Run A Junk Basket And Save Yourself A Headache

I've run a lot of retrievable bridge plugs in wells and I've learned that if you run them enough you will eventually find yourself in a situation where you can't latch onto the plug. In case you're not familiar with retrievable plugs, they are retrieved by running back into the well and latching onto a "fish neck" which is basically a metal rod that can be latched on to. This is a straight-forward process most of the time, until something falls on top of it (debris, trash, flange bolts, gloves, etc.). When this happens, a very simple process of latching onto a plug can become long and drawn-out, and sometimes requires much more robust and expensive equipment. However, there is a very simple preventative measure - run a junk basket.

A junk basket is a simple tool that sits on top of a plug and catches all of the "junk" so that it doesn't land on your plug. It requires an extra wireline run which will add slightly to the cost. But do you know what's way more expensive than a junk basket run? Getting a stuck plug unstuck because of a silly piece of trash downhole.

As I said, I've run a lot of retrievable plugs and I've never had an issue getting the plug out when a junk basket was run. I have however had issues on occasion when someone wanted to save a buck and not run a junk basket. The moral of the story here is to spend a tiny bit of extra money and run a junk basket. Your future self will thank you for not cutting corners.

Save Money With Better Planning

Tip: Better Planning Can Save A Lot Of Money

We've all heard the mantra before, "find ways to cut costs", "How can we do this cheaper?" or "Don't spend money that isn't necessary". I get it, we are all in business to make money and keeping costs low is a major part of that. I've also seen companies go to great lengths to cut costs, such as eliminating necessary steps in the operation, or making drilling and completion decisions that will negatively impact production, in order to cut costs.

Again, I get it. Cutting costs is often a necessary even if it's not fun.

With that said, I do believe that there is a lot more low-hanging fruit than we often realize. From what I've seen, planning and logistics can be a massive area of low-hanging fruit. I've seen many times where a company sacrifices performance in order to cut costs, only to turn around and change plans somewhere else, causing a chain reaction of scheduling delays and results and 10-times more costs than they just saved. Poor or inconsistent planning leads to cost increases. It can lead to standby charges, or force your vendors to raise their prices. Sometimes poor choices means redoing work and having to pay for it twice. Every time we plan poorly or change the plan at the last minute, there is a cost associated with that. We need to be honest about this fact. Sometimes a change of plans is necessary, but let's not pretend that it's free.

If you want to get serious about keeping costs low, then focus on better and more efficient planning.

You Can't Turn A Bad Well Into A Good Well

Oil and gas is a wild and fun industry. Some wells are awesome, and some make you want to cry. It's tempting to think that with really spectacular engineering, that we can save the day and turn a bad well into a good well. Unfortunately, geology is the ultimate determining factor as to whether or not a well turns out good, not us. The truth is that some wells are bad because the geology just isn't on our side, and there not a lot we can do to change that. Don't kill yourself trying to turn a bad well into a good well. Trying to overcome bad geology is like trying to paddle upstream. Our job is to turn good wells into great wells, and to make bad wells not quite so bad. Try to make every well 10% better and in the long run you'll have a lot more success.

Take Care of Your Master Valves

Master valves are your last line of defense on a well. Without a reliable master valve, your well control is compromised, and that is never a good place to be. I have had the opportunity to work on a lot of old, mature wells, some which still have a lot of pressure, and it amazes me how many of them have master valves that are either leaky or extremely difficult to turn. If you were in trouble and had to close that valve quickly, you'd be out of luck.

Why does this happen? The answer is pretty straight-forward. Valves need regular maintenance just like any other mechanical device. It costs money to change the oil in your car, but you do it anyway because your car valuable and the cost of failure is large. Master valves are also extremely valuable. Take care of them. Keep your valves greased up and when they need repaired or replaced, spend the time and money to do it the right way. In the grand scheme of things, this is a small expense to keep your wells safely under control.

Don't Go Cheap On Cement

Engineering Tip: Don't Go Cheap On Cement​
Cementing a well is expensive, but do you know what is more expensive? Fixing bad cement. It's not just a little bit more expensive, it's massively more expensive. Stupid expensive.

