Facility is proving grounds for drilling technology
Just to the southwest of the Cimarron Turnpike and Oklahoma 99 intersection stand three oil rigs.
Over the years they have drilled hundreds of wells but produced no oil or gas.
Yet their reach impacts several of the largest oil and service companies in the world.
The rigs make up the Catoosa Test Facility, the largest independent testing site for drilling and production tools in the world.
The facility, located on 52 acres between Hallett and Jennings, is used by companies such as Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Halliburton and Nabors to test experimental equipment before it goes to market.
“They can test their tools in a laboratory, but in order to get actual drilling hours on their tools and prove how long they will last and how accurately they operate, they have to drill a well,” said Dale Arnold, facility manager.
The facility is able to test prototype tools of any type downhole, both in cased wells and open borehole. Most of the tests involve directional equipment and are 100 percent confidential — all the testing data stays with the client.
The facility is open round the clock and typically runs at least one test each week.
Tests can range in duration from two to three days to a month depending on the type of test. Production tests are shorter. Drilling tests last at least five days, Arnold said.
“We’re testing the prototypes, and they might come back and test several times,” Arnold said. “We have one company that has been testing the same tool for eight years and just within the last two months released their tool.”
One recent test resulted in a 7,449 foot well, the deepest drilled at the facility. The well was drilled using oil-based mud for a major company.
The test facility opened in 1986 in Catoosa as a private testing ground for Amoco Corp. In the mid-1990s it was opened to other oil companies for testing in an effort to boost revenue.
The facility has been at its current location for about six years.
“We’ve tested some oddball stuff,” Arnold said. “One company developed a system for drilling with no bit using high-pressured steel balls. That did not work.”
Arnold, who gets to see the tools while they are disassembled, said he has noticed incredible advancements in the technology recently.
“The electronics systems they use now are just unbelievable,” he said.
Other things, he said, are not as impressive.
“We see things that are highly successful and things that don’t work at all,” Arnold said. “They are designed in someone’s mind and built, and we are usually the first time they try and build with it.”