Chapter in MPD: Subsea Pumping’
Andy Hinton SPE, AGR Drilling Services. 2009
6 SPE 121439

FIGURES

Figure 1: RMR Surface equipment Figure 2: SMO ready to run on tugger wire

Figure 3: General arrangement of RMR system Figure 4: Mud ‘mirror’ at top of SMO