MOHD SAMEER KHAN R010209033

LASER DRILLING

1990 GRI Study on Drilling Costs

Major Categories Making Hole Changing Bits And Steel Casing
Well & Formation Characteristics Total Drilling Time

Drilling for Oil and Gas in the US

% of Total Time 48 27

25 100% .

High-energy Laser Applications

Lasers could play a significant role as a vertical boring & perforating tool in gas well drilling

System Vision
Laser on surface or within drilling tubing applies

infrared energy to the working face of the borehole. The downhole assembly includes sensors that measure standard geophysical formation information, as well as imaging of the borehole wall, all in real time. Excavated material is circulated to the surface as solid particles

 When desired, some or all of the excavated

material is melted and forced into and against the wall rock. The ceramic thus formed can replace the steel casing currently used to line well bores to stabilize the well and to control abnormal pressures.

 When the well bore reaches its target depth,

the well is completed by using the same laser emergy to perforate through the ceramic casing. All this is done in one pass without removing the drill string from the hole.

MIRACL Simulated Perf Shot

A two-inch laser beam is sent to the side of a sandstone sample to simulate a horizontal drilling application.

MIRACL Simulated Borehole Shot

After a four-second exposure to the beam, a hole is blasted through the sandstone sample, removing six pounds of material.

ADVANTAGE
Laser drilling saves a lot of workers' time in drilling an oil well. Normal drilling operations

take a lot of time and a lot of equipments while laser drilling can drill it easily with much less equipment. Laser drilling can penetrate the at 10 to 100 times faster than the typical drilling process, because there is no need to cut the rock, because the laser bit does not touch the rock, it melts it instead. Moreover, it reduces cost of the total drilling operations and provides enough energy to cut the rock.

 Laser Drilling technique can drill at any angle. Drilling the rock at any angle is an important

feature at the present time. That is because this feature means there is no need to bring a lot of equipment to drill horizontally, because now most of the wells are drilled horizontally or drilled using the "Directional Drilling" method. It is also important, because most of time is used in drilling horizontally, which needs a lot of equipment to do so.

 Another Advantage of laser drilling is, it needs thermal energy to drill petroleum wells. However, normal drilling needs lubricating substance called drilling mud which lubricates rotary equipment. Its

function is to lubricate the bit, provide a sufficient hydrostatic pressure, clean the hole. Laser drilling does not need all that. It will be a lot more neater than the normal drilling because it will not need mud. Moreover, it melts the rock and creates a ceramic coat. That means, it does not break it, which means it does not need much work to the fragments after drilling.

DISADVANTAGE
Laser rock drilling uses optical energy that

transforms into thermal energy to melt the rock (formation). However, petroleum is a highly flammable substance. Therefore, using laser as a drilling bit can be highly dangerous if not used carefully. That is before reaching the oil zone, the bit must be removed and then replacing it by a normal drilling bit.

 Unfortunately, Laser can only drill shallow

holes. According to petroleum engineering text books, the average depth is 6000 ft.

 One of the major drawbacks of laser drilling is

that it needs huge amounts of energy to be operated (6:2). Therefore, depending on the previous disadvantage, it needs a lot of energy to drill only shallow holes.

SPECIFIC ENERGY
S.E. = P*t/v P = power, in watts t = time in seconds v = volume of rock removed

CONCLUSION

SE for Shale 10x Less Than SS or LS Pulsed Lasers Cut Faster & With Less Energy Than Continuous Wave Lasers. Fluid Saturated Rocks Cut Faster Than Dry Rocks.

Possible Mechanisms Include:

More Rapid Heat Transfer Away From the Cutting Face Suppressing Melting Steam Expansion of Water Contributing to Spallation

LATEST UPDATES
The first well will be drilled in 2016 Research is been going on to find out what

type of mud will be used, if not air drilling will be done A single casing will be run through to put the well head and install packer and tubing The speed of drilling would be around 750 ft/hr