Halliburton helped Cobalt save more than USD 10 million

Overview 

Cobalt International Energy chose Halliburton to provide openhole wireline services for their deepwater presalt exploration wells in Angola. Halliburton’s cutting-edge technology and close collaboration helped Cobalt save more than USD 10 million. The versatile, flexible, and customized RDT™ tester with its various probe configurations helped avoid multiple pressure testing and sampling runs in each well. These wells were logged at water depths of 5000 ft or more with state-of-the-art 7-conductor Extra-Extra High-Strength (EEHS) cable that has a 30,000- lb breaking strength resulting in the prevention of many fishing jobs. The large-dimension rotary sidewall cores retrieved with the Xaminer™ Coring Tool with high recovery rates complemented the conventional coring program. A collaborative approach with the Formation and Reservoir Solutions (FRS) teams, along with efficient and timely logistical support from Halliburton, enabled Cobalt to make faster decisions and save expensive rig time.. 

Challenge 

Halliburton began planning for the job and allocating resources even before its actual award to overcome the tight service delivery schedule and the logistical challenges in Angola. The acquired data had to be shared between teams in Angola and Houston while maintaining utmost confidentiality. To achieve this, a secure and dedicated data exchange and posting system was put in place. 

Solution

The EEHS cable has a breaking strength of 30,000 lb and a pulling capability beyond 18,000 lb without a capstan. In the first four wells, this high-endurance cable, along with the electric wireline jars and electrically releasable cable head, saved Cobalt at least four fishing jobs and several hours of rig time. Halliburton, based on their experience from the first well, customized the bit and collar of the Xaminer Coring Tool to increase the core recovery rate. A total of 395 sidewall core samples were taken from four wells with a recovery rate of 97 percent. The Xaminer Coring Tool provides samples that are 1.5 in. in diameter and 2.1 in. in length, more than three times the volume of previous-generation samples. The quality of the samples and the flexibility in their transportation helped Cobalt get core analysis done for timely and effective decisions.

Result

The challenges to formation evaluation, including hydrocarbon identification, are multifold. Complex distributions of pore geometries and reservoir quality are present in these presalt formations. The versatile Halliburton RDT™ tester was configured for each job to determine fluid types and permeability to derive solutions with a higher level of reservoir understanding. Flexible and combinable probe configurations helped the RDT tester accomplish all the testing and fluid sampling requirements in the same run. Altogether, the people, processes, and technologies deployed by Halliburton for Cobalt International Energy saved an estimated USD 10 million in rig days. The savings came from eliminating unnecessary runs, minimizing the time between runs, collecting effective fluid and rock samples, and fast turnaround time of processed data and integrated solutions delivered by Halliburton FRS teams