In most cases, cementing a well is not rocket science. You mix the cement slurry and pump it down the well and circulate it up the backside. While this is a fairly straight-forward process, you only get one chance to get it right. And if you don't get it right, you will be in a world of financial hurt. You can end up with gas migration issues or a wellbore full of cement that has to be drilled out. This leads to an expensive workover project that will give you all kinds of heartburn.

I once worked for a company that drilled about 100 wells with the same cement design, only to find out that the design was flawed. Each and every cement job had to be repaired at an enormous cost. And do you know what they learned from this process? Don't go cheap on cement.

Take time and think about each cement design before you pump it. Each well should have it's own custom-designed cement, even if it looks a lot like the previous cement design. Don't design cement once and then pump the same design 100 times. And don't hire the redneck down the street to pump the job. Be an adult and hire a proper service company (they can usually help you design your cement if need be). All of this will add to the cost, but I promise you that you will save money in the long run.

Be Skeptical of Models

Engineering Tip: Be Skeptical of Models​
Models. We deal with them all the time. Frac models, reservoir models, fluid models, models of models. Lots and lots of models. But models have two major limitations:

1. Inputs - Models are only as good as the data you put into them. If you have inaccurate or misinformed data, then your model is going to be inaccurate and misinformed. Every reservoir model requires porosity as an input. But porosity can change a lot across the reservoir. Often times we are using porosity from a core sample and extrapolating across the reservoir. It's better than nothing, but we need to be realistic about the potential inaccuracy this causes.

2. Understanding of the physics - The universe is a very complex machine. We like to take natural mechanisms and boil them down to one or two variables so that it is understandable. However, most things in nature are an interconnected web of many, many variables. Let's take fracture modeling. People love to reduce fracture growth down to a simple model of pressure and injection rates. In reality, there are a gazillion things that impact fracture growth. We love simple models that show nice, parallel, predictable frac wings, when in reality, we often get a spider web of fractures that grow in many different directions.

Models will always give you an answer. Whether or not that answer is accurate is a different question entirely.

And don't get me started on climate change models...

Please don't read this and think that I am anti-modeling. Models are a useful tool, but they are a tool and not an exact science. When you use a model, be a little skeptical of the results. Ask questions and compare it to other information and intuition that you have. If the model gives you something that seems unreasonable, dig deeper and ask more questions.

At the end of the day, human intuition and historical data can be just as powerful a tool as modeling. Let's not get too carried away with models.

Address Liquid Loading Early

Engineering Tip: Address Liquid Loading Early and Save Yourself Headaches​
Liquid loading in a producing well is an inevitable reality for almost every well. Eventually, the stored energy in a well falls below the minimum threshold to lift fluid. This is a fairly straight-forward thing to predict with some basic critical velocity equations. It takes only 5 minutes to calculate the minimum flowrate necessary to lift fluid out of a well. With this number in mind, you can predict with surprising accuracy when a well will start to load up. If you know when to expect liquid loading, it's really easy to identify it when it starts to happen. You're gas and liquid rates will drop off quickly and you're well will appear to decline exponentially faster than it was.

As soon as you see this happen, address the issue right away.

There are many ways to address liquid loading: soap, plunger lift, submersible pumps and pump jacks are the most common methods. Regardless of which artificial lift method you choose, the key is to get on the issue quickly, before the well gets so loaded that it becomes difficult to get back. If wells are neglected and they get loaded up in a major way, it can be challenging and expensive to get the well kicked off again. I've seen wells get so loaded up that they require coil tubing and nitrogen to get them flowing again. This is expensive, much more expensive than a simple plunger lift or chemical setup.

We know that wells are going to load up. No one should be surprised by this. Have a plan in place to deal with this and don't act surprised when it happens. If you have an artificial lift plan in place, then you can quickly implement the solution as soon as the liquid loading occurs. This will save you money in the long run, and it will prevent downtime on the well.

Bonus Tip: Put Tubing In The Well Early

Once again, you know the well is going to load up. It's going to need tubing. Have you every tried to unload a well without tubing? It's like fighting with one hand tied behind your back. Just put tubing in the well and save yourself the headache. If it was up to me, every well completion would include tubing (*and all the production engineers cheered*).

Wells load up. Don't be caught with your pants down (or your well down). Have a plan, identify it quickly, and fix it. You'll thank me later.

