Economic Report 2011
Focus on Well Services
A specific subset of the upstream oil and gas supply chain is the well services contractors, a group of companies providing a wide range of specialist services outlined in Figure 52. All the services required to complete, test, and maintain an oil, gas or water or gas injection well, with the exception of actually drilling the borehole, are provided by this group. This sector of the industry comprises companies of many different sizes, from small companies focussing on high technology solutions to specific down-hole requirements, to large international, multiservice contractors that can provide of all categories of services.
The UKCS has always been seen as a key testing and developing ground for new technology that is subsequently exported to the global market. Compared with many other parts of the industry, the well services contractors have a lot of capital invested in hardware and it is important that investment in research and development is sustained to ensure that this equipment is continually refreshed, improved and available to adapt to the challenges faced in the mature province of the UKCS.
While many of the services provided are well proven and conventional, it is through the introduction of new technologies that the life of the province will continue to be extended by promoting economic extraction of previously inaccessible or small reserves. Since the dawn of North Sea operations, over 11,000 wells have been drilled in the UKCS; Figure 50 indicates their scale in terms of their internal length measured along the bore (otherwise known as “total depth” (TD)). The length of a well and the geology of the rock formation can create their own technical challenges, but the necessity of drilling being both safe and economic is paramount.
Figure 51 illustrates an example of a system of production wells drilled from a rig as if it were located in Trafalgar Square in central London, showing the spread of the wells.
Oil & Gas UK has recently canvassed the opinions of drilling managers in the UK, asking what they consider to be the biggest advances in drilling in the last 10 years and seeking their opinions of possible gamechangers in the next decade.
For almost all of them, the top four of the past 10 years were technologies leading to:
- better control of drilling direction with rotary steerable bottom hole assemblies;
- better understanding of the nature of the reservoir through down-hole measurement;
- increased rate of progress of drilling, whilst reducing risk to personnel by the introduction of enhanced top-drive capability;
- enhanced durability and reliability through improved drill bit design.
However, with the exception of coiled tubing / continuous pipe drilling, there was little consensus as to what the game-changers for the next 10 years might be, though a constant theme to every suggestion was new technology that would save time and money, thus allowing the UKCS to continue to be an attractive investment proposition.
