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Development Progresses on NT Mining Project

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In August, Projectory reported that a Northern Territory rare earth mining project is inching ahead thanks to a NT Government grant – now the latest update is that the drilling campaign is commencing. MetalsGrove Mining is currently undertaking a phase two soil sampling program at the Arunta Project’s Bruce Prospect in the Northern Territory. This follows the recent discovery of high-grade rare earth element mineralisation. Aeromagnetic and surface geochemistry work identified a 1,000-metre by 600-metre intrusive system considered as highly prospective for rare earth mineralisation.

The testing is the early part of a 2,000-metre drilling campaign, which will soon commence with appropriate mining plant and equipment to test the property’s best-looking targets and will involve a broad conductor and a substantial intrusive system measuring 1,600 metres by 600 metres. MetalsGrove’s program director Sean Sivasamy has been contacted for comment and said in a statement that the company is fast-tracking its exploration in the region. “Both the sampling and drilling programs completed so far have been extremely encouraging and point to a potential high-grade REE mineralised system within our tenure,” he said.

“This next phase of sampling will look to build on the recent drilling success and further refine our next suite of drill targets, as we move quickly to assess and unlock the potential of our prospects within the Arunta region.”  The phase 2 soil sampling program will leverage steel fabrication in mining by testing remaining outcrops and geophysical anomalies along the 9-kilometre carbonatite corridor. All things going to plan, the company aims to commence the next phase of drilling using advanced drilling technologies at the end of the third quarter. The Bruce REE Prospect covers an area of about 17,722 hectares and is located within the central desert region of the Northern Territory.

Source: https://www.projectory.com.au/article/development-progresses-on-nt-rare-earth-project

Ship building in, Essaouira, formerly Mogador, Morocco, North Africa, Africa

Moran Iron Works Adds Fabrication Equipment for Maritime Market

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Onaway’s Moran Iron Works has obtained new equipment for its shipbuilding operations that will allow the metal fabricator to operate more efficiently. The company said in a news release Tuesday that it is obtained a new beam drill line and cutting line, which is designed specifically for the maritime market. Controlled by computers, the machines “eliminate the need to manually lay out the positions as well as produce the hole or cut by hand, saving time and manpower via process automation,” the company said in its news release. “So, everybody’s doing more with less,” explained Lee Fayssoux, Sales Manager at Moran Iron Works. “And we hate that we have less employees than we did pre-covid, but we’re able to get more done with this because of the efficiency this machine brings.” The drill spindle can drill holes up to a 1-and-9/16-inch diameter through up to 10 inches of material. Advancements in drilling technologies help ensure precision drilling and reduce the risk of errors, the company said. While specifically designed for marine operations, the new equipment can help all fabrication.

“Our new equipment begins another chapter in accuracy and productivity for Moran Iron Works,” Tom Moran, president of Moran Iron Works, said in a statement. “New pipe fabrication machines speak a very different language than the older models and our operators find it easier to translate that to high production and tight tolerances. The best part is we have lowered the level of hand work and lengthened the career span of our employees. These machines will let our team members feel more productive and end the day less tired.” The company did not disclose the cost of the new equipment, but said it received money through the federal Small Shipyard Grant Program from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration. The company invited officials from the offices of U.S. Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow and U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman to witness a demonstration of the new equipment.

“Moran Iron Works is an incredible asset to our region and employs nearly 100 northern Michiganders,” Bergman said in a statement shared with The News by Moran Iron Works. “I was proud to support the effort to acquire new equipment that will help Moran Iron Works increase its capabilities in structural steel fabrication and expand opportunity in the years to come.” Robert Tullar, capture manager for Italian-based shipbuilder Fincantieri, which has U.S. headquarters in Washington, D.C., visited Moran Iron Works for the demonstration. “It’s impressive because (Moran Iron Works) is not specifically a shipyard but they can use these machines to build boats plus broaden the breadth of what they do for customers,” Tullar said in a statement shared by Moran Iron Works. “The beam improves speed while improving quality. Any time you can do that, it makes it better for your customers and your bottom line. You get more output spending less energy.”

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Drilling In South America Set To Peak During 2022

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Drilling and completion activity in South America is expected to peak this year after a significant slowdown in 2020 due to the destruction in global demand brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Rystad Energy claimed. According to Rystad, the rebound is more pronounced for offshore wells, primarily driven by an uptick in activity in Brazil and Guyana. With the overall recovery in drilling, South America is also winning back a global market share of new wells drilled, with offshore proving the standout sector.

New wells drilled with the support of steel fabrication in South America in 2014 contributed to 8 percent of new wells globally in the offshore sector and 4 percent in the onshore. Activity has been on a downward trend since then following the slump in oil prices in late 2014 and the following year. Onshore drilling activity had witnessed a steep drop in 2016 before stabilizing, while offshore drilling activity saw a relatively smoother decline. The number of new wells drilled in the region was hit again in 2020 with a 50 percent decrease recorded compared to the previous year, as the outbreak of Covid early in the year wreaked havoc on global markets. Drilling activity in South America in 2020 constituted only 2 percent of global onshore activity and 3 percent of offshore.

