MPD Deepwater Evolution and Interinstitutional Development

Abstract The application of MPD offshore deepwater began on early 2010s. Although the technology is used for over 60 years onshore, the deepwater environment and risk demanded a new approach. Over the last 10+ years there was noticeable evolution of usage of MPD technology and the correlated interinstitutional development among different industries players, such as IADC, IOGP, API, among others. This paper presents key aspects of the evolution of MPD application, and the correlated interinstitutional developments achieved recently. The experience of 100+ wells using MPD on deepwater scenarios, and active participation on the creation of recent relevant international documents and committees provides the authors the opportunity to present key points of the recent industry evolution. Regarding the MPD evolution, a revision of the internal and external operations, through several papers and publications allows the identification of different factors that changed over the years while applying MPD on deepwater scenarios. A description of some of the documents released by several international institutions and impacts on new deepwater MPD projects. This provides an overview of the interinstitutional correlational efforts. MPD operations are consistently being performed in deep water well construction for +10 years. Some even may advocate it has become commonplace. Current practices widely used today were unthinkable less than 10 years ago. The use of underbalanced fluid, where the hydrostatic pressure of the fluid in the well is below the open formation pore pressure, was one of the initial milestones of the application of the technique deepwater. The DPPT, Dynamic Pore Pressure Test, where a small amount of influx is planned to enter the well permitted the construction of wells with almost inexistent operational window to be drilled on a repeated and reliable basis. The expansion of the use of MPD for well control practices is relatively new but allows safer and quicker actions on the event of an influx. New forms of MPD usage are not limited to drilling operations, with successful results completing and on workover operations. Parallel to the development of the deepwater MPD technique different institutions began the development of new MPD documents. The objective of this ongoing development is to guarantee that the proper analysis and safety on the application of MDP deepwater. This paper will present the recent evolution of application of the MPD technology on deepwater wells and make a parallel to the interinstitutional development of the industry. The objective of this paper is to provide a clear picture of the true capabilities of the technique deepwater and different industry documents. Giving the reader a broader understanding of the past, present and future directions that the MPD usage can take.