Enventure Global Technology

ENVENTURE GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY

PUSHING INTO TUBULAR EXPANSION TECH

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ENVENTURE GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY

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PROFILE