Rotary steerable systems

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Permalink Reply by Scott Vannoy on February 14, 2011 at 4:28pm

I ran one a few years ago. I was working for Weatherford at the time. It was the tool that Precision Energy built before Weatherford bought them out. They actually had it in an experimental mode with an EM tool. This had never been done before. I coordinated a lot of jobs where we ran LWD and Rotary Steerable, so I saw good and bad. For a DD, it's a dream. You obviously never have to slide. Many of them are set up to adjust automatically to the well plan. Most companies have realized that crossing LWD hands over to RS makes more sense these days. When they work, they are wonderful since you are rotating all of the time and can make hole much faster. There are always experiments with different formations where it works and where it won't work. When it fails, you are tripping, no ifs, ands, or buts. It has several moving parts on the outside that can fail. Much of the dependability actually depends on just whose tools you are running. Having seen much of the R&D work, I would say that Precision/Weatherford's is the best since much of it is digital and the newest to be built from scratch, not a modification of an earlier model. I wouldn't trust Baker's tool as far as I could throw it. As far as cost, the actual day rate is at least twice what a motor and MWD will set you back. Most of the time, they don't go anywhere for less than $25,000 per day. And they will charge you to have them just sitting on location, not just in the hole. Repairs aren't cheap either.

Permalink Reply by Overshot on February 14, 2011 at 4:39pm

Thanks for the info. Scott, that helps a bunch. Did I read this right "$25,000 per day", 25 LARGE per day? Ouch!

I don't expect repairs on any of this stuff to be cheap anymore, especially with the demand due to all the horizontal work being done these days.