Method and Device for Subsea Wire Line Drilling
A method and a device for subsea wire line drilling permit the recovery of a full core barrel with a coiled tubing, without pulling up a drill string.
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and a device for subsea wire line drilling. The invention is intended to be used with a subsea drilling system, such as that described in co-pending U.S. Patent Application No. (Attorney Docket No. F-8973), filed on the same date as the instant application and the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated into the instant application in its entirety.
2. Description of Related Art
Prior art wire line subsea drilling devices have not used coiled tubing and have required a drill string to be pulled up in order to recover cores.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONIt is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a method and a device for subsea wire line drilling, which overcome the hereinafore-mentioned disadvantages of the heretofore-known methods and devices of this general type and in which wire line core retrieval is accomplished by using coiled tubing and cores can be recovered without pulling up the drill string.
With the foregoing and other objects in view there is provided, in accordance with the invention, a method subsea for wire line drilling. The method comprises drilling a hole in a seafloor with a drill string, running coiled tubing down the drill string to a full core barrel having a core and latching the coiled tubing onto the full core barrel, recovering the full core barrel with the coiled tubing without pulling up the drill string, inserting the full core barrel into a tool carousel, retrieving an empty core barrel from the tool carousel, attaching the coiled tubing to the empty core barrel, lowering the empty core barrel into the drill string, unlatching the coiled tubing from the empty core barrel, and restarting drilling to recover another core.
With the objects of the invention in view, there is concomitantly provided a
device for subsea wire line drilling. The device comprises a drilling head to be disposed under water, and a wire line coiled tubing system associated with the drilling head underwater. The coiled tubing system includes a reel, coiled tubing wound on the reel, a drill string with a drill rod and a drill bit, and a core barrel to be latched to the coiled tubing for recovering cores without pulling up the drill string.
Drilling processes with a drilling system that uses only a wire rope to retrieve and deploy core barrels have only been employed in the past for land drilling. The invention uses such a process for the first time for underwater drilling with a coiled tubing reel.
Other features which are considered as characteristic for the invention are set forth in the appended claims.
Although the invention is illustrated and described herein as embodied in a method and a device for subsea wire line drilling, it is nevertheless not intended to be limited to the details shown, since various modifications and structural changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention and within the scope and range of equivalents of the claims.
The construction and method of operation of the invention, however, together with additional objects and advantages thereof will be best understood from the following description of specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawings.
Referring now to the figures of the drawings in detail and first, particularly, to
In summary, the sequence of operation of the coiled tubing system 1 is to drill a hole, run the coiled tubing 12 down to a core barrel 22 and latch on to it. Then the core barrel 22 is recovered using the coiled tubing reel 8 itself. Once the core barrel 22 is recovered, the arms 35, 39 are used to deploy the full core barrel 22 to the tool carousel 36 and again to retrieve an empty core barrel 22. The next step is then to attach the coiled tubing 12 to the empty core barrel 22, place it into the drill string 18 using the tool arms 35, 39, then lower it down the drill string 18 until it latches into the outer barrel housing 44 of the core barrel 22. Then the coiled tubing 12 is unlatched from the core barrel 22 and drilling can be started again to recover another core 32.
Claims
1. A method for subsea wire line drilling, the method comprising the following steps:
- drilling a hole in a seafloor with a drill string;
- running coiled tubing down the drill string to a full core barrel having a core and latching the coiled tubing onto the full core barrel;
- recovering the full core barrel with the coiled tubing without pulling up the drill string;
- inserting the full core barrel into a tool carousel;
- retrieving an empty core barrel from the tool carousel;
- attaching the coiled tubing to the empty core barrel;
- lowering the empty core barrel into the drill string;
- unlatching the coiled tubing from the empty core barrel; and
- restarting drilling to recover another core.
2. A device for subsea wire line drilling, the device comprising:
- a drilling head to be disposed under water; and
- a wire line coiled tubing system associated with said drilling head under water, said coiled tubing system including a reel, coiled tubing wound on said reel, a drill string with a drill rod and a drill bit, and a core barrel to be latched to said coiled tubing for recovering cores without pulling up said drill string.
3. The device according to claim 2, which further comprises instrumentation associated with said reel for sending telemetry to the surface.
4. The device according to claim 2, which further comprises a tube straightener downstream of said reel in tube travel direction into a hole, and an injector downstream of said tube straightener for injecting said coiled tubing into the hole.
5. The device according to claim 2, which further comprises a tool carousel, and tool arms for inserting said core barrel into and removing said core barrel from said tool carousel.
Type: Application
Filed: Jan 10, 2008
Publication Date: Jul 16, 2009
Applicant: PERRY SLINGSBY SYSTEMS, INC. (Jupiter, FL)
Inventors: Peter Nellessen, JR. (Palm Beach Gardens, FL), Jonathan Bruce Machin (Singapore), Harold Marshall Pardey (Salt Lake City, UT)
Application Number: 11/972,088
International Classification: E21B 7/12 (20060101);