Don't Underestimate the Importance of Good Quality Data

Engineering Tip: Don't underestimate the importance of good quality data​
Engineering analysis and modeling are only as good as the data collected. If you collect good quality data, then your analysis and models will be more accurate. If you collect crappy data, all of the fanciest models and calculations won't matter. Collecting good quality data is the first, and perhaps the most important step when arriving at a meaningful and accurate answer. Don't underestimate the importance of good data.

I suspect that most of us are aware this. So why then is it that we often settle for crappy data? It's because the crappy data is cheaper. I'll give you an example that I see often in well testing. Well test analysis relies heavily on bottomhole pressure. The best way to get bottomhole pressure is to run gauges downhole and measure it directly. However, this costs a lot more than just estimating it from surface pressure. So what people often do is go the cheap route and estimate bottomhole pressure from surface, and settle for a less accurate answer. This is a fine strategy and there is nothing wrong with it, so long as you are honest with yourself that the results will be less accurate. We all work for companies who are in the business of making money, and we should all be mindful of costs. However, there is a cost to making decisions on low-accuracy assumptions. Just be mindful of this.

So how do we decide when good data is necessary and when it's safe to cut corners? Well, if the answer you are trying to find is really important and has large implications, then I believe that good data is worth the price. However, if your potential answer is less important and an "estimate" is all you really need, then I'd say that lower-quality data is a fine choice. Keep costs low where you can, so you have a little more to spend where it's really necessary.

Spend Time On Things That Have a Long-Term Impact

Engineering Tip: Spend time on things that have a long-term impact and endure the test of time.​
I am a Penn State alumni and I bleed blue and white (WE ARE!). I also love wrestling, especially Penn State wrestling. Our coach, Cael Sanderson, produces some of the best wrestlers in the world and some of them go on to wrestle in the Olympics. You can imagine how exciting it is for me to watch these guys wrestler on the world stage, and remember how fun they were to watch back in their college days.

Recently, I had the chance to watch a former Penn State great, David Taylor, wrestle in the gold medal match. David was undefeated going into the finals and had dominated every match up to this point. Now he had to wrestle an Iranian superstar and 2016 gold medalist, Hassan Yazdani. The match was close the entire time, and my boy David Taylor was down 4-3 with about 20 seconds left. Then an amazing thing happened: David Taylor summed up the energy to shoot a brilliant double leg takedown and take a 5-4 lead as time expired, to win the gold! It was awesome.

So what does this have to do with engineering?

David Taylor had endurance. Late in the match, when his opponent was exhausted, David Taylor had the extra strength to push through and make the necessary move to take down the champ. But here's the thing, this endurance didn't happen overnight. What we don't see when we watch Olympic athletes compete, is the countless hours of training and hard work. As they are training, these athletes have a long-term goal that is far more important than any short-term pain they experience. The result is a chance to complete in the Olympics, and for the very best like David Taylor, they win a gold medal. They focus on the long-term and don't let themselves get bogged down with short-term problems.

I think that far too often we get caught up focusing on urgent, short-term problems and we neglect the things that could really have a long-term impact. What if we spent less time putting out small, annoying fires, and more time building systems that help us make more informed decisions, or help us cut costs without sacrificing quality? What if we spent more time training up the next generation of engineers so that they can take some of the small stuff off of our plate, and allow us to focus on bigger issues?

How much more profitable could our organizations be if we focused more time on the things that had a lasting impact, and left the short-term things to someone else (or no one else, perhaps).

If you're interested, you can watch the highlights of the match here. The winning takedown is at the 2:40 mark.

Don't Ignore Production

Engineering Tip: Don't Ignore Production​
In upstream oil and gas, production is the only phase in the life of a well where you actually MAKE money. Every other department spends money. Drilling and Completions spend A LOT of money. Building pipelines costs A LOT of money. And where does the money come from to pay for all of these things? From Production!

It may seem obvious that Production is important but if you look at how many companies operate, they seem to place very little value on production. Why is this? It's because all of the big budgets, and therefore all of the attention and focus, is at the drilling and completion level. This is not to say that we shouldn't put a lot of attention on drilling and completion. We should, because there is a lot of money at stake. However, I've seen many many times where decisions are made in the drilling and completion phase, that have huge impacts on future production, yet there is almost no thought given to the impact on production.

