Laser Drilling | Russell T. Rudy Energy LLC
In an article in “Oil Voice” entitled “At the Cutting Edge of Laser Technology”, author Ros Davidson discusses the relevance of laser drilling to current oil and gas operations. While the power of lasers is not disputed, its economic viability has always been an issue.
Lasers are not really new. Einstein first theorized about them a century ago, but the first prototype was not built until the 1960’s. Even then the engineering community labeled them “a solution looking for a problem”. However, by the 1980’s President Ronald Reagan advocated their use for shooting enemy missiles out of the sky as part of the “Star Wars” program. When the Cold War ended, interest in the military uses of lasers waned.
Dr. Ramona Graves, professor and dean of the College of Earth Resources Sciences & Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, is the leading expert in the U. S. regarding the use of lasers in the oil and gas industry. Graves contends that the technology has finally come of age. Great strides have been made in miniaturization, cost reduction and energy efficiency. In fact, she predicts that lasers will be commercially viable in drilling operations within 5 years. However, she laughingly points out that she made the same predictions in 2006 and 2011.
Lasers clearly have some advantages. They supposedly could drill faster, cheaper, more precisely, and with a smaller environmental footprint. Lasers, by their very nature move in a straight line. Conventional rotary drilling equipment tends to “corkscrew” while boring, and follow stresses in the earth.
Another advantage is the ease with which lasers can bore through hard objects such as igneous rocks and granite which can cap oil and gas reservoirs. These are very difficult, if not impossible, to penetrate with conventional equipment. In fact, the harder a substance, the more lasers like it according to Graves. However, this is a big drawback for lasers in a contemporary drilling environment.
Whether a rock is ground up, melted, or vaporized, the cuttings or residue must be removed from the hole. Currently this is being done with drilling mud, but lasers and soft substances such as this appear incompatible. However, cuttings could be removed with inert gasses such as nitrogen, or helium under very high pressures. However, air drilling is still in the experimental stages. Another option might be to use lasers to burn a pathway through a formation and then use conventional equipment to remove cuttings.
One potential application might be for decommissioning offshore facilities. Lasers can be used effectively under water, and would appear to be an excellent tool for plugging and abandoning wells and shooting the legs off of production platforms.
Maybe the time has come for lasers in the oil patch. With low prices, operators are always looking for faster, safer, cheaper and more environmentally friendly technologies, and lasers might now be a solution to a problem.
