Saudi Arabian Oil Company

Chengdu Dongwei Technology Co., Ltd

Jianhui Xu

Guodong Zhan

Chinthaka Pasan Gooneratne

Bodong Li

Timothy Eric Moellendick

Jothibasu Ramasamy

Abrar Alshaikh

Arturo Magana Mora

Abdulwahab Aljohar

Abdulwahab S Al-Johar

Guodong (David) Zhan

Graham Hitchcock

Duanwei He

Daniele Colombo

Sakethraman Mahalingam

Amjad Alshaarawi

Arturo Magana-Mora

Amjad O Shaarawi

A cutter system for a polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) drill bit includes a body; a static blade attached to the body; a translatable blade attached to the body; and at least one PDC cutting structure attached to the translatable blade. The translatable blade is configured to be translated and maintained in a translated position. The body includes a cavity cooperatively positioned angularly away from the static blade. The translatable blade translates into the cavity. The translatable blade has a substantially retracted rest position and a substantially extended rest position. The cavity includes a restricting device within said cavity, so that said restricting device engages said translatable blade member in the substantially retracted position or the substantially extended position.

Refreshable polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) drill bits

An intelligent drilling system is disclosed. The intelligent drilling system includes an inner drill pipe adapted to rotate around a longitudinal axis in a transversal plane of a wellbore to advance a drill bit during a drilling operation, an external drill string shield surrounding the inner drill pipe and coupled to the inner drill pipe via at least one bearing system, the at least one bearing system adapted to decouple the external drill string shield from a rotational motion of the inner drill pipe in the transversal plane such that the external drill string shield remains substantially stationary during the drilling operation, and an in-situ sensing system disposed on an interior wall of the external drill string shield to measure at least one downhole parameter of the wellbore.

Intelligent drilling system with external stationary sensing shield

A system and a method for forming a composite electrolyte structure are provided. An exemplary composite electrolyte structure includes, at least in part, polymer electrolyte preforms that are bonded into the composite electrolyte structure.

Electrolyte structure for a high-temperature, high-pressure lithium battery

Apparatuses, systems, and methods of use are provided for a drilling stabilizer with chemical compartments within the teeth of the drilling stabilizer. The drilling stabilizer features dissolvable windows that allow chemicals to flow from the chemical compartments into the wellbore. The chemicals released can include cross-linkers or activators, which can react with polymers downhole to generate a plug for fluid loss control.

Drilling stabilizers with dissolvable windows for controlled release of chemicals

Cutters for a downhole drill bit can be formed by providing a catalyst-free synthesized polycrystalline diamond (PCD) having a cross-sectional dimension of at least 8 millimeters; providing a substrate comprising tungsten carbide; and attaching the synthesized PCD to the substrate comprising tungsten carbide to form a PDC cutter.

Producing catalyst-free PDC cutters

A method of forming a composite cutter for a downhole drilling tool is described. The method includes: mixing a polycrystalline diamond powder and a cubic boron nitride powder with a molar ratio between 0.1 and 0.9 to form a catalyst-free composite mixture; placing the catalyst-free composite mixture into a mold configured in a shape of a cutter; exposing the catalyst-free composite mixture to an ultra-high-pressure, high-temperature treatment including a pressure between 11 Gigapascals (GPa) and 20 GPa, and a temperature between 1300 Kelvins (K) and 2600 K to form a solid composite body; and cooling the solid composite body to form the composite cutter.

Fabrication of downhole drilling tools

A method for operating a circulating sub in a well includes opening a port of the circulating sub, including: dropping a ball into a drill pipe containing a downhole fluid; and seating the ball on an actuator slidably disposed concentrically within the drill pipe, in which seating the ball on the actuator causes motion of the actuator relative to the drill pipe to open a port defined in a wall of the drill pipe. The method includes closing the port of the circulating sub, including: introducing a solvent different from the downhole fluid into the drill pipe, in which a solubility of the ball in the solvent is greater than a solubility of the ball in the downhole fluid; and degrading the ball in the solvent, in which the degrading of the ball causes motion of the actuator relative to the drill pipe to close the port.