For example, how often do we see new wells get completed with high tubing set points, or packers downhole? These decisions have a major impact on the ability of that well to keep up production over time. And far too often these decisions are made by drilling and completion engineers, with no consideration on how this will limit production over time. Too often the attitude is, "TD the well, complete it, move on and never look back".

Production is the only revenue stream for an E&P company. It is literally the life-blood of the company. We should start to take it a little more seriously and quite treating it as the red-headed step child of oil and gas operations. When the money is getting tight and the budgets get slashed, you'll wish that you had prioritized your revenue stream a little more.

Run More Efficient Gradient Surveys

Engineering Tip: Limit Your Gradient Surveys To 4 or 5 Stops​
Static pressure gradient surveys are a great way to understand your hydrostatic pressure. The idea here is to run in the hole with downhole gauges and record the pressure at various depths. This information can give you some key information about your bottomhole pressure, fluid level, and fluid density/pressure gradient. This information is extremely useful when optimizing production from a well.

The mistake many people make is that they run a lot of unnecessary gradient stops. You can calculate everything you need from four survey points, two in fluid and two in gas. A lot of people run gradient surveys with 7, 8 or 9 survey points. This is a bit of a waste of time as there is no additional information gained by all of those extra survey points. The only thing you gain from all of those extra survey points is a larger invoice!

Ideally, I like to run a gradient survey with 4 or 5 five-minute stops. It looks like this:

Point 1: TD minus 1 foot (fluid)

Point 2: TD minus 25 feet (fluid)

Point 3 (optional): TD minus 50 feet (fluid) - gives you one extra fluid point just for consistency, but not necessary

Point 4: Half way between surface and TD (gas)

Point 5: Surface (gas)

The survey points above will allow us to calculate both a fluid gradient and a gas gradient, which tells us everything we need to know. Running 7, 8 or 9 survey points does not add anything to the final calculation, it just adds time and money.

Run Multiple Drawdown/Buildups On A Pressure Transient Test

Engineering Tip: Run Multiple Drawdown/Buildups On A Pressure Transient Test​
Pressure transient tests are a common well testing technique and they are the primary way to identify average permeability and skin factor for a well. In theory, only a single drawdown/buildup is necessary to analyze permeability and skin, as these parameters will not change across different flowrates. However, there is a great benefit to be gained by running multiple drawdown/buildups (at different flowrates) during a single well test. First, you can identify (and quantify) skin due to turbulence, which is the only component of skin that is flowrate-dependent. Additionally, by running multiple drawdown/buildups, you can use the same data to calculate deliverability parameters (C and n), which will yield more accurate AOF and IPR curves.

I prefer to run 3 drawdown/buildups during a single well test. This allows me to get more meaningful data out of my well test, which means I get more bang for my buck!

Measured Data Is Always Better Than Calculated Data

Engineering Tip: Measured data is always better than calculated data.​
In this industry we are often faced with a decision of whether or not to measure a meaningful data point. It is often cheaper in the moment to calculate a data point rather than measure it. However, measuring something directly always leads to more accurate data. It doesn't matter if its pressure, flowrate, temperature, or any other physical data point - measuring it directly is more accurate than calculating it.

I'll give you an example: At FyreRok, we run a lot of downhole gauges to measure bottomhole pressure. Now, we can calculate the bottomhole pressure based off of surface pressure, but this introduces the potential for error. We always try to run downhole gauges as often as possible to ensure the best data.
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Choose Appropriate Downhole Gauges

Engineering Tip:​ When running downhole pressure gauges, try to run pressure gauges that have a pressure transducer as close to the maximum bottomhole pressure as possible.
For instance, if you are running gauges into a well with 5,000 psi bottomhole pressure, try to run 6,000 psi gauges, rather than 15,000 psi gauges. Doing this will yield more accurate data. Most downhole gauges have an accuracy around 0.02% of full scale, which means that a 6,000 psi gauge has an accuracy of +/- 1.2 psi, whereas 15,000 psi gauges have an accuracy of +/- 3.0 psi. The lesser the gauge transducer, the more accurate the data.​
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Obviously, you do not want to overpressure the gauge, so be cautious when choosing a gauge. Whenever possible, using a lower pressure transducer will generally yield better data.