DRILLING ENGINEERING

TOWARDS ACHIEVING TOTAL SUSTAINABILITY

M. Rafiqul Islam,M. Enamul Hossain

• Publisher: Gulf Professional Publishing
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780128226605
• Topic: Sciences physiques
• Subtopic: Énergie

Sustainable Oil and Gas Development Series: Drilling Engineering delivers research materials and emerging technologies that conform sustainability drilling criteria. Starting with ideal zero-waste solutions in drilling and long-term advantages, the reference discusses the sustainability approach through the use of non-linear solutions and works its way through the most conventional practices and procedures used today. Step-by-step formulations and examples are provided to demonstrate how to look at conventional practices versus sustainable approaches with eventually diverging towards a more sustainable alternative. Emerging technologies are covered and detailed sustainability analysis is included. Economic considerations, analysis, and long-term consequences, focusing on risk management round out the with conclusions and a extensive glossary. Sustainable Oil and Gas Development Series: Drilling Engineering gives today's petroleum and drilling engineers a guide how to analyze and evaluate their operations in a more environmentally-driven way.

• Proposes sustainable technical criteria and strategies for today's most common drilling practices such as horizontal drilling, managed pressure drilling, and unconventional shale activity
• Discusses economic benefits and development challenges to invest in environmentally-friendly operations
• Highlights the most recent research, analysis, and challenges that remain including global optimization

Chapter 1: Introduction

Abstract

Petroleum resources continue to be the lifeline of modern civilization. This role of oil and gas will continue in foreseeable future with increasing scope because it is emerging that sustainable oil and gas production is not only possible, it is also economically rewarding. Petroleum production is inherently linked to drilling technology, ranging from exploration to production, from monitoring to remediation and environmental restoration. Nearly one quarter of the petroleum industry’s entire exploration and production budget is dedicated to drilling expenses. Any advancement in drilling technology and planning can increase the energy efficiency of the petroleum industry and can affect the overall energy budget of the world. This book captures the most significant developments in drilling technology and chalks out a path toward sustainable drilling, with stable energy costs, optimized economic competitiveness, and the highest productivity.

Keywords

Desalination; Drilling; Global optimization; Petroleum; Supply chain; Sustainability; Waste management

1.1. Introduction of the book

Not long ago, any sustainable operation in the context of petroleum engineering was considered to be an absurd notion (Khan and Islam, 2007). Even today, the way the term “sustainability” is used it makes it difficult to talk about petroleum operations and sustainability in the same vein. From the 1973 Arab oil embargo onward, when cheap oil became a thing of the past, there has been a sustained campaign against fossil fuel in general and oil and gas in particular. Then came Al Gore's “saving the planet from Carbon” awakening. The Greenpeace movement designated carbon as an existential threat to the current civilization. Meanwhile, Enron—the most “innovative energy management” company—turned out to be a fraud. Even Republican president, George, chimed in to castigate humanity with the “oil addiction” line. That “Carbon is the enemy” mantra spread like wildfire and imposing universal carbon tax reached global pitch. Up until today, the world is convinced that petroleum consumption should be minimized, the oil price should be low, and replacement of petroleum should be subsidized. So, what is left for petroleum engineers to do other than folding shops and hiding behind an alternate fuel “wall”? If it were not for the opening up of unconventional oil and gas that gave rise to unprecedented surge in oil and gas production in the United States and equally important surge in global reserve in terms of heavy oil and tar sand, no book on sustainable petroleum drilling would see the light of the day. It is because of this unprecedented surge in petroleum activities, along with renewed focus on environmental sustainability, that a book of current title is necessary and timely. Drilling being the most important and likely the costliest part of a petroleum operation, sustainability must begin with drilling. This book is about rendering drilling operations sustainable. This book will be useful for both the energy sector and the environmental restoration/remediation sector.

Drilling is the most important component of any mineral extraction (Marjoribanks, 2010). The advancement in drilling activities has literally catapulted the latest surge in petroleum drilling and production activities. Starting from the 1980s, horizontal wells became the most lucrative component of modern-day innovation. Added to that advancement is the marvel of drilling technology in deep oceans, in unconventional formations, and previously unexplored areas. The challenge, however, is to render drilling activities into sustainable ones. Considering that practically all disciplines are involved in a drilling operation, ranging from creating a drilling space within an environmentally sensitive area and using toxic drilling mud to drilling through vulnerable layers underground and disposing of toxic chemicals in an environmentally acceptable manner, greening of drilling technology can revolutionize the entire discipline of petroleum engineering. This in turn can cause ripple effect on other disciplines (Hossain and Abdulaziz Abdullah Al-Majed, 2015).

