Alcoa, the aluminum manufacturer has announced the successful deployment of Aluminum Alloy Drill Pipe measuring 1800 m by its Alcoa Oil & Gas division in the Iron Duke offshore drilling well at Seria in Brunei in conjunction with Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) and Alcoa’s project service partner, AMRTUR.
Alcoa Aluminum Alloy Drill Pipes
The well is deemed to be the most complicated amongst those operated by BSP owing to deviations in the form of three S-shaped curves and a lengthy horizontal section measuring 5,000 m. The well was drilled in 60 m of water to a depth of 7,485 m.
Shayne Dustin, Senior Well Engineer at BSP stated that in the face of persisting challenges to enhance the scope of drilling area to minimize cost and optimize oil recovery, Alcoa’s light aluminum alloy pipes were identified as a means to address the problems of high drag, high torque, reduced cantilever loading and wearing out of casing. The introduction of the pipes eliminated the need for well design modification at the platform fringes. The Aluminum Alloy Drill Pipe from Alcoa are made up of aluminum tube sections measuring 30 ft and are fastened with steel joints using proprietary thermal connection method. The tubes are produced at the Lafayette facility in Indiana and assembled at its Houston Oil & Gas facility. The pipes are lighter than all-steel pipes by 40%. BSP is planning to deploy the Aluminum Alloy Drill Pipes at other wells in Brunei and Shell is contemplating pipe deployment at a drilling project in New Zealand.