Stripping set up on your rig?

31 August 2020 After we completed our advanced one weeks well control course in the mid 80's at the Shell test well training facility in the North of Holland.  We all got the gist of volumetric killing stripping etc and had many things to change our supervisory ways when we returned back to our assigned rig site . 

e.g. There after one would be pretty foolish not to take the safety time out to strip a stand, prior to drilling out an intermediate or production casing string, prior to drilling into a transition of reservoir hydrocarbon bearing zone.  

One particular learning instance to share, was a offshore wildcat well on the East coast of Canada in 1992, in fairly shallow water prior to drilling out the 13 5/8" casing with a WBM. We quickly realised that in an IN-compressible fluid you won't get that much pipe in the hole before you need to bleed off pressure etc (as we expected) This was a real eye opener. 

Also during the drill we experienced choke handling issues that identified a need for repair and rectification. Which we did (offline) and in time before drilling ahead.       
All to assure we were in good shape, with people, equipment and numbers if we experienced real things that can arise.

We crew changed and handed over our back-to-backs and although they did not have to strip, they experienced drilling into an unplanned abnormally high pressure shallow flow (that was thankfully brine not gas) that was not on the G&G hazard/risk register.
The crew detected and reacted early as trained. That in such a dynamic shallow high permeable situation that can result, expect a fairly hefty kick. In this case, if correct it was 25-35bbls.    

Where if the choke problems had not been identified during the drill out drill?, the well would have taken a far bigger kick before this problem was realised, and probably kick that resulted could have broken down at the shoe. Emphasising the importance of these drills.

Where my current sharing questions are in respect to current drill and drill out practices being used/applied.

How are we set up on rigs today for stripping?
How many (fixed) land or offshore rigs have a stripping bottle?
MODU Subsea stripping how are we rigged up? 
Who are and who are not conducting a full well control /stripping drill prior to drilling into a higher risk transition or reservoir zone.

What else have we learned, experienced and have to share in such respects?

i.e. To assure competency training is afforded to crews, all well control equipment is verified to work as planned and that we have a set of base case numbers to work a pre-plan in place,  should a real well control event result.

Appreciate thoughts, views, experiences, company standard on this. 


  

5 Answer(s)

---