The conventional approach to sustainability places the “three pillars of sustainability” (economy, society, and environment) in competition with each other (Scott Cato, 2009). Long-term sustainability lies with creating synergy rather than competition (Speight and Islam, 2016). The long-term sustainability approach is taken up in this book. Because the topic of sustainability is new in the context of petroleum engineering, this book will focus on topics that will become both relevant and pivotal in years to come. Past experiences would be critically analyzed to summarize the salient features of sustainability and areas of improvement. The book does not offer a paradigm shift in terms of content but offers a futuristic focus that has eluded previous authors. As such, this is a unique undertaking with tremendous ramifications.

1.2. Introduction to drilling engineering

Modern civilization is driven by our energy needs. Despite controversies surrounding petroleum operations and their impact on the environment, petroleum resources continue to carry bulk of our energy needs. Sustainable development can alleviate environmental impacts and place petroleum operations on a leadership position even for environmental integrity and long-term sustainability (Islam and Khan, 2019). Drilling is the primary operation that connects us to the petroleum resources. As such, it is the most important operation. This technology is a necessary step for both petroleum exploration and production. While drilling engineering is a well-established discipline, the fact that every well is unique makes a drilling operation risky. In the past, risk management due to blow out concerns and safety of personnel has been the primary focus of a drilling operation. Over the last few decades, the concerns over environmental integrity and carbon footprint have overwhelmed petroleum operators. The challenge has been to drill faster, with greater precision in more hazardous areas or more technically challenging depths with minimum environmental damage than ever before.

While the background work of planning, involving rock/fluid characterization, environmental impact assessment, and others, is a team endeavor, the execution of drilling is the responsibility of the drilling engineer. Drilling petroleum wells continues to be the most daunting task among all engineering undertakings. The most important aspect of preparing the well plan and subsequent drilling engineering determine the expected characteristics and problems to be encountered in the well. A well cannot be planned properly if these environments are unknown. Therefore, the drilling engineer must initially pursue various types of data to gain insight used to develop the projected drilling conditions.

1.2.1. Importance of sustainability and need of research

It is well known that the petroleum industry drives the energy sector, which in turn drives the modern civilization. The present modern civilization is based on energy and hydrocarbon resources. The growth of human civilization and necessities of livelihood with time inspired human beings to bore a hole for different reasons (such as drinking water, agriculture, hydrocarbon extraction for lighting, power generation, to assemble different mechanical parts). With recent awareness of environmental sustainability, it has become clear that most of our technological advances are in fact a quick fix of problems that arose from practices that shouldn't have been commenced to begin with. At the risk of being labeled an anarchist, it is only proper to say, this fear has been shared by some of the most noncontroversial engineers and scientists (Nobel Laureate Chemist, Robert Curl, for instance). In this era of technological advancement being later labeled as “technological disaster,” drilling technologies bring in a silver lining. The advancements made in drilling technologies have been phenomenal and mark one of the proudest moments of the petroleum industry. Unfortunately, whenever disasters strike, the blame game begins and everyone rushes to disavow modern technology. With the spectacular failure of the Deep water horizon project in 2010, many questioned the validity of modern drilling advances, particularly in the areas of offshore drilling. Lost in that hysteria was the fact that research that fueled the instant solutions sought during that fateful drilling operation was in fact flawed. After the dust settled, however, the tragic event established one fact: there has to be systematic long-term research that addresses short-term problems with long-term solutions (Hossain and Islam, 2018). Drilling technologies are interconnected and involve practically all aspects of engineering, including material engineering, biomedical engineering, and communication. It is impossible to consider drilling problems as isolated projects. Drilling technology is a widely used expertise in the applied sciences and engineering, such as manufacturing industries, pharmaceutical industries, aerospace, military defense, research laboratories, and any small-scale laboratory to a heavy industry like petroleum. This book is the first of its kind that addresses existing problems and presents sustainable solutions, some of which would require further research. The book doesn't compromise the relevance or scientific details in responding to most difficult questions arising from sustainability considerations. Rather than giving a technician's response or a quick fix, it gives a researcher's response with backing of field engineers with decades of experience. It further elucidates with citations of emerging technologies or even technologies that still are at a research level.

1.3. Emerging technologies in drilling engineering

The last few decades of the last century were marked by a downtime for the petroleum industry. It was mainly because of low oil prices and resetting the technological focus away from fossil fuel (Islam, 2020). Even then, great strides were made in all sectors of petroleum engineering. Principal developments i...