Today's AGM Presentation

[Kaliboo]

Question for drilling experts ? If we continue to have trouble with this location does it make sense to change location or change the angle of the drill bit  or to bring in Schlumberger type to help?

Given that Bobcat has 2 sidetracks (3 attempts) to get through the RUBadAss shale (my mental gimick to remember "Orubadi", and Wahoo (IMHO) has likely had more, you can be certain they have tried a number of things.  Moving a rig to another site is not uncommon if the given location has problems.  This might be done when the problems are very shallow.  With deeper problems you just sidetrack and drill directionally away from the problem.  This is a fairly shallow well, so sidetracking here isn't going to get you far away from the problem, it just gives you a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc., chance to fight the same problem again.  Moving the rig to another site e.g., a mile or two a way, might make a big difference.  They got Black Bass down a few years ago.  But building a new location has to be very costly.  In the end that may be what happens if they don't "pull the rabbit out of the hat."

Regarding an angle change, assuming the shale is a flat stratigraphic bed, the best way to drill it is with a vertical well perpendicular to it.  That's the shortest distance between two points - entering the shale and exiting the shale.  Also the borehole is most stable in this geometry.  If you approached the same shale with a deviated well, then you just made the path through the shale longer than it needs to be and you have chosen a less stable stress state.

A solution they should be considering is drilling with casing OR drilling with expandable casing.  In both cases the casing and the drill string are one.  You pass through the shale only once and then it is isolated.  Expandable casing is used all the time to isolate unstable zones while preserving hole size.  That's what I would be looknig at.  I also would be looking at the shale samples and optimize the mud chemistry.  But I'm sure they've done what they can there.  Being in PNG you don't have the arsenal of tools, fluids and options that would be available in the USA oil fields.

kaliboo, what you say here makes a lot of sense.  Given Pet's comments it is also obvious why sidetracks may not be the solution here if one knows anything about geometry.  However, given that and the fact that Hession did not mention having done any sidetracks at Wahoo, I doubt they have.  At this point, they may be waiting for some equipment and/or people to get to PNG to try other options, as you imply.

True. They may have spent a lot of time waiting on special equipment.  But no doubt they carefully wordsmithed the text but not well enough IMHO.  The wahoo text was way too long.  The key expectation was set to expect more bad news.To add even more bad news details to wahoo would be very disproportionate compared to the miniscule reports on the other 2 wells..  So I feel pretty sure they just decided to leave sidetrack news on wahoo out.  We are all speculating.  We may never know.

[StevieBoy]

Question for drilling experts ? If we continue to have trouble with this location does it make sense to change location or change the angle of the drill bit  or to bring in Schlumberger type to help?

Given that Bobcat has 2 sidetracks (3 attempts) to get through the RUBadAss shale (my mental gimick to remember "Orubadi", and Wahoo (IMHO) has likely had more, you can be certain they have tried a number of things.  Moving a rig to another site is not uncommon if the given location has problems.  This might be done when the problems are very shallow.  With deeper problems you just sidetrack and drill directionally away from the problem.  This is a fairly shallow well, so sidetracking here isn't going to get you far away from the problem, it just gives you a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc., chance to fight the same problem again.  Moving the rig to another site e.g., a mile or two a way, might make a big difference.  They got Black Bass down a few years ago.  But building a new location has to be very costly.  In the end that may be what happens if they don't "pull the rabbit out of the hat."

Regarding an angle change, assuming the shale is a flat stratigraphic bed, the best way to drill it is with a vertical well perpendicular to it.  That's the shortest distance between two points - entering the shale and exiting the shale.  Also the borehole is most stable in this geometry.  If you approached the same shale with a deviated well, then you just made the path through the shale longer than it needs to be and you have chosen a less stable stress state.

A solution they should be considering is drilling with casing OR drilling with expandable casing.  In both cases the casing and the drill string are one.  You pass through the shale only once and then it is isolated.  Expandable casing is used all the time to isolate unstable zones while preserving hole size.  That's what I would be looknig at.  I also would be looking at the shale samples and optimize the mud chemistry.  But I'm sure they've done what they can there.  Being in PNG you don't have the arsenal of tools, fluids and options that would be available in the USA oil fields.

