Multizone single-trip completions installed in Brazil pre-salt field
By Jesse Maldonado, associate editor
Superior Completion Services has completed Brazil’s first multizone single trip installations in the Campos Basin, pre-salt Roncador field for Petrobras. The completion program involved two wells – the first in 1,878-m water depth at 3,530-m TD completed in June 2013, and the second at 1,636-m water depth at 3,464-m TD completed a few months later in October.
The well was drilled in four phases with 30-in. conductive casing, 20-in. surface casing, 13 ⅜-in. intermediate casing and 9 ⅝-in. production casing. “Petrobras did a comparison with the conventional system, and they realized that using the conventional system would take about 25 days to complete the well, and we did it in nine days using the MST,” Frederico Carvalho, Brazil Operations Manager for Superior Completion Services, a division of Superior Energy Services, said. The completion was performed with a Complete MST frac-pack application in four producing zones. A total of $7.5 million in well completion costs were saved, he said.
The demand for technologies to reduce risks, increase well completion efficiencies and maximize production in deepwater and ultra-deepwater areas is growing, Mr Carvalho continued. Superior’s MST system has been used on 46 well installations to date, in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Indonesia, Brazil and India. “This technology is becoming more accepted globally,” Ed Smith, VP for Superior Completion Services, said. “Stacked sand control markets are demanding this type of technology because many are in deepwater with daily spread costs of $1 million or more.”
The Complete MST contains isolation packers, screens with integral isolation sliding sleeve(s) and a frac pack/gravel pack sleeve for placing sand or proppant. It allows all zones to be perforated at one time. Operators then can successively run the system in the well, isolate all zones and complete all zones, even if they are of various lengths, in one trip. The MST system is available in casing size from 7 in. to 10 ⅛ in. with a 10,000-psi pressure rating and a temperature limit of 300°F.
The MST design also allows to be hydrostatically tested for pressure integrity at the rig floor, which eliminates undetected leaks that may result from connections that are made up on the rig floor.
“We are currently averaging 4 ½ to 5 days to complete five zones on offshore shelf locations with the MST system,” Jed Landry, MST Product Line Manager for Superior Completion Services, said. He believes the same zones would take up to 2 ½ weeks to complete with traditional systems. To date, Superior has completed a maximum of six zones in one run. “We don’t have a limit of how many zones we could complete,” Mr Landry said. “It would be dependent on the length of all those zones and the weight of the assembly.”
Complete MST is a trademark of Superior Energy Services.
