Deployment Risk Management and Other Sexy Talk

I'm back at work.

I thought that I might be going to Angola. Ended up in Israel. Not sure how that happenned. Angola actually had some interesting work planned and I have been doing some modeling for it. The idea is run some production tools into a well on wireline. Problem is the well is horizontal so how do you push on a rope? Not to worry these people have a downhole tractor that can push the tools down a horizontal well. My job is just to answer a couple of questions.

For a certain wellhead pressure how heavy will the tool have to be to be able to go down against well pressure?
If the tool were to become stuck at the bottom of the well, what kind of tension can we pull at surface before damage to the cable occurs?
Is it possible to design a weak point at the tool so that the cable can be recovered in the event of the tool sticking?
How much force will the tractor have to exert on the horizontal section to pull the cable along the horizontal section?

There is a whole new field of wireline engineering based upon these kinds of questions known as Deployment Risk Management. As well paths become deeper and more tortuous, the material limits of cables become more and more important in terms of what can be run on the end of them. Twenty years ago or so most oil wells were reasonably straight, nowadays the straight hole is the exception rather than the rule. Several companies now offer deployment risk software and there is some effort to get people trained in the technology.

Problem is that oil companies have not attached a value to this service ie: they expect it for free. Service companies have been reluctant to charge for it as it is only a model - a simulation based on a lot of assumptions very few of which can be empirically verified. The model is only ever valuable if something goes wrong; in which case the most common comment is "well why didn't you model for this problem". Screwed over either way. Sigh!

Besides the deployment modelling the other interesting thing about the Angola work I'm not doing is that it is a production job. For my company its unusual work and much overlooked (in my opinion) by the company management. Production logging is usually done to determine the cause of declining production in a well. Oil companies are very interested to know why a well is suddenly producing water or why the production has dropped by 90% in three months. It directly affects their cash flow. Usually the production log is planned as part of a well intervention designed to improve the producing rate in the well. Because this sort of work is unusual (for us anyway) tools are rare and there are not many people globally who are qualified to run them. The tractor requirement further limits the list of people available. As far as I know I'm the only person who can run this particular service with this particular tractor and is also able to interpret the results. I'm waiting for the bosses to figure this out but so far they are of the opinion that "anyone can do it". Time will tell but I'm guessing that there will be a last minute panic to get me down to Angola in a couple of weeks. Last I checked they still haven't figured out how to get the tools to talk (shaking my head).

I'll keep you posted

Getting There

As everyone knows getting there is half the fun so here is a typical getting there story.


With just 2 days to go in my hitch I got the the call...

Just so you know, my work in the oilfield usually begins with a frenzied call from the rig. There are usually two possibilities. The rig has either reached a point at which further drilling is impractical or the rig is stuck in the hole. Either case requires action on my part so lets assume the former. First step is to round up the the usual suspects (crew) and get everyone down to the heliport.

But wait...that's not a helicopter...apparently the helicopter is only for oil company personnel. Service company hands can ride on the boat with the food containers. My 30 minute buzz to the rig just became 5 hours. Damn cheap ass oil company!

The weather can change rapidly on water. It was raining when we left and blue sky when we arrived. So somewhere in between I got this.

The rig. No matter where you go they all look alike. Some are nicer than others. You are probably wondering how I am going to get up there from here. Can you see the basket on the left?

From here the personnel basket looks alarmingly like those cages that medieval types used to put criminals in.

A closer look. Simply load up your stuff in the middle, get a death grip on the webbing and ...

Wait for the whoosh while hanging on for dear life. Not quite as much fun as an arcade ride, but the excitement can be directly proportional to your fear of heights and the skill (or lack) of the crane operator. Note that there are no seat belts. We were lucky today and the cranes were good. I was once stuck on these baskets for an hour hanging off in space - not where you want to spend your time.

It takes about 30 seconds to get from the boat to the helideck.

Once we are on board its time to organise equipment. In most cases we have about 24 hours from the time we arrive to when we are actually needed. That's usually enough time to check our equipment and get a quick nap in before starting our job.

Luckily enough my relief arrived the next day, so instead of going to work, I was going home woohoo! I even got my own personal helicopter this time.

Open And Cased Hole - More Eye Glazing Stuff

Logging as a business can be split into 2 subgroups namely Open Hole or Cased Hole. Open Hole logs are performed during the drilling phase of an oil well. The main goal of Open Hole logs are to delineate productive intervals (if any) and provide data to estimate volumes of oil in place. Open hole logs can also be used to determine formation strike and dip, improve seismic imaging, and provide depth accurate core and fluid samples of reservoir rock.The engineer has several types of logs at his disposal to make these kinds of determinations - what logs are actually run depends on what the customer wants and how much about the reservoir is actually known. Most decisions as to whether or not a well is productive is based on data from Open Hole Logs.



Cased hole logs generally occur in wells where the drilling process is finished and the well is in the completion or workover phase. These Logs are run to perform a specific service or answer a specific question. Cased Hole logs can also be used to measure reservoir deplection, production characteristics, or casing integrity (over time) which can all affect the life of an oil well and the design of future wells.



Most logging engineers are specialised into either Open Hole or Cased Hole. There are a few that do both on a regular basis(this would be me). The specialisation (or lack therof) is mostly due to market forces rather than any particular desire of the engineer (or company).

So What Do You Do Mr. PJ?

I dread this question. There is simply no easy way to answer. Thanks to television we have some idea of what cops, criminals, lawyers and doctors do. I suppose that these sorts of careers make for good drama. The lack of prime time television shows about Wireline Logging Engineers is a pretty fair indication of the dramatic potential of my chosen profession. So what the heck is a Wireline Logging Engineer anyway?

A Wireline Logging Engineer (lets call him a logger for short) has nothing to do with forests or trees of any sort. Logging is simply one of the services performed during the life of an oil well and the engineer is the guy responsible for performing the service (this would be me). Before I can tell you what I do, I need to explain a little bit on what logging is all about. Logging is simply the acquisition of geological or petrophysical properties of a well as a function of depth. Now at this point in normal social conversation the listeners eyes will begin to glaze over - try to stay focused....please The end product of logging is, of course, called a Log. Logs are used by oil companies as a permanent record of the original well properties at the time it was drilled. As such its a pretty important document. For example oil companies can use logs as evidence to prove existence of assets when negotiating bank loans. Oil companies can pay a lot of money to acquire logs depending on the type of information that they are after.


The business of getting these logs is my job. And A stressful business it can be. Remember Star Trek - The original series with the sexy yeomen in gogo boots ? Well, To put my job in terms of Star Trek I would need Scotty's fixit sense, Spock's grasp of physics, Uhura's communication skills and the balls of Captain K himself to boldly go where no fool has gone before. Come to think of it, had I been old enough, I could have auditioned for Star Trek and saved Roddenbery a heap of money.

Any work that I do is subject to continuous and intense scrutiny from a lot of different folks of varying intelligence but limited sense of humour. Usually when I go to log a well an oil company witness (read - junior exploration geologist) is assigned to follow me around and make a permanent record of my every action on the rig. The reports that these people create are then used to create reasons why I should not be paid. As a result I have had to become an expert at cya(cover-your-ass) and the delicate art of shifting responsibility.

I am a logger - worship me.

PJ