Good response Kaliboo! To expand on the previouse question, I'd be extremely surprised if there wasn't already a solid team of 'Schlumberger Types' on location.. especially since these are exploration wells. I've spent some time on rigs (worked on 1 exploration well) and in my experience the Schlumberger Types on location consist of: 1. Directional Driller- he is usually a very experienced driller who's job is to guide the rig crew's driller and ensure the well plan follows the proper trajectory and hits the correct targets 2. Mud Engineers- responsible for making sure mud properties are as planned. They run numerous tests on the mud as it is circulated throughout the system. A mud engineer is one of our key weapons in 'doctoring' the mud to battle the Orubadi shale. 3. MWD/LWD engineers- engineers on location who are responsible for the down hole tools in the drillstring that aid in "evaluation of physical properties, usually including pressure, temperature and wellbore trajectory in three-dimensional space, while extending a wellbore". I also agree with you Kaliboo about changing mud chemistry. I'm curious as to what type of mud system they are using. My understanding is that a majority of the wells in PNG are drilled with Water Based Mud. When drilling with Water Based Mud, formation clays (Orubadi shale) react, swell, or slough after exposure. Pet said, "So you have to get the mud weight and mud characteristics just right to keep the shale from flowing into the hole and sticking the pipe and/or closing the hole." If we are in fact having these types of problems, I'm lead to believe that we are drilling with Water Based mud as well. Why not use oil based mud?? As seen on PetroWiki, Oil-based systems were developed and introduced in the 1960s to help address several drilling problems: Formation clays that react, swell, or slough after exposure to waterbasedmud, Increasing downhole temperatures, Contaminants, and Stuck pipe and torque and drag. I'm assuming bc it's cheaper to use waterbased mud and other surrounding offset wells have successfully used water based muds. Maybe this could be a lesson learned and applied in the future.. Thoughts? -StevieBoy PS Nice Dog Picture Kaliboo! -

[admin]

Welcome aboard Steve. Nice to see expertise weighted on these issues.

[Kaliboo]

Question for drilling experts ? If we continue to have trouble with this location does it make sense to change location or change the angle of the drill bit  or to bring in Schlumberger type to help?

Given that Bobcat has 2 sidetracks (3 attempts) to get through the RUBadAss shale (my mental gimick to remember "Orubadi", and Wahoo (IMHO) has likely had more, you can be certain they have tried a number of things.  Moving a rig to another site is not uncommon if the given location has problems.  This might be done when the problems are very shallow.  With deeper problems you just sidetrack and drill directionally away from the problem.  This is a fairly shallow well, so sidetracking here isn't going to get you far away from the problem, it just gives you a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc., chance to fight the same problem again.  Moving the rig to another site e.g., a mile or two a way, might make a big difference.  They got Black Bass down a few years ago.  But building a new location has to be very costly.  In the end that may be what happens if they don't "pull the rabbit out of the hat."

Regarding an angle change, assuming the shale is a flat stratigraphic bed, the best way to drill it is with a vertical well perpendicular to it.  That's the shortest distance between two points - entering the shale and exiting the shale.  Also the borehole is most stable in this geometry.  If you approached the same shale with a deviated well, then you just made the path through the shale longer than it needs to be and you have chosen a less stable stress state.

A solution they should be considering is drilling with casing OR drilling with expandable casing.  In both cases the casing and the drill string are one.  You pass through the shale only once and then it is isolated.  Expandable casing is used all the time to isolate unstable zones while preserving hole size.  That's what I would be looknig at.  I also would be looking at the shale samples and optimize the mud chemistry.  But I'm sure they've done what they can there.  Being in PNG you don't have the arsenal of tools, fluids and options that would be available in the USA oil fields.

