Moderated by Janelle Daniel, SPE International featured Eavor’s Drilling Technology Manager Alex Vetsak in a livestream titled Powering Performance – Engineering with Data & the Energy Expansion.
Vetsak outlined Eavor’s use of Insulated Drill Pipe (IDP) technology and the key advantages it offers when drilling hotter and deeper Next-Generation Geothermal wells. In the case of geothermal well construction, as he explains, hotter subsurface rock, allows for an increase in total energy output per well. Therefore, developers will always drill deeper to extract more heat from higher temperature sources.
“Instead of trying to spend or invest millions of dollars in high-temperature electronics and batteries, we decided to focus on the cooling process, and the insulated drill pipe achieves that. It allows us to cool down bottom hole assembly (BHA) substantially, compared to running non-insulated drill pipe,” explained Vetsak.
Vetsak elaborates on data analysis and understanding of fundamental principles of physics, deploying IDP technology as one tool amongst many that Eavor uses to access this super-hot rock.
He also explains that the reliability of downhole tools is the most important value that IDP provides, Extending the longevity of a single BHA run without tripping for temperature-related failure would be crucial, and one achievement Eavor has made to confront this challenge has been the ability to cool down the drill string and maintain circulation temperature around bottom-hole assembly below 250°F (121°C) consistently.
“If you plan to go deeper and hotter, you don’t necessarily need to chase higher temperature-rated tools. You may want to take a look at the ability to cool down your BHAs and use conventional tools, which would save you money as well as improve reliability and cut the number of trips due to temperature-related downhole failures,” said Vetsak.
During closing remarks, Vetsak reinforced that state of the art technology is consistently evolving within the drilling industry, and Eavor is continuously at the forefront of these innovations that are transforming the cleantech sector.
“We are looking forward to transitioning to a cleaner energy future, and to do that, we definitely need to continue working on multiple technologies to make this transition as smooth as possible.”
