It seems counterintuitive to go looking for solutions to tomorrow’s challenges when the industry has so many today that first need solving. But it fits as that is where industry got its start—being counterintuitive is the essence of wildcatting, is it not?

Today’s solutions and tomorrow’s challenges were part of the discussion held as part of the International Energy Agency Gas and Oil Technologies Implementing Agreement workshop “Global Dialogue on Pre-Salt Innovation” held during Rio Oil & Gas 2014. The topic of R&D necessary to support technology innovation generated considerable discussion, particularly in the areas of what industry does not know now that it needs to know for its future presalt efforts.

Alex Moody-Stuart, South America marketing manager for Schlumberger, participated in the discussion as a panelist. He sat down with E&P and provided some additional insight into how the company has approached R&D in the challenging presalt.

E&P: There has been a significant R&D effort in understanding the presalt. What are some of the lingering challenges that industry is working to overcome? As you said in your presentation, “What do we not know?”

Moody-Stuart: Some of the major technical challenges are around increasing the efficiency of well construction, the reliability and maintainability of well systems, and increasing production and recovery factors. Well construction efficiency has a direct impact on saving the rig days during drilling and completion. Improving time between interventions saves on costs and increases production uptime. And we also need to save on intervention cost with the maintainability of well systems. And finally, production and recovery factor maximize the operator’s return on investment.

E&P: How is Schlumberger working to address those challenges?

Moody-Stuart: We are working on technology solutions supported by technical domain experts, both from the operators and our own, in the field . Through close collaboration with customers, our research and engineering (R&E) centers are continuously coming up with ideas that are then prioritized and put into an R&E portfolio that runs from concept through to the commercialized product. This of course requires continual updating to the market requirements to ensure relevance.

E&P: How are research efforts prioritized?

Moody-Stuart: Research is prioritized based on the value the products and services will bring to our customers and to the company. This analysis includes key business and technical criteria including market size, technical requirements, competition landscape, technical risk and cost in product development, to name a few.

E&P: How is a business case made to support long-term research, to go “looking for a problem” that will need a solution?

Moody-Stuart: Part is driven by immediate field requirements. For instance, we should spend so much on finding a solution to the time and risk incurred in drilling out fracture plugs. The technology may be an enabler to an existing system (for example, batteries used in our field systems) or apply directly but has to have a chance to be applicable to our oilfield services market (i.e., how might a given technology be used to address the major challenges mentioned above?). Our portfolio is confidential as the case on these investments is continual and long-term, where our return is linked to our ability to produce products and services that address a market need as soon as possible.

E&P: What are some of the successes of this type of research?

Moody-Stuart: A few successes of this type of research include:

  • Material and chemical research that resulted in dissolving aluminum (dissolving ball instead of drilling out fracture plugs);
  • Real-time fracture diversion that improves fracture propagation (diverting fractures to harder-to-fracture zones in real time);
  • Cement that heals itself (overcoming cracks that are caused by natural aging, chemical corrosion and mechanical deformation of the well); and
  • A bit cutter that rotates, evening the wear and making the bit last longer. This not only allows us to drill faster but for a longer time between trips.

Contact the author, Jennifer Presley, at jpresley@hartenergy.com.