The number of new wells has since increased due to the return of demand and increase in prices of oil and gas. Activity is expected to peak this year before going on another downward trend towards the end of the decade, partially due to Brazil having very low discovered onshore volumes in the last six years, making it difficult to support long-term growth. Offshore drilling activity in the region will remain at around 6 percent of global activity over the coming years, while onshore drilling will remain at around 3 percent. It should be noted that, while the offshore well count in the region is significantly lower than that of onshore, offshore production makes up nearly half of South America’s current output and is expected to exceed onshore production by 2024 due to increases in Brazil and Guyana. Advancements in drilling technologies are also expected to boost South America’s oil production in the years ahead.

Another region in South America that is seeing all-time high activity is Argentina’s Vaca Muerta. The country recorded further production growth records, as operators step up fracking in the prolific Vaca Muerta shale formation in Neuquén. While activity is at an all-time high, persistent supply chain bottlenecks suggest there is not a lot of room for incremental put-on production activity in the next few quarters. Yet, with base decline remaining low given the basin’s early phase of development and the improving type curves, oil output is still poised for significant growth in the coming years. Rystad Energy research claims that the region’s production could exceed 300,000 barrels per day early next year, expanding further to 400,000 bpd in 2024, helping the country’s total rebound to levels not seen in nearly 20 years.

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Advancements in Drilling Technologies – Part II

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Continuing from the first part of the blog on drilling technological advancements, this blog will discuss a couple of newer drilling technologies. Industry adoption of these technologies is an indicator of success and, while these methodologies are doubtless expensive, they have shown to offer savings in resources and materials utilized to extract energy from oil wells and hence, they are being gradually adopted by the major oil and gas players. So, what are the other two drilling technologies to be discussed and what’s their point of difference compared to horizontal and multilateral drilling? Let’s find out in this blog.

Extended Reach Drilling

Extended Reach Drilling

An extended-reach well is one in which the ratio of the measured depth (MD) vs. the true vertical depth (TVD) is at least 2:1. Extended-reach wells are expensive and technically challenging as they require the involvement of heavy steel fabrication companies, however, they can add value to drilling operations by making it possible to reduce costly subsea equipment and pipelines, by using satellite field development, by developing near-shore fields from onshore, and by reducing the environmental impact by developing fields from pads.

Extended Reach Drilling allows producers to reach deposits that are great distances away from the drilling rig and this help producers tap oil and natural gas deposits under surface areas where a vertical well cannot be drilled, such as under developed or environmentally sensitive areas. Offshore, the use of extended reach drilling allows producers to reach accumulations far from offshore platforms, minimizing the number of platforms needed to produce all the oil and gas. Similar to horizontal drilling, Extended Reach Drilling uses the technology of the “RSS: Rotary Steerable System” that permit to steer a hole continuing the rotation of the drilling string with an improvement of the safety and the drilling efficiency.

Automated Drilling

Automated Drilling machine

Automated drilling is one of the oil industry’s most important innovation targets. The sources now being tapped, such as shale gas and coal-bed methane, require a very large number of wells and usage of pipe fabrication, and automating the drilling process would be an obvious way to keep the costs under control, and also gets around a problem which many sectors of engineering are experiencing. Automated drilling would be faster, more efficient, and safer, as it reduces the number of workers on site. In this R&D sector, Shell has developed an automated drilling system called SCADAdrill (SCADA being the acronym for supervisory control and data acquisition, a type of software used for automated factory and process control), and is a component of a new well manufacturing system that it is currently trialing in Europe and North America. The SCADAdrill system is used on the horizontal dewatering bores. Through sensors mounted on the drill bit, the system monitors the trajectory of the drill and its performance as it travels through the site geology and controls its path to ensure that it meets the top hole precisely. Automating drilling takes in three stages of autonomy: firstly, to mechanize the drilling equipment; secondly to monitor torque and weight on the drill bit and thirdly, to automate the entire process.

Conclusion

It can be seen that Extended Reach drilling and Automated drilling both bring in their unique flavors to the world of oil drilling technologies. A degree of technical expertise is required to ensure proper implementation of these methodologies and people and software have to be trained accordingly so as to maximize the benefits. It’s an exciting time to be in the midst of the oil and gas sector and these advancements are poised to take the industry forward!

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Advancements in Drilling Technologies – Part I

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Recent advances in technologies used for oil well drilling have enabled the energy industry to access new sources of oil and natural gas to meet rising demand around the world. These new technologies have also helped reduce the environmental impact of energy production by allowing more oil and gas to be produced with fewer wells. Advances in technologies play an important role in meeting global energy demand because they enable the discovery of new resources, access to harsh or remote locations and the development of oil and gas reservoirs which were previously not economically viable. This is the first part of a two-part blog which discusses these technological advancements in oil drilling.

