Improved Materials for Horizontal Coil Tubing forDrilling

The summary for the Improved Materials for Horizontal Coil Tubing forDrilling grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the Headquarters, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Improved Materials for Horizontal Coil Tubing forDrilling: TECHNICAL TOPIC 5a - Improved Materials forHorizontal Coil Tubing forDrilling (DE-PS26-05NT42317-05a)In many applications, coiled steel tubing for drilling oil and gas wells isworking near its stress limits and failures inmaterial occur due to stress reversals. When CT fails and breaks, anelaborateprocess is necessary that can shut the drill rig down for extended periodsoftime. As rigs are expensive to operate, and maintain, CT failures canresultin additional costs that may make drilling prohibitive so that wells areabandoned as it is too expensive to retrieve the tubing and to restart thedrilling process.For downhole applications, the constraint is less but is present becausepremature failures carry a price tag that may not justify the use of CTtensions (or tensile strength requirements) at or above ~700 MPa. Thisductility/toughness constraint is exasperated by the trend towards thinnertubewalls with increasing strength. As the thickness decreases, the size ofanyflaw and percentage of the remaining wall thickness becomes much moreimportant; the critical flaw size, as a percentage of wall thickness,increases. In practical terms, increasing strength and decreasing wallthickness makes the size of a flaw or defect at which fracture or failurecanoccur more important. For example, a 1/32 (0.8 mm) flaw which mayacceptableand inconsequential at ~620 MPa may need to be reduced to 1/64 (0.4 mm) at~700 MPa. At high pressures, CT may contain undetected critical sized flawthat may result in premature failure. An additional, and very often themostlimiting, problem with higher strength materials is the increasedsusceptibility to environmental cracking. Though other environmentalcrackingfailure mechanisms are possible, sulfide stress corrosion (SSC) cracking istheone that most concerns us that supply low alloy steel products to thepetroleumindustry.When metals are exposed to an environment containing H2S, the metal canbecomeembrittled and crack or fail (SSC embrittlement). For SSC to occur, acombination of a susceptible material, an environment containing H2S, andstress are required. The hardness of a material has been widely used topredict and ensure adequate resistance to SSC and that is not sufficientwhenmost producing wells contain at least a small amount of H2S. Moststructures,including CT, are subjected to high stress levels during service and theresistance of the CT to SSC and factors that govern the materialsresistanceare important.High strains experienced by CT lead to low cycle fatigue. For severalyears CTcontractors have employed fatiguemanagement programs to avoid unexpected failures. None of these methodshavebeen developed for sour serviceand it is to be expected that low cycle fatigue life will be reduced bysuchconditions. Very little knowledge existsregarding CT failure mechanisms and performance limits with exposure tosourservice conditions. This has led tosevere restrictions placed on the use of CT for sour well under-balanceddrilling. Areas of continuing research aredescribed in:http://fedgrants.gov/Applicants/DOE/PAM/HQ/DE-PS26-03NT15392-0/Grant.htmlRequirement: Improved materials are needed for petroleum drilling CT tolimitstress failures. A typical project may include a literature search, ananalysis of the results of others, a materials analysis process, arecommendation for improved metallurgy based on known information aboutmaterials and about what can be accomplished to increase drilling materialquality, production of the improved materials, and laboratory verificationofthe results. Important information that is obtained may include analyticalmethods for analysis, determination of failures, materials definition ofwherematerials fail, methods to define when failure is imminent, and criticalfactors to predict failure.A determination of the imminent failure of CT is needed and a method toallowadjustments or replacement of sections that have become overstressed isneeded. The potential solution may include new materials, better steelsandalloys, better materials production processes, better welding methods, anddefinition of processes for better testing to determination whatobservationsand measurements define failure points of petroleum coiled tubing indrillingprocesses. It is expected that studies and analyses can be performed thatcanlead to improvements in materials used for CT.References:?http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/oilgas/microhole/microhole-workshop-report.pdf?http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/oilgas/microhole/microhole-workshop-report.pdf? Jiang Wu and H.C. Juvkam-Wold, Coiled Tubing Buckling Implication inDrillingand Completing Horizontal Wells, SPE Drilling and Completion, March, 1995.? Journal of Petroleum Technology, June 2004, pp 48-55 (several articles),http://www.spe.org/spe/jpt/jsp/jpttopic/0,2437,1104_1585_0_2958819,00.html? http://www.spe.org/specma/binary/files/295579890215.pdf? http://www.spe.org/specma/binary/files/295580016687.pdf? http://www.spe.org/specma/binary/files/295580016687.pdf? http://www.spe.org/specma/binary/files/295580016687.pdfALL QUESTIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED THROUGH THE ?SUBMIT QUESTION? FEATURE INIIPS.ALL QUESTIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED TO THE MASTER FUNDING OPPORTUNITYANNOUNCEMENT.Please read the Master Funding Opportunity Announcement for completedetails onevaluation criteria and how to prepare your application:https://e-center.doe.gov/iips/faopor.nsf/UNID/1471DB687FC9E52685256F4300568FD7?OpenDocument