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Recently, Sinopec Petroleum Engineering Technology Research Institute organized a high-level forum on petroleum engineering and a forum for outstanding young engineers in petroleum engineering, inviting many academicians, experts, scholars and young scientific research leaders to discuss the latest research results and development trends in the exploration and development of unconventional oil and gas and new energy fields, and to accelerate the independent innovation of high-end petroleum engineering technology and equipment through the exchange and collision of various ideas, and to help deep-earth and deep-water href="http://www.in-en.com/keylist.php?q=%E6%B2%B9%E6%B0%94%E5%8B%98%E6%8E%A2%E5%BC%80%E5%8F%91" target="_blank">Oil and gas exploration and development. The forum also released the "2024 Global Oil and Gas Engineering Industry Development Report" at the same time. This edition selects some views for sharing, please pay attention.
□Reporter Wei Jiaqi and Ji Jiaxin
Correspondent Jiang Linlin
Employees of the Jianghan Petroleum Engineering Drilling Team are working on the platform. Photo by Huang Zhiyong
One depth brings thousands of difficulties, and joint innovation challenges the 10,000-meter deep layer
As the difficulty of discovering oil and gas in the shallow and medium layers increases, the exploration and development of deep and ultra-deep oil and gas resources has become an important area for increasing reserves and production. Sun Jinsheng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, introduced that in recent years, 60% of the world's new oil and gas reserves came from deep formations. Deep and ultra-deep layers have become the main battlefield for major oil and gas discoveries in my country, with oil and gas resources reaching 67.1 billion tons of oil equivalent, accounting for 34% of the country's total oil and gas resources, and the proportion of newly added oil and gas reserves is increasing year by year.
Domestic ultra-deep well drilling began in the 1960s and 1970s and was scaled up in the late 1990s. In recent years, ultra-deep wells and ultra-deep wells have developed rapidly, and ultra-deep wells above 8,000 meters have become normalized, mainly concentrated in Tarim, Sichuan and the southern edge of Junggar. A number of iconic ultra-deep wells such as Pengshen 6 Well, Guole 3C Well, Yuejin 3-3XC Well, etc. have been drilled and continuously set new records. In March this year, the drilling depth of Shendi Tako 1 Well successfully broke through the 10,000-meter mark, marking that my country has independently overcome the technical bottleneck of ultra-deep well drilling at the 10,000-meter level. Before this, the only project in the world that reached a depth of 10,000 meters on land was the Soviet Union's Kola Superdeep Well SG-3, which was drilled to a depth of 12,262 meters and took 23 years to drill, while the Tako 1 well took only 279 days to complete the 10,000-meter footage. At present, the second 10,000-meter deep well in China, the Shendi Chuanke 1 well, is accelerating its advance into the deep earth in the Sichuan Basin.
One depth brings all kinds of difficulties, and absolute depth brings extreme problems. Sun Jinsheng said that the implementation of 10,000-meter scientific exploration and pre-exploration wells faces technical challenges such as drilling through multiple formations, complex pressure formations and complex lithology formations, harsh wellbore temperature and pressure conditions, and the underground conditions have changed from simple and complex to complex and complicated. First, the underground measurement and control instruments are not able to withstand ultra-high temperatures and ultra-high pressures. The bottom temperatures of the two 10,000-meter-deep wells are both over 210 degrees Celsius. The electronic components and sealing materials of the existing drilling, logging, completion and control instruments are difficult to meet the use requirements of ultra-high temperature, ultra-high pressure and other complex environments, resulting in shortened service life and increased failure rate. It is urgent to improve the overall performance and expand the application depth. Second, key equipment, pipes, tools, etc. are difficult to meet the service requirements of ultra-deep wells. Ultra-deep drilling has very strict service requirements for top drives, high-pressure drilling pumps, drilling pipes and logging cables. The existing drilling tool combination has small optimization space and poor safety service capabilities, which cannot effectively guarantee safe and efficient drilling and urgently needs to be upgraded and improved. Third, the theoretical technology of "well engineering" for ultra-large-sized wells is incomplete. Ultra-large-sized wells exceed the boundary conditions of traditional pipe string mechanics mathematical models, the sizes of drill bits and vertical drilling tools cannot be well matched, traditional rock breaking and wellbore cleaning technologies are no longer applicable, and the understanding and technical countermeasures in drill string vibration laws, drilling parameter optimization vibration suppression methods, and drill string dynamic safety monitoring and protection are seriously insufficient and need to be solved as soon as possible.