Dissolvable balls for activation and deactivation of a circulating sub apparatus

A method for plugging a lost-circulation zone in a subsurface formation includes introducing a drillstem including a drilling stabilizer into a wellbore during drilling operations, the drilling stabilizer including at least stabilizer blades and a pressure sensor. Each stabilizer blade includes at least an inner chamber, a light source, and a window. The method further includes injecting a lost-circulation fluid, including a plurality of lost-circulation particles, into the wellbore. Each lost-circulation particle includes a lost-circulation additive encapsulated by a photo-sensitive coating. The method further includes measuring a pressure differential with the pressure sensor and providing a pressure signal to the light source of each stabilizer blade, thereby actuating the light source to produce a light beam, which allows the light beam to contact the photo-sensitive coatings of the lost-circulation particles to release the lost-circulation additives. The method further includes allowing the lost-circulation fluid to plug the lost-circulation zone.

System and method for plugging a lost-circulation zone in a subsurface formation

An expansion cone useful for expanding an expandable tubular, the expansion cone includes: a base material selected from a group consisting of alloyed steel, tungsten carbide coated alloyed steel, and cemented tungsten carbide; an intermediate buffering layer; and a coating deposited on an outer surface of the intermediate buffering layer; wherein the intermediate buffering layer is deposited between an outer surface of the steel alloy base material and the coating, wherein the intermediate buffering layer is one or more selected from a group consisting of Silicon (Si), Titanium (Ti), and silicon carbide (SiC), and wherein the coating is a diamond containing coating.

Diamond coating on the cone for expandable tubulars

A system includes a sliding sleeve, a ball landing seat, a plurality of microchips, a hydraulic piston, and a ball catcher. The sliding sleeve is installed within a tubular body having an exit groove. The ball landing seat is formed by the sliding sleeve. The plurality of microchips are housed in a microchip ring installed within the sliding sleeve. The hydraulic piston is installed within the microchip ring and triggered by reception of a ball in the ball landing seat. The ball reduces a cross sectional area of a flow path while in the ball landing seat. The hydraulic piston releases the plurality of microchips through the exit groove and into the well to gather data. The ball catcher is configured to receive and hold the ball after the plurality of microchips are released into the well. The ball catcher and the ball are made of a dissolvable material.

Method and apparatus for downhole charging, initiation, and release of drilling micro sensing systems (microchips)

A method includes creating a chamber within an annulus between a wellbore casing and a drillpipe. An upper boundary of the chamber includes a seal and a lower boundary of the chamber includes a liquid surface and determining a volume of the chamber at a first time. The method further includes determining the volume of the chamber includes measuring, using a pressure gauge, a first pressure within the chamber, changing an amount of a gas in the chamber, and measuring, using the pressure gauge, a second pressure within the chamber. The method further includes determining a first volume of gas within the chamber based on the first and second pressure measurements and the change in the amount of gas, and determining a first fluid level based on the first volume of the chamber.

Method and system for determining fluid level change using pressure monitoring of annular gas

A system having an instrumented cutter of a drill bit including an on-cutter sensor for monitoring drilling performance metrics while performing drilling operations based on offset well data and a computing device is disclosed. The computing device executes a model development system configured to use the drilling performance metrics, surface drilling parameters, and characteristics of the instrumented cutter to train a machine learning (ML) model. The trained ML model is used to optimize drilling parameters and predict drill bit performance in a current well.

Method and system for construction of artificial intelligence model using on-cutter sensing data for predicting well bit performance

A downhole sub has a body defined by a wall extending in an axial direction from a first end to a second end. An inner surface of the wall defines a flow path through the downhole sub and an outer surface of the wall defines an outer diameter of the downhole sub. A compartment extends from the outer surface into the wall to having a depth less than a thickness of the wall. A housing may be removably fixed in the compartment. One or more mobile devices may be disposed in the housing. Each of the one or more mobile devices includes a sensor encapsulated in a protective material. A control element may block an opening of the housing, the control element is made of a dissolvable material configured to dissolve at a predetermined depth in a wellbore and release the one or more mobile devices into the wellbore.

Systems for a dissolvable material based downhole tool

A repairing assembly includes a housing, a packer, and a thermal spray assembly. The housing is attached to a wellbore string disposed within a wellbore with casing. The packer is coupled to the housing. The packer is set on a wall of the wellbore to bound a repair zone defined between the packer and an end of the housing opposite the packer. The housing or the packer includes a fluid channel in fluid communication with the wellbore string or an annulus of the wellbore. The thermal spray assembly is coupled to the housing and sprays a damaged section of the casing with a thermal spray to repair the damaged section. The housing flows an inert gas received from the wellbore string or the annulus of the wellbore and through the fluid channel into the repair zone until an oxygen in the repair zone is substantially removed from the repair zone.

Growing community of inventors

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Jianhui Xu