Horizontal Drilling

Horizontal drilling is a directional drilling process aimed to target oil or gas reservoir intersecting it at the “entry point” with a near-horizontal inclination, and remaining within the reservoir until the desired bottom hole location is reached. While the construction of a directional well often costs much more than a conventional well, initial production is greater of a conventional well. Horizontal drilling provides more contact to a reservoir formation than a vertical well and allows more hydrocarbons to be produced from a given wellbore. For example, six to eight horizontal wells drilled from one location, or well pad, can access the same reservoir volume as 16 vertical wells.

Using multi-well pads via steel fabrication can significantly reduce the overall number of well pads, access roads, pipeline routes and production facilities, minimizing habitat disturbance, impact to the public and overall environmental footprint. Horizontal wells are usually drilled to enhance oil production and in some situations the improvement may be dramatic – enabling development of a reservoir which would otherwise have been considered uneconomic. There are many kinds of reservoir where the potential benefits of horizontal drilling are evident:

  • In conventional reservoirs
  • Thin reservoirs; Reservoirs with natural vertical fractures; Reservoirs where water (and gas) coning will develop; thin layered reservoirs; heterogeneous reservoirs;
  • In unconventional reservoirs
  • Shale gas/oil, tight gas/oil, CBM, heavy oil, oil sands, etc.
Multilateral Drilling

At times oil and natural gas reserves are located in separate layers underground and multilateral drilling allows producers to branch out from the main well to tap reserves at different depths. This increases production from a single well and reduces the number of wells drilled on the surface. A multilateral well is a single well with one or more wellbore branches radiating from the main borehole. It may be an exploration well, an infill development well or a reentry into an existing well.

These wells generally represent two basic types: vertically staggered laterals and horizontally spread laterals in fan, spine-and-rib or dual-opposing T shapes. A successful multilateral well that replaces several vertical wellbores can reduce overall drilling and completion costs, increase production and provide more efficient drainage of a reservoir. Furthermore, multilaterals can make reservoir management more efficient and help increase recoverable reserves. In shallow or depleted reservoirs, branched horizontal wellbores are often most efficient, whereas in layered reservoirs, vertically stacked drain holes are usually best.

Closing Comments

As observed, horizontal and multilateral drilling techniques offer more advantages in certain cases than conventional well development. Increased efficiency and greater productivity are some of the benefits while also minimizing the environmental impact in case of horizontal drilling. However, there are other new drilling techniques which are likely to add value to drilling operations in the near future. Those will be discussed in the second part of this blog!

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Indigenous Australians Seek to Block Santos Gas Project

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A group of Indigenous Australians has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop Santos Ltd from developing a $3.6 billion gas project off northern Australia, saying they were not consulted about the drilling. Tiwi Islanders from the Northern Territory’s Tiwi Islands are claiming they have not been adequately consulted about Santos’ Barossa gas project, the pipeline of which will run through Tiwi Sea country. Therefore, Senior Tiwi Traditional Owner, Dennis Tipakalippa, is taking the federal offshore oil and gas regulator National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) to court to challenge its decision to approve Santos’ plan to drill the Barossa gas field, saying he and his people were never consulted about the drilling.

“It’s all about our future generations. That’s what I worry for. What are they going to have, who are they going to be? Our lives are not just lived on the land, but in the sea – this home that we have loved for thousands of generations,” Tipakalippa said. Both Santos and NOPSEMA declined to comment on the lawsuit. NOPSEMA referred to its approval of the project, which said “consultation has taken place with relevant persons as required”, including with community-based bodies such as the Tiwi Land Council and the Northern Land Council. The move by the traditional owners comes after a South Korean court last month dismissed their application to block Export-Import Bank of Korea and Korea Trade Insurance Corp from providing loans for the Barossa project’s pipeline.

The Barossa gas field is located 300 kilometres offshore Darwin in Australia. It is operated by Santos with South Korea’s SK E&S as a partner and is due to start producing gas in 2025. Santos sanctioned the $3.6 billion gas and condensate project in March 2021, also kick-starting the $600 million investment in the Darwin LNG life extension and pipeline tie-in projects to extend the facility life for around 20 years. The Barossa development concept includes an FPSO vessel developed using steel fabrication with a processing capacity for up to 800 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) of gas and a design capacity of 11,000 barrels per day of stabilized condensate, a subsea production system, supporting in-field subsea infrastructure in the Barossa field, and a subsea gas export pipeline.

In the latest case, the traditional owners allege the drilling will threaten their culture, way of life and food sources, affecting the breeding patterns and nesting grounds of turtles, dugongs and whales. Santos was required by law to consult with people who might be impacted by the drilling plans and since the company failed to do that, the decision by NOPSEMA is invalid, the lawyers for the Traditional Owners said. Santos said in March that it undertakes consultation with all key stakeholders for all of its projects.

© K999 Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd. 2023