Author(s)

Ali K. Darwesh, Thorkild Maack Rasmussen, Nadhir Al-Ansari

Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Lulea University of Technology, Lulea, Sweden.

The first exploration oil well in any oil block consumes in general more time and cost than the other wells in the same block. Evaluating the drilled wells serves to improve the future operations. This paper evaluates the drilled surface section through real field data for the first exploration oil well drilled in one of the oil blocks, in Kurdistan north of Iraq. The surface section of the well was drilled with the conventional method to penetrate many different geological formations with tight intervals. Drilling efficiency and the difficulties encountered are discussed and explained using various data sources. All daily drilling reports concerning a specific interval were studied. This includes weight on bit, string rotation, mud pump flow and penetration rate. Evaluation was carried out by analyzing the used controllable drilling parameters with the formations features. Penetration of the Pila Spi formation (Middle Eocene) was the most difficult formation in the drilled section. Microsoft Office 365 Pro Plus used in making graphs and Excel tables. Evaluations showed that the conventional technology used left many negative effects, like increase in None Productive Time NPT, cost and ground water pollution. Simultaneous Casing Drilling method proposed as an alternative method for the future campaign.

Oil Exploration, Drilling, Casing, Torque, Penetration Rate, Formation, Spud

Darwesh, A. , Rasmussen, T. and Al-Ansari, N. (2016) Evaluation of Limestone Interval in the Drilled Surface Section of Bn-1 Oil Well. Engineering, 8, 515-524. doi: 10.4236/eng.2016.88048.