In response to these challenges, Sun Jinsheng suggested that we should concentrate our strengths to form an innovation consortium, coordinate planning, systematic thinking, and scientific implementation, promote the deep integration of the innovation chain and the industrial chain, improve the basic layer industrial chain from "0 to 1", and improve the technical layer and application layer industrial chain from "1 to 100", comprehensively guarantee the independent safety and controllability of key technical equipment for "deep earth engineering", and support the 10,000-meter deep layer to become a realistic field for oil and gas exploration and development.
Engineering technology breakthroughs help shale oil and gas development reduce costs and speed up
The shale revolution is closely related to the development of petroleum engineering technology. Wang Haige, deputy director of the China Petroleum Engineering and Technology Research Institute, introduced that the shale revolution originated in the United States, which relied on the shale revolution to achieve rapid growth in oil and gas production, transforming from an oil importer to an exporter, and achieving energy independence. The first shale revolution in the United States took place from 2007 to 2013, originating from the Barnett shale gas. The main technology was "horizontal wells (1,500 meters) + hydraulic fracturing + factory-based operations"; the second shale revolution has continued from 2014 to the present, and the main technology is "ultra-long horizontal wells (>3,000 meters) + large-scale hydraulic fracturing + factory-based operations". Through the significant improvement of drilling efficiency and the substantial expansion of fracturing scale, the effective development of shale oil has been achieved.
The shale revolution in the United States has greatly and continuously changed the world's energy landscape. In 2023, the United States' shale oil production will be 469 million tons, an increase of 32 million tons from 2022; shale gas production will be 836.9 billion cubic meters, an increase of 27 billion cubic meters from 2022. At the same time, the United States' spending on oil and gas will increase by nearly 20% (US$112 billion) from 2022, but the number of drilling rigs will decrease by 157. The annual footage of drilling rigs and the improvement of drilling efficiency are the main reasons for the reduction in the number of drilling rigs.
The scale of shale oil and gas development in North America continues to expand and the efficiency continues to improve, resulting in rapid growth in production. Haynesville shale gas production has increased by 10.8% annually and has reached 420 million cubic meters per day. The average daily production of shale oil in the Permian Basin has reached a historical high of 4.95 million barrels (680,000 tons), even exceeding the Ghawar oil field with the largest proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia.
The development of shale oil and gas drilling technology in the United States pays more attention to improving drilling efficiency, optimizing resources and maximizing recovery rates. In this process, new drilling and completion technologies represented by U-shaped horizontal wells, ultra-long horizontal wells and intelligent drilling and completion have played an indispensable and important role.
In terms of perforation-cluster efficiency optimization, North America is committed to optimizing perforation parameters and cluster efficiency, and has established the Perforation Erosion Research (PEER) Industry Alliance to achieve a more uniform and effective fracture network distribution, maximizing the transformation effect of each section and the full well production. The conventional spiral perforation hole opening rate is less than 50%, and the hole opening rate can reach up to 93% by adopting the "0° directional equal aperture perforation + extreme flow" design. Practice has proved that the perforation scheme of 1 hole per cluster, 0° phase angle, and large aperture is the best, which can not only improve the hole opening rate, but also reduce the construction difficulty.
At the same time, the promotion and application of three-dimensional development technology has further improved the resource utilization rate of shale oil and gas. This technology mainly deploys a three-dimensional well network to expand the effective fracturing network from the local scale of a single well to the global scale of multiple wells and even the entire oil and gas field development, forming an efficient and economical development system, which can effectively improve the utilization of shale oil and gas reserves. The three-dimensional development of shale gas in North America is often integrated with super well field technology. Through one-time well layout, one-time completion, three-dimensional fracturing, factory-like operations, and intensive ground gathering and transportation modes, the recovery rate can be improved and the cost reduction of the whole process can be achieved.
