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Shell Casing and Tubing Design Guide

Chapter 1
Shell Design Philosophy

Shell Design Philosophy.............................................................................................................2

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1. SHELL DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

Shell wells share the foundation of being designed and constructed based upon historical
operating experience and a long tradition of operating and producing integrity in many different
parts of the world. This shared philosophy has resulted in Shell being recognized for its
competency in well design but also being criticized for conservatism and risk aversion in the past.
Future wells will be designed and built based upon maintaining this commitment to competency
and integrity, but will use risk-balanced innovation and adaptation to be able to cope with more
demanding well designs in a cost-leadership environment.
The well will be designed around three factors: the needs of the completion to provide optimum
production over its lifetime; the need for reliable pressure containment over the life of the well;
and the cycle time required to put various design options into production. Completion
requirements and production schedules should be defined early and drive both the tubing and the
casing design. Technology should be used aggressively to accommodate the well completion
instead of compromising on the completion design by assuming what can be accommodated based
on past practice. The completion concept forms the basis for the overall well design from the
inside out.
The new well design taps into both historical learnings and recent innovations through sharing of
best practices with global staff having decades of experience through the use of networks such as
the Wells Global Network and training programs. Reliance on historical learnings does not mean
that new designs copy past wells. Instead this means that past learning experiences should be a
foundation for the innovation of each new well design. This Design Guide is intended to foster
the creation of new casing and tubing design opportunities which link to both historical and
contemporary learnings. The latter is to be achieved through a commitment to keeping this Guide
evolutionary. Risk assessment will ensure that design integrity is maintained.
The basic design process will still be the same all across Shell. In principle, two Shell engineers
working with the same well conditions in different parts of the world will come up with the same
basic well design. However, in the end, their detailed well designs may differ, taking account of
historical learnings, local expertise, and local innovation of the particular operating company.
This is the reason that Shell has introduced the layered design process discussed later in the
Guide.
The engineer doing casing or tubing design should have awareness of general trends in industry
well design, but the engineer also should keep well abreast of and leverage the innovations and
new learnings being generated by Shell. When new technologies, innovative ideas, or new
business conditions demand and enable innovative new well designs, the design of casing and
tubing should be taken to the cutting edge at which well and operating integrity can be maintained
through prudent management of risk. However, the innovation of casing and tubing design
should not reflect the initiative of an individual engineer; it should reflect the consistent
evolution of local design practices within an operating company.

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Shell wells must make more rapid use of new and evolving technologies. This is supported by
the large annual investment in technology, and part of the responsibility of the well engineer is to
keep abreast of the new technology and rapidly exploit the technology for the benefit of increased
production or reduced cost at managed risk. The aggressive use of new enabling technology
should not be done at the expense of prudent risk management incorporating historical learnings.
Shell will innovate faster than its competition, but will use prudent risk management to do this.
The Guide can be used to help rationalize changes in design practice specific to the conditions of
local operating companies. The casing and tubing should be designed to provide well integrity
and innovation at the lowest possible cost while always managing risk. Risk should not be
avoided in an absolute sense, but instead risk should be managed by evaluating the likelihood of
events occurring, the likely consequences, and their impact over the total lifetime of a well.
Risk management should include both the risks to well control over pressures and fluids and the
risks to competitive cost and position. Design changes should evolve either by taking a series of
incremental evolutionary steps linked by well successes, or by taking large leaps forward with the
guidance of a risk assessment and hazard evaluation that supports the large step change. Every
large change in well design should be accompanied by a risk assessment that is documented by
the engineer. This risk assessment can be either qualitative or quantitative. The risk assessment
could entail a comprehensive study, but it also could involve just the engineer making and
documenting (1) a subjective evaluation of the likelihood that events will happen; (2) the
likelihood that particular consequences will occur; and (3) the acceptability of this combination of
likely events and consequences. Shell wells therefore must be designed with the documented
management of risks, not with the avoidance of risks.
Casing and tubing design should be done as a marriage between design concepts and operating
skills. This is one reason that Shell has introduced tiers for design practice. The basic design case
represents the most conservative option for design possibilities and for control of the well.
Designs with higher but still prudent risk represent the next tiers up in well design. These higherrisk designs are desirable for their benefit to well efficiency, and these should be implemented on
an OU level. However, they should only be implemented when risk assessment indicates that
adequate controls are in place to manage safety and maintain well integrity; and only when the
highest well control skills are in place to manage the higher-risk well.
Where innovative design leads to the use of new equipment, part of the risk assessment should be
to consider the value brought by the new equipment, the likely start-up performance of the new
equipment, and the likely consequences of unforeseen issues with the new equipment. New
equipment should be used when the risk assessment suggests that the risk is acceptable in light of
the added value.
A Shell well should be a quality design and should use quality equipment in order to make the
design both optimized and fit for its purpose. Shell has a commitment to quality in well design
and equipment, because the risks of an innovative well design can be managed only through a
quality process. Quality does not necessarily mean use of the most expensive equipment. Instead,
quality means use of the right equipment for the application. Quality in the well design may be
based on historical experience with equipment (that is, field-proven or grandfathered equipment),
or quality may be based on testing a design concept and qualifying the equipment for the service.
For either of these approaches, the equipment must be shown to be fit for the application.

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Like pipe and connections, Shell also provides quality stress analysis through the use of design
software to Shell standards. Delivery of the quality well is achieved partly through the Shell use
of design software. The well design will be based on triaxial stress design and use of the same
software shared by all operating companies across Shell. Software expertise is one of the key
core competencies of Shell engineers. Shell uses its historical experience and large number of
wells drilled annually to share design best practices among different operating companies. The
commonality of design software is one of the vehicles for this sharing of best practices.
Shell operating companies take responsibility for ownership of the tubing and casing design. The
tubulars design is not contracted out to third parties. Where support calculations are provided by
contractors, the work is supervised and owned by Shell engineers. This is done because of the
impact that tubulars design has on lifetime well reliability, cost, risk, and delivery. This approach
is part of what makes the well a Shell well.
Tubing design should seek to maximize through-tubing accessibility to the reservoir. Industrywide emphasis on lifecycle cost saving has raised awareness of the benefits of performing
operations such as perforation optimization, production logging, selective stimulation, zonal
abandonment, and improved wellbore clean-out at reservoir level through the tubing. For full
flexibility and increased reliability in these operations, it is important not to inhibit the passage
and operation of the tools involved. This requires the elimination of unnecessary restrictions in
well completions, i.e., maximizing the completion through-bore, together with a suitable matching
of the tubing and production liner sizes in cases where tiebacks are not used. A direct
consequence of this is the desire for simplified well completions. The completion should
emphasize overall life cycle production optimization, operational simplicity with respect to well
monitoring, well servicing, and future workover requirements.