Oil, Coal and Radar
August / September 2006
Volume 4 Number 4
What do miners, oil companies, environmentalists, private businesses, the U.S. government, and Russian former weapons of mass destruction workers have in common? They all benefit from the new Drillstring Radar, or DSR, technology. An advanced geophysical exploration system, DSR was engineered by Stolar Research Corporation, Raton, N.M., as part of the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration's Global Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention program (GIPP).
GIPP focuses on reducing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by redirecting the skills of former weapons workers to developing and manufacturing commercial, non-weapons products. Under GIPP, NNSA's national laboratories and manufacturing facilities form partnerships with U.S. commercial industries and former weapons scientists in the former Soviet Union to evaluate opportunities for commercial projects.
The DSR was developed through a GIPP partnership between the NNSA's Kansas City Plant (KCP); Stolar, a radio geophysics engineering company, and scientists from the Measuring Systems Research Institute in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Stolar saw the need for this technology, and recognized the GIPP program as an opportunity to realize their vision.
Stolar's president, Larry Stolarzyck, asked the KCP to join the project. "The Kansas City Plant understands the manufacturing and commercialization side of projects, and is marvelous to work with," Stolarzyck said. The plant, which has long been involved with the GIPP program, also has radar expertise. It served as the DSR project facilitator and technical partner.
The Drillstring Radar project addresses the U.S.'s increasing demand for energy—€”a demand that significantly outstrips production. In his 2004 book, A Brighter Tomorrow, Senator Pete Domenici, R-N.M., predicted that natural gas production would have to increase by 46 percent to keep pace with demand.
Already, the increase in demand is almost twice what Domenici predicted.
Often referred to by energy planners as the Saudi Arabia of coal, the U.S.
contains 37 percent of the world's coal. Unfortunately, this title may not be entirely warranted given the alarming rate at which U.S. coal reserves are being spoiled, largely because of wasteful extraction methods. The current method of extracting methane from coals beds, referred to as cavitation production, involves drilling down vertically to the coal bed, then pumping sand, diesel fuel and liquid nitrogen into the bed at a high force. This process fractures the roof rock and spoils the coal seam geologic structure for a radius of 1,000 feet. It also causes water in the overlying aquifer to leak through the fracture and into the coal seam. This contaminated water then must be pumped to the surface and disposed of in deep wells, which can cause earthquakes up to 3.5 on the Richter scale. Sometimes, pumping continues for an entire year before the coal bed dries and the gas can be removed. According to experts, if this wasteful production method continues at the current rate, we will exhaust the mineable coal in U.S. beds within the next several hundred years.
Cavitation production has many strikes against it. Environmentalists dislike it because it wreaks havoc on the land. Farmers dislike it because it pollutes the aquifers. The coal mining industry dislikes it because it ruins the coal seam geologic structure for future mining. In addition, cavitation is inefficient and expensive.
The Drillstring Radar, an advanced geophysical exploration system, resolves all of these extraction issues.
The DSR system consists of a highly specialized radar developed specifically for use on a drill string. (This includes use on vertical drill rods, horizontal directional drill rods, or coiled tube drilling systems.) The radar sensing device on the drill string provides sensitivity to nearby structures and geologic layering. This sensitivity detects, navigates and maps unknown strata.
DSR uses electromagnetic waves, at high radio frequencies, to detect planar boundaries of rock formations above and below the drilled strata, and to estimate the orientation of fractures and bedding planes in layered materials such as coal, oil-saturated sandstone and fractured limestone.
With DSR, horizontal drilling takes place from the surface or from within the coal mine. The radar navigates a mud-motor drill within the coal bed, extending for distances of up to 3,000 meters. Like most strata, the coal bed is not flat. DSR ensures that drilling remains in the coal bed by following the undulation of the strata. DSR also is applicable in oil and gas production, where the drill must stay within the hydrocarbon layer. DSR's accurate drilling results in less surface disturbance, helping to preserve the environment and prevent fractured roof rock. With DSR drilling, aquifers aren't compromised so contaminated water doesn't need to be brought to the surface.
DSR's many economic advantages are only beginning to be recognized. Two obvious benefits are reduced drilling costs and more efficient production from a given strata. Without radar sensors, coal mining operations rely on hit or miss horizontal drilling techniques. This often results in unplanned sidetracks, which are expensive, waste time, and do not create an optimal production environment.
Accurate horizontal drilling can locate missed oil and gas reserves in reservoirs that have already been mined using traditional techniques. In some reservoirs, the fraction of missed oil or gas (the recovery factor) could be up to 50 percent.
In addition to increasing the amount of oil or natural gas produced, accurate horizontal drilling also increases the rate of production. Increased production levels and rates could substantially benefit oil companies and the U.S. economy.
By cost-effectively locating missed oil and gas reserves, the DSR could help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. To this end, the Kansas City Plant, Stolar, and the Institute of Radio Physics are developing an acoustic flow permeability intensification product for integration with the DSR.
The recent Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia proves that elevated methane levels lead to explosions. DSR technology provides a means to extract methane from coal beds before mining begins. Radar-controlled directional drilling reduces the amount of methane in the coal bed by 70 percent. This also reduces the cost of coal mine ventilation because less air needs to be supplied to the working face.
Creating a drillstring radar to meet the varied, technically-demanding needs of the mining industry required multiple technological breakthroughs. In 2001, GIPP project partners Stolar Research, Russia's Measuring Systems Research Institute and KCP accepted the challenge. The first issue was the need to use drilling mud to produce down-hole electric power. Working with the other GIPP partners, the Russians and their partners built a titanium three-turbine generator that generates electric power in the borehole.
The next challenge was creating small-diameter, low-frequency antennas with a directional pattern—€”this required a major technology breakthrough. Through a collaborative effort of theoretical research trial and error, the GIPP partnership yielded the first true radar operating at 230 kilohertz.
The final challenge was developing a two-way communication pathway on the drill rod to relay data between the drill and the surface. The Russian institute and KCP engineers came up with multiple potential solutions. They built hardware, then tested and adjusted it, until they developed the final product.
On July 6, the success of the GIPP Drillstring Radar project was celebrated in Albuquerque. Senator Domenici, along with two KCP representatives, witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Stolar and the Measuring Systems Research Institute. The DSR project recently received $1.4 million to develop related technology, including acoustic intensification for coal bed degassing. The extracted methane could serve as an alternative fuel source.
Nicole Wickenhauser is a communications specialist at NNSA's Kansas City Plant.
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