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HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES WINS
PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS FOR INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY
DALLAS, Texas (May 3, 1999) - Halliburton Energy Services, a business unit of Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL), was the recipient of several prestigious awards for engineering excellence and achievement in the petroleum industry. Petroleum Engineering International presented the awards to Halliburton today at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas.
"These Petroleum Engineering International awards represent the efforts of some of the best and brightest in the industry," said Dave Lesar, President and Chief Operating Officer, Halliburton Company. "We are very proud of the hard work and dedication of Halliburton Energy Services (HES) employees and our partners. It is an honor for our people and our technology to be recognized as the best."
The awards program recognizes new products and technologies that offer innovation in concept, design, and application. It also recognizes the potential for the innovative products or technologies to solve cost problems and improve efficiency and profitability.
"We have been awarded four stand-alone awards for the Cuttings Bed Impeller (CBI), DepthPro Service, FlexPlug Service and SandWedge Service. An additional two awards are going to Halliburton as a result of relationships with our customers," said Edgar Ortiz, president, Halliburton Energy Services. "These awards are Dual Action Pumping System with Texaco, and the Expandable Tubular Technology with Shell International E&P/Enventure Global Technology."
The Cuttings Bed Impeller was developed by HES' Security DBS to prevent drill pipe wear, hole instability and excessive torque and drag in high-angle wells. An impeller is a short mandrel with in-cut zones to either side of chevron-shaped blades. The in-cut zones loosen the cuttings beds while the adjacent chevron-shaped blade agitates them, getting the cuttings out of their beds and preventing buildup.
CBIs were introduced in the North Sea and have recently been run in high-angle wells in the Gulf of Mexico.
HES' Depth Pro Service logs tubing and casing collars without the need for coiled tubing logging reels. A tool on the end of the coiled tubing is equipped with a pilot-operated, battery-powered shuttle valve with sensor. As a tool runs in on the end of a tubing string, fluid is pumped down the string and through the shuttle valve. When the tool passes a casing collar, the sensor detects the collar and actuates the pilot valve, closing the shuttle valve and causing a pressure spike. The pressure spike, detected at the surface, positively locates the collar and establishes depth. The pilot and shuttle valves re-open until the tool comes to the next collar.
The Depth Pro Service eliminates the need for coiled tubing logging reel and does away with several other expenses associated with conventional collar locating.
The Dual Action Pumping System (DAPS), developed jointly by Texaco and Dresser Oil Tools, is a downhole oil-water separation technology that produces oil and water on the upstroke, while injecting water on the downstroke, using gravity segregation in the annulus. This separation system lifts 18 percent to 30 percent of the total fluid in the well bore, while simultaneously injecting the remaining fluid (all water) through a packer for disposal.
DAPS uses two pumps on one rod string and two intakes to maintain separation between the water that it injects into a deeper zone and the oil and remaining water that it lifts to the surface concurrently. With DAPS, it is now possible to use one well bore for simultaneous production and water injection or disposal. DAPS and downhole hydrocyclone systems have broken the industry paradigm that oil and water must be produced to the surface before separating them again.
Potential benefits of this system include an increase in oil production through greater withdrawal from the formation, a reduction in operating expenses and in water handling costs, and a reduction in investment costs.
Expandable tubular technology, developed by Enventure - a 50/50 joint venture between Shell and HES, is expected to significantly reduce the costs of drilling, casing and completing oil and gas wells. After a well section is drilled, expandable casing is run in the usual manner. The casing is then expanded with a special mandrel. Tests have demonstrated that the mandrel will expand 100 feet of casing per minute by as much as 25 percent of the original diameter. With expandable systems, the well can start with a smaller casing diameter than normal at the surface and end with a slightly larger casing size at the target, giving operators more flexibility in evaluating potential pay zones without running out of hole diameter.
HES' FlexPlugSM Service halts drilling mud circulation losses to natural or induced fractures, vugs, channels in weak zones, or flowing over-pressured zones. One water-based system and two oil-based systems have been formulated.
The system's novelty is that the FlexPlug reacts with drilling mud, formation water, or an activating fluid to form a drillable, rubbery mass within 10 to 60 seconds. The mass extrudes into the weakest zones first, then sequentially seals the next weakest zones. The consistency of the mass provides a non-brittle bridge at the loss zones' opening. The operator can drill ahead almost immediately at high equivalent densities. The treatment barely penetrates the rock matrix and fracture; therefore it is less damaging to productive formation. Laboratory tests of 1,200-md cores confirmed penetration depths of less than 1/64 of an inch.
HES' SandWedge Service imparts a tacky surface to proppant grains allowing frac treatments to provide enhanced conductivity by creating better flow channels and reducing the mobility of formation sands and fines. The SandWedge chemical coating on the proppant dramatically increases the intergrain friction, resulting in a stabilized proppant pack that is not easily fluidized. It reduces the settling rate of the proppant in the frac fluid, improving vertical distribution and increasing porosity and permeability of the proppant pack.
The SandWedge Service helps to increase the fracture conductivity of conventional frac sand by 10 percent to 30 percent at closure stresses below 4,000 psi based on standard API conductivity flow tests.
The awards program, sponsored by Petroleum Engineer International, was established 31 years ago to "recognize the good things the industry had done," according to former PEI Publisher Abbott Sparks. An expert panel consisting of engineers and engineering managers with operating, drilling and consulting companies worldwide judges each entry.
Halliburton Energy Services provides products, services and integrated solutions for oil and gas exploration, development and production.
Halliburton Company, founded in 1919, is the world's leading diversified energy services, engineering, construction, maintenance, and energy equipment company. Its World Wide Web site can be accessed at www.halliburton.co.
Contact
Dirk Vande Beek
Halliburton Company
(p) 713.676.8097
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