BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 5. SLB (formerly Schlumberger) company has successfully applied advanced drilling technologies in Azerbaijan, SLB product engineer Gauharbek Ungaliev said at the IADC Drilling Caspian 2026 conference and exhibition in Baku, Trend reports.
"At our offshore site in Azerbaijan, we successfully implemented advanced drilling technologies. As part of the project, we drilled a pilot well with a diameter of 8.5 to 8.25 inches using a conventional PDC bit and expanded it to 10 ¼ inches using a reaming tool (underreamer)," Ungaliev explained.
According to him, the company drills and simultaneously expands the well using a rotary steerable system, which is necessary to meet directional requirements.
"The typical interval length for this application ranges from 300 meters to nearly 2,000 meters from well to well, using an oil-based drilling fluid, with a deviation angle of two to three degrees of double axial gravity," he noted.
The engineer emphasized that this application focuses on expanding the well as smoothly and deeply as possible to install the casing or liner as close as possible to the target depth of the interval.
"Traditionally, this operation requires two separate runs and multiple passes because after the first pass, there remains a long rat hole—an area at the bottom of the unexpanded well.
We leave this section after the first pass because in the first BHA, between the bit and the upper reamer, there are many components such as MWD, LWD, stabilizers, and the rotary steerable system itself. All these components between the under-reamer and the bit occupy about 35-40 meters, which remain unexpanded to 10 ¼ inches," he added.
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