Good response Kaliboo! To expand on the previouse question, I'd be extremely surprised if there wasn't already a solid team of 'Schlumberger Types' on location.. especially since these are exploration wells. I've spent some time on rigs (worked on 1 exploration well) and in my experience the Schlumberger Types on location consist of: 1. Directional Driller- he is usually a very experienced driller who's job is to guide the rig crew's driller and ensure the well plan follows the proper trajectory and hits the correct targets 2. Mud Engineers- responsible for making sure mud properties are as planned. They run numerous tests on the mud as it is circulated throughout the system. A mud engineer is one of our key weapons in 'doctoring' the mud to battle the Orubadi shale. 3. MWD/LWD engineers- engineers on location who are responsible for the down hole tools in the drillstring that aid in "evaluation of physical properties, usually including pressure, temperature and wellbore trajectory in three-dimensional space, while extending a wellbore". I also agree with you Kaliboo about changing mud chemistry. I'm curious as to what type of mud system they are using. My understanding is that a majority of the wells in PNG are drilled with Water Based Mud. When drilling with Water Based Mud, formation clays (Orubadi shale) react, swell, or slough after exposure. Pet said, "So you have to get the mud weight and mud characteristics just right to keep the shale from flowing into the hole and sticking the pipe and/or closing the hole." If we are in fact having these types of problems, I'm lead to believe that we are drilling with Water Based mud as well. Why not use oil based mud?? As seen on PetroWiki, Oil-based systems were developed and introduced in the 1960s to help address several drilling problems: Formation clays that react, swell, or slough after exposure to waterbasedmud, Increasing downhole temperatures, Contaminants, and Stuck pipe and torque and drag. I'm assuming bc it's cheaper to use waterbased mud and other surrounding offset wells have successfully used water based muds. Maybe this could be a lesson learned and applied in the future.. Thoughts? -StevieBoy PS Nice Dog Picture Kaliboo! -

Nice "bark" Stevieboy.  You sound like a drilling instructor.  More of that experience is great to have given the drilling program.  Kaliboo

[jft310]

What if they called in Schlumberger and there are other reasons for not reporting.Like commercial decisions??OSH buyout of drilling partners? Total farm agreement ?Other possibilities the silent mafia doesn't want us to
know about yet.??

[StevieBoy]

Hopefully there is more going on behind the scenes. What services are you suggesting Schlumberger could provide to effect commercial decisions? Maybe I'm thinking in the wrong direction, but from an operational standpoint, I don't see how Schlumberger could have any effect on any economic decisions (on any of our 3 exploration wells at this point in time), simply because we have not penetrated any of our Primary targets. Sure, once we reach TD we can implement our formation evaluation plan. Schlumberger will then come in to log, core, sample, and DST the hell out of these wells. I'll have some fun and entertain your silent mafia theory: I'm not extremely familiar with the geology, but maybe we penetrated some unexpected hydrocarbons prior to reaching our Primary target. You never know.. it is exploration after all. That would be one case in which Schlumberger could come in and do some evaluation. Wouldn't that be nice! But this is not likely as getting logging tools to a geographically undesierable location at a moments notice to is no easy task.. Also, that seems like a material event that would be shared. Also, it's not a primary well objective, so we would most likely case it off and drill ahead to our primary target. However, testing could be done at a later date (cased-hole DST).

[SamAdams]

Thanks SB, insightful.  Just realize some here think even  dissapointing drilling progress means an imminent buyout or merger. Practical real-world experience such as yours are the best contributions we can have at this point to help guide us.

[calaban48]

I confess, I am often agog at the expertise (and even many of the insights) with which we are gifted here. Thank you gentlemen and ladies. Much appreciated.

[jft310]

Stevie I viewed the AGM drilling report and they were reporting incomplete drilling . Or slow going. Schlumberger could help resolve issues with the slow drilling.

I think more is going on then is being reported and it's not completed so is not reported . Dave Holland still works for Interoil and he knows where to drill and has the expertise to advise how to resolve issues . The info is 100 percent public about other issues so we wait to see which issue pops up their head. Hession is Mr Head Mafia of the complete silence mafia based in Singapore!

[sageo]

Stevie I viewed the AGM drilling report and they were reporting incomplete drilling . Or slow going. Schlumberger could help resolve issues with the slow drilling.

I think more is going on then is being reported and it's not completed so is not reported . Dave Holland still works for Interoil and he knows where to drill and has the expertise to advise how to resolve issues . The info is 100 percent public about other issues so we wait to see which issue pops up their head. Hession is Mr Head Mafia of the complete silence mafia based in Singapore!

Jft - The old saying "silence is golden" could come into play here.....as in (black) golden or maybe (wet ng) golden . Either or both would be "golden , don't you think ? Hagd.