REAL-WORLD LOOKS
Company offers affordable testing of drilling, down-hole equipment
On-the-job failures aren't an option for companies that drill and complete wells.
Before introducing a new bit or down-hole completion tool, contractors want to be sure their equipment performs the way well owners expect. To get there, it often takes repeated failures and evaluations to work out the kinks.
Ideally, companies like to carry out that work in a low-stress environment where there's no schedule to keep.
Koltek Energy Services, a company that offers directional drilling, well service and testing services, aims to help. Koltek opened a testing center within the past year that's equipped with a drilling rig and associated equipment, lodging, a barn and other services in northeast Oklahoma.
CEO Tim Koltek compares the process used to introduce new tools to drill and complete wells to that used to write new computer code. Code writers, he observed, test drive their work in a simulated real-world environment to see what types of conditions expose bugs or other glitches in their software.
Oil and gas companies that make or use different types of bits, directional sensors or other types of down-hole tools are looking for the same types of evaluations, he said.
“They know their tool is going to fail,” Koltek said of the firms. “Our facility allows them to get that real-world feedback before they introduce it into actual operating environments.”
The Koltek Testing Facility is located on 99 acres of company land just outside of Morris, a small town east of Okmulgee.
It offers clients the ability to test their gear in a secure location around the clock, for as long as needed.
The facility’s centerpiece is its drilling rig, a top drive GEFCO Speedstar with a 185,000-pound static hook load.
The rig, which can directionally drill milelong laterals, comes equipped with redundant mud pumps that each have a 1,000-horsepower rating.
From its Morris site, the company can set client firms up with permits they need to drill wells to test their equipment in various formations found in that part of Oklahoma, ranging from the saltwater-saturated Hunton Lime to the densely packed Woodford Shale.
“You want to simulate as many different drilling environments as possible,” Koltek said.
In other cases, clients might test downhole tools using an aboveground testing tank that provides them easy access to their equipment.
“A client might ask for us to support a 24-hour test,” Koltek said. “Or, a company will hire the facility to test a piece of equipment for seven to 10 days. Usually, the product doesn’t work right away, so they aim to obtain feedback about its operations before something breaks.
“When it does break, they either send it off to a lab or fix it on location, then come back to try to break it again.”
Koltek said the facility’s mission to provide clients with live drilling conditions has benefits.
Because Koltek already owns the surface location and associated drilling rights, it is able to keep its testing costs down, he observed.
“We typically charge less than $20,000 a day for a 24-hour testing period,” he said.
Affordability sells
One company that’s used Koltek’s Oklahoma testing facility a couple of times so far this year is SteelHaus Technologies Inc., a Canadian firm that develops down-hole completion tools used by oil and gas companies globally.
SteelHaus’ website said it designs and manufactures multiposition, coil-activated frack sleeves, sliding sleeves that control sand and flow, hangars, packers and valves used as part of thermal completions and a re-completion system that converts existing wells to injectors.
Sean Borschneck, the firm’s technical application manager, said the Koltek facility is a good fit for SteelHaus because of its convenience (it is less than an hour from Tulsa) and affordability.
“We can do a wide range of testing at their facility,” Borschneck said, “and they are very affordable, and easy to use because we can get our parts tested quickly.
“And the people who work there are fantastic,” he added. “We worked all through the night one time, and they were there, helping all the way.”