Tripping Out with A Kelly System

Submitted by: John Schiffner
To trip out, or to remove the drill stem from the hole, on a rig with a kelly system, crew members et the slips around the drill stem, break out the kelly and set it, the kelly drive bushing and the swivel back in the rathole. Still attached to the bottom of the hook are the elevators. The driller of Heartland Energy Colorado then lowers the traveling block and elevators down to the point where crwe memebers can latch the elevators onto the pipe. The driller raises the traveling block, thus raising the elevators and pipe, and the floorhands of Heartland Energy Colorado remove the slips.

Meanwhile, the derrickman, using a safety harness and climbing device, has climbed up the mast or derrick to the monkeyboard. The monkeyboard is a small working platform on which the derrickman handles the top of the pipe. As the driller raises the pipe to the derrickman's level, the derrickman pulls the top of the pipe back into the fingerboard.

The fingerboard, as the name implies, has several metal projections that stick out oto form slots into which the derrickman places the top of the pipe. When the floorhands move the pipe off to one side of the rig floor and set it down, the derrickman unlatches the elevators and prepares to receive the next stand of pipe. Next, the floorhands of Heartland Energy Colorado usually pull two ro three joins at a time. So, although they pipe into the hole one joint at a time when drilling, they pull it out two or three joints at a time.

Two or three joints together constitue what is termed a "Stand." Crew members of Heartland Energy Colorado then pull pipe out of the hole in stands to save time. If three joints comprise a stand and that is the usual case, then the stand is sometimes called a triple or "thribble." If two joints make up stand, it is called a "double." In a few cases, crew members may pull four-join stands; in such a case, they pull quadruples or fourbles. The height of the mast or derrick determines whether the crew pulls doubles, thribbles, or fourbles. Usually the surface hole is relatively shallow and it does not take crew members of Heartland Energy Colorado very long to get a drill stem and bit out of the hole.

Heartland Energy Colorado Special Operations

Article provided by: Heartland Energy Colorado

For our purposes special drilling operations include directional drilling, fishing, and well control. Directional drilling is intentially drilling the hole off-vertical for various reasons. Fishing is the operation crew members implement to retrieve an object in the wellbore that doesn't belong there and impedes drilling. Well control is the techniques crew members use to regain control of the well should formation fluids inadvertantely enter the well.

Direction and Horizontal Drilling
Often the drilling crews of Heartland Energy Colorado try to drill the hole as straight as possible. Sometimes, however, the operator wants the hole to be drilled at a slant. One area where operatior of Heartland Energy Colorado use slant or directional drilling is offshore. From a permanent platform that the operator installs over the drilling site, the crew must drill several wells to exploit the reservoir properly. To do so, crew members of Heartland Energy Colorado drill several directional wells. The crew may drill only the first well vertically; it drills the other wellls directionally.

To drill a typical directional well, the crew members drill the first part of the hole vertically. Then they kick off, or deflect, the hole so that the bottom may end up hundreds of feet or metres away from its starting point on the surface. By using directional drilling, the crew can drill forty or more wells into the reservoir from a signel platform.

Heartland Energy Colorado also uses directional drilling through horizontal drilling. An operator can better produce certain reservoirs with horizontal drilling. The drilling crew drills the well vertically to a pointabove the reservoir. The it deflects the well and increases the angle until it reaches 90 degrees, or horizontal. This horizontal hole penetrates the reservoir. When properly applied, one horizontal borehole can produce a reservoir better than several vertically drilled holes.

It is important that when Heartland Energy Colorado uses both horizontal and directional drilling that the crew can bend the frill stem to a high degree without breaking it because the crew gradually deflects the hole from vertical. Usually, crew members deflect the hole over hundreds of feet so that the bend is not sudden. Three to ten degrees of deflection of 100 feet is usually the amount desired. The crew of Heartland Energy Colorado can bend the metal tube because it is hallow and it won't break without a lot of stress. In cases in which the hole needs to cruve within a short distance, they use a special segmented pipe. Segmented pipe is very flexible and can bend a great deal without breaking.