Unlike the three-dimensional development of "multiple sets and multiple layers" of shale in North America, my country's marine shale gas has an old geological age, deep burial depth, and complex structure. The three-dimensional development presents the characteristics of "single set and multiple layers", and the layered development is difficult. Since 2017, Sinopec has orderly promoted the three-dimensional development of Fuling shale gas field in accordance with the idea of "single well evaluation-well group test-overall deployment-rolling production", established the first three-dimensional development model of shale gas in China, and formed the supporting engineering process technology for three-dimensional development. At present, it is accelerating the adjustment of three-layer three-dimensional development, using the shale gas modeling digital model integration technology and residual gas fine characterization technology with independent intellectual property rights to further improve the recovery rate.
Intelligent development of oil and gas drilling and completion is the general trend
A new round of oil and gas technology revolution marked by big data, informatization, and intelligence has begun. Future oil and gas drilling will rely more on the progress of these technologies, which can greatly improve the success rate of drilling and provide better support for exploration and development.
Globally renowned oil and gas companies have built oil and gas artificial intelligence technology systems to create new competitive advantages. Wang Haige introduced that ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, Halliburton and other oil and gas companies have formed an intelligent drilling and completion industry alliance and proposed a "six-stage" technology development route. At present, they are developing from ground unit closed-loop control to the intelligent advanced stage of ground-downhole global closed-loop control. With embedded optimization control software as the link, ground automation equipment and downhole tools are linked and work together through human-computer interaction and intelligent decision-making technology. It is estimated that by 2025, the proportion of R&D investment in the field of artificial intelligence by these oil and gas companies will reach 18%. With the application of intelligent technology, costs can be reduced and efficiency can be increased by more than 20%.
The first fully automated horizontal well in the Permian Basin of the United States has been completed, with a well depth of 6,071 meters. Only 1 to 2 people are needed to operate the entire process, realizing intelligent management of the entire process of the well site, automated operation of all pipes and tools on the drilling platform, and adaptive precision guidance while drilling.
Nabors Industries' fully automatic land drilling rig PACE-R801 has completed the drilling of 6,071 meters without human intervention, shortened the drilling cycle by 4 days, and reduced carbon emissions from drilling operations by 15% to 20%. The drilling rig is completed by the Smart suite industrial control system and the Canrig robot. The Canrig robot system includes four core units: electric drilling platform robot, electric iron roughneck, electric pipe grabbing robot, and iRacker pipe laying and loading and unloading robot. It applies intelligent technologies such as visual recognition and robots to realize intelligent recognition of pipes and autonomous trajectory planning.
The new generation of managed pressure drilling system developed by Halliburton includes a drilling pump diverter, which can smoothly switch the fluid pumped out of the drilling to the automatic throttle manifold of the managed pressure drilling system, ensuring the continuity of the additional back pressure, and can also reduce the complex operation of the mud pump and the additional back pressure pump in the process of drilling and connecting single roots, helping to optimize the bottom hole pressure control.
Halliburton Cerebro downhole parameter sensing drill bit has a built-in sensor, which transmits the drill bit working data to the downhole control system located at the BHA (bottom hole assembly) through a high-speed short transmission system, and transmits the information to the ground, which can provide a series of operating parameters including drilling pressure, torque, curvature, drill bit vibration and speed in real time, which can eliminate the uncertainty of ground measurement, better understand the downhole environment, and more accurately calibrate the drilling torque and resistance model. In directional drilling, this technology does not significantly affect parameters such as drill bit curvature, and can be used with any motor, rotary steering system, MWD (measurement while drilling) system or LWD (logging while drilling) system.
National Oilwell Reelwell cabled information drill pipe can provide stronger data intercommunication reliability, induction coil strength and durability, forming a broadband network on the ground and underground to achieve real-time monitoring of the entire wellbore. The induction coil is arranged at the connection part of the pipe string, and can achieve two-way high-speed data relay-free communication telemetry between the underground and the ground through the braided insulated wire in the drill string. The data transmission rate is as high as 57 kilobits per second and is not limited by the type of fluid.
Based on physical models, BHA digital mapping and real-time analysis machine learning algorithms, Halliburton's intelligent rotary steering system iCruise can optimize wellbore trajectory, recommend the best rotation speed, provide faster drilling speed, precise guidance and longer drilling distance. In drilling operations in North America, the iCruise system assisted operators in drilling more than 1 mile (1,609 meters) in complex reservoirs, while using geo-steering drilling through a production layer as thin as 30 feet (9.144 meters). The system has faster drilling speeds, more precise control, higher reliability, and can self-diagnose and evaluate the working status of monitoring tools.
Schlumberger DrillOps Automate is compatible with AC variable frequency drive rigs and partially or fully controls the "steering wheel" of the rig equipment, replacing manual operation to achieve "autonomous driving" drilling mode. Currently, nearly 100 rigs in 16 countries around the world are equipped with DrillOps systems. In December 2021, the system was applied on site in 4 wells. Compared with manual drilling in neighboring wells, the overall drilling speed increased by 22%, the string operation time was shortened by 30%, the time to automatically send instructions to downhole tools was shortened by 26%, and the non-production time caused by tool failure was shortened by 90%.
Overall situation of global oil and gas engineering market
Market share of major global service providers in 2022 and 2023
The market rebounded rapidly and regional trends were significantly different
In 2023, oil and gas prices remained volatile at a medium-to-high level, oil and gas exploration and development activities recovered faster, and oil and gas exploration and development investment maintained a growth trend. The global oil and gas engineering market rebounded faster, increasing by 12.6% from 2022 to US$408.9 billion. Among them, the market size of petroleum engineering construction increased significantly, increasing by 18.5% from 2022, accounting for 25.4% of the total market size; the software and digitalization, completion, and geophysical exploration markets increased by 15.4%, 14%, and 14% respectively from 2022, accounting for 0.7%, 23.5%, and 3.1% of the total market size; the market size of drilling, drilling and completion equipment and tools all showed rapid growth, increasing by 9.7% and 8% respectively from 2022, accounting for 25.9% and 21.3% of the total market size.
In 2023, affected by the increase in onshore exploration and development investment in the United States and China, the global onshore oil and gas engineering market will maintain a growth trend, increasing by 12.5% over 2022 to reach US$281.1 billion, accounting for 68.7% of the total drilling market. Driven by deep-sea exploration and development activities in Africa and Brazil and offshore exploration and development in the Middle East, the global offshore oil and gas engineering market will increase by 12.9% over 2022 to reach US$127.8 billion, accounting for 31.3% of the total drilling market.
From the perspective of regional markets, in 2023, North America's oil and gas engineering market will account for the largest proportion, accounting for 40.5% of the global market, an increase of 12% over 2022; Asia Pacific and the Middle East will account for 18% and 13.8% of the global market, respectively, an increase of 15.3% and 12.5% over 2022; South America, Russia and others, and Africa will account for 8.3%, 7.8% and 6.2% of the global market, respectively, an increase of 17.3%, 7.6% and 25.8% over 2022. Geopolitical conflicts have led to a decline in oil and gas exploration and development activities in Eastern Europe. The European oil and gas engineering market size will decrease by 2.4% in 2023 compared with 2022, accounting for 5.3% of the global market.
Market competition is fierce and concentration has increased
Market demand concentration has further increased. In 2023, the CR4 (market share of the top four companies) of the oil and gas engineering market demand side is 17.1%, up 1.4 percentage points from 2022. The market concentration is not high, the competition on the demand side is sufficient, and there is no demand monopoly. China National Petroleum Corporation, Saudi Aramco, Petrobras and ExxonMobil are the main demand parties in the market. The four oil companies have significantly increased their investment in oil and gas exploration and development in 2023, and their demand share in the oil and gas engineering market has increased to varying degrees. The demand share of Shell Oil Company, ranked fifth, has dropped significantly in the oil and gas engineering market.
The global oil and gas engineering market supply concentration has increased slightly, and the competition structure is relatively stable. In 2023, the CR4 of the oil and gas engineering market supply side is 17.9%, which is the same as in 2022; CR8 is 24.9%, up 0.1 percentage points from 2022. The market supply concentration is not high, the competition is relatively sufficient, and there is no absolutely leading competitor. Schlumberger, Halliburton, Baker Hughes and Sinopec Oilfield Services are the main suppliers in the market, with a combined market share of 25%.
Data from the "2024 Global Oil and Gas Engineering Industry Development Report"
