Iran’s Directional Drilling Market

Directional drilling in Iran is a young industry so that the first wells which have been drilled with directional drilling techniques to increase the productivity of wells, returns to 1992 in Gachsaran and Maroon Oil fields. In those years there wasn’t any Iranian private service company with the ability of drilling directional wells. So, the National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC) which is a governmental company decided to train some of its drilling rig crew outside of Iran. These men were the first Iranian DDs. Within the years 1992 to 2008, the Iran oil and gas fields’ directional wells were drilled by International directional drilling service companies and NIDC. In 2008 some Chinese directional drilling service companies also entered Iran market and some Iranian drilling-educated youth have been trained in these companies. As international DD service companies left Iran due to sanctions within last 8 years, some Iranian private DD service companies had been established, therefore a very precious basis of activity have been prepared for Iranian intelligent which were interested in DD in both field and office activities. This intelligence was quit hidden before the western International service companies leave Iran. Thus, it could strongly be announced that Iranian domestic DD service companies have become mature and most of them are fully capable to drill not only conventional directional wells, but also difficult and 3D complex horizontal wells easily. This claim is due to some brilliant projects which “Iranian domestic DD service companies have become mature and most of them are fully capable to drill not only conventional directional wells, but also difficult and 3D complex horizontal wells easily.”have been drilled within last years like NorthYaran Development project which included ultra-thin reservoir horizontal drilling with medium to long departure and 3D complex horizontal wells in Iran onshore fields with full Iranian Client and full Iranian service company which used conventional and Chinese rigs and drilling and measurement (M/LWD) equipment with acceptable drilling speed and with the lowest NPTs. Some of this development projects have been finished even faster than pre-evaluated time break down, North-Yaran is one of the development project which is the appearance of the maturity of Iranian private directional drilling service companies. The Iran directional drilling industry could be assessed in two aspects. The first aspect is the Iran capability to manufacture the specialized directional drilling equipment. Unfortunately in manufacturing point of view, Iran directional drilling industry was not so successful. Although there was some attempts took place in order to manufacture downhole motors, M/LWD and Gyro measurement Equipment, only a few of the above mentioned projects was came into succeed like MWD and Gamma and North Seeking Gyro. It could be mentioned that also the successful small manufacturing companies was not successful in marketing their products. So there is a long way to Iranian manufacturing companies become a serious competitor with Chinese or Western drilling and measurement manufacturers and it is unlikely to they could conquer the directional drilling market inside Iran. The second aspect which should be assessed is the capability of Iranian directional drilling service companies and the depth of their directional and horizontal drilling knowledge and skillfulness. In this aspect, it could be mentioned as done above that domestic directional drilling companies are fully capable to perform good performance in drilling directional wells. It should be noticed that in last two years, an invented concept in directional drilling service have become into action in some fields. This new concept is directional drilling service with optimization service which is done simultaneously by directional drilling company. This concept came into action in North-Yaran oil field development project for the first time which leaded to break all the records of drilling horizontal wells in West-Karoon area and also saving about 230 rig-days during drilling 16 horizontal wells.

The optimization procedure included four main segments:

1- Optimizing well trajectory

2- Optimizing BHA design and using multi- purpose BHAs

3- Practical Optimization

4- Scientific Optimization.

All the optimization was done in directional and horizontal section of the wells and I had the honor of being the Operation and Engineering Manager of the allocated directional drilling service company of North-Yaran project. As a conclusion, about the Iran directional drilling market, it should be noted that, there is a lack of technology in drilling and measurement equipment manufacturing is an important issue and domestic manufacturers are seem to be eager to find foreigner technology owners to make Joint venture agreements to transfer the technology and make a win-win business with capable equipment manufacturers. And in manipulating the drilling and measurement equipment in order to drill difficult directional and horizontal wells, there is not any shortage in domestic service companies, as it have proven many times in Iran fields that the Iranian educated drilling engineers and field directional drillers are fully matured in their area of expertise.

Author: Keyvan Kohzadi