Shale Gas: Staying Light & Smart in Europe
For the safe and successful development of Europe’s nascent shale gas industry, well technology needs to be smarter, lighter and make better use of resources.
So said Robert Macfarlane, Business Development Manager, Continental Europe at Welltec, a Danish, technology-led company delivering novel solutions for fixing wells.
One of the speakers at the European Unconventional Gas Summit in Krakow, Poland, he admitted that in comparison with industry practices in the US, there were special concerns in Europe over shale gas production.
“The population density of Europe is far higher,” he explained. “There is very strong legislation, which is great – as it actually ensures a higher sense of due diligence across the completion, drilling and then the intervention phases that you have to do subsequently to make sure that the well’s operating correctly and has the integrity that it needs over its lifetime.”
He added: “There will be great pressure on water use, use of the land, moving equipment around by truck. I think that it is going to need new and better technology, better methods, smarter use of all your resources, or otherwise it is just not going to work.”
Mr. Macfarlane said that Welltec had a keyhole surgical approach.
“Rather than chopping someone’s leg off, we’ll go and do something light and smart and cost effective. That could be solving integrity problems with the well, gathering data from the well and reservoir; and now we’re moving into completion technology also.”
He recounted how Welltec’s founding occurred via an industry need.
“Traditionally, wells for the last 100 years or so have been vertical into the ground and when you come to intervene in the well (intervention is anything you go back into after the drilling and completion process) and you want to gather data or manipulate something in the well mechanically, then you’ve got the aid of gravity in a vertical well to do that.
“When you come to horizontal or highly deviated wells, gravity no longer helps you much, because you have been using a flexible cable to lower things into the well. So, in order to go down you need coil tubing or, in some cases, to bring a rig back to push things down to the bottom of the well,” he explained.
“Welltec developed the Well Tractor, which is basically a tool that goes on the end of the coil or wireline (electric cable), and has little wheels that come out, contact the inside of the pipe and pull or push – whatever you need to get to the toe of the well. So you can use a small, light cable and not a big, heavy, expensive rig or coil tubing to intervene in the well.”
He said Welltec first used the technology in Denmark and Norway and that one true believer in the technology is Norway’s Statoil.
“They are great proponents of new technology. If you try and do something that doesn’t work exactly as expected, they say ‘Just tweak and try again.’ They are great for that. Norway is still a very large part of our operation.”
According to Macfarlane, there are more pressures to use Welltec equipment offshore because of deck space, HSE and logistics requirements.
“But Statoil have actually found that even when we can get equipment on to the rig, like coiled tubing, they prefer to use Welltec’s technology,” he said. “We’ve become first call for them with their interventions. They have moved away from predominantly using coil and snubbing, (which is going into live well with drill pipe).”
According to Mr. Macfarlane, Welltec is also doing a lot of work in North America with shale gas.
“We’ve done thousands of operations with plug and perforating, which is an explosives operation. We also convey microseismic tools in shale gas wells, which is something that’s going to be important I think in Europe. With microseismic you can see where the fractures are occurring and ensure that the frac is not migrating up to the surface, or to aquifers.”
Welltec also performs numerous operations with well cleanouts and can mill out packers, plugs, cement and remove scale with electric line cable as opposed to having to revert back to traditional heavy methods as mentioned earlier, he said.
Presently Welltec have performed operations in Poland, said Macfarlane, who explained: “It was to show the integrity of a cement job in a well, to make sure there was no channeling or microanulus that could allow gas to migrate, either between zones in the well or to surface. We’ve done that in Poland and hopefully will do a lot more of those and other operations during the drilling stage, completion stage or in the production phase of the well.”
Mr. Macfarlane being from the UK, said he was excited by the prospect of Cuadrilla Resources’ shale gas find in Blackpool.
“Blackpool’s a seaside town which could really do with some investment, so it is great for the area. It is good for the UK, which has hydrocarbons background – the expertise is already there. There is legislation in place and the government are used to dealing with oil companies. I think it is a great development .”
He continued, “For Cuadrilla, there are potential misunderstandings with public perception. They stopped and looked at the situation. They’re doing the right thing: they’re engaging the community, they’re talking, they’re open, inviting MPs to their wellsites to see what is involved in their operations. That’s what they have had to do in the US and you see Cuadrilla doing it in the UK.”
Of the European shale gas industry, Macfarlane opined: “There is going to be acute pressure on getting equipment to wellsites or just having the equipment available at all. The US has a lot of pumping ability, etc, for doing frac jobs; Europe simply doesn’t have that and won’t have it for quite some time.”
“The market’s coming, so the equipment will be produced as it’s needed,” he said. “It could be built in the UK, but I think the message is that your planning’s going to have be pretty good, because you’re going to be pulling your hair out trying to get equipment. Shale Gas is not going to happen quickly, but it is going to happen.”