Page 318 - Air and Gas Drilling Manual

Chapter
Eight

Air, Gas, and Unstable Foam Drilling

Deep drilling operations with air and gas drilling technology are used in the
recovery of oil and natural gas, recovery of geothermal steam and hot water, and for
some mining and geotechnical projects. In the late 1970’s, it was estimated that air
and gas drilling technology was being used on only about 10 percent of the deep
wells drilled and completed [1, 2]. Today, most of North America’s oil and natural
gas producing fields are mature and are sensitive to formation damage caused by
traditional mud drilling operations. The existence of formation damage has lead to
the development of underbalanced drilling completion operations. Even though
underbalanced drilling and completion operations have applications in mud drilling
operations, the vast majority of these operations are air and gas drilling technology
based. Currently, it is estimated that about 30 percent of the oil and natural gas
recovery drilling and completion operations utilize air and gas drilling technology.
As more oil and natural gas producing fields mature this percentage will increase.
This chapter outlines the steps and methods used to plan a successful deep air
and gas drilling operation. This chapter also illustrates the application of these steps
and methods to the planning of a typical deep drilling operations. The objective of
these steps and methods is to allow engineers and scientists to cost effectively plan
their drilling operations and ultimately select their drilling rig, compressor, and
other auxiliary air and gas equipment. The additional benefit of this planning
process, is that the data created by the process can later be used to control the
drilling operations as the actual operations progress. Air and gas drilling operations
are different from traditional mud drilling operations and require more intensive
attention on the part of the on-site drilling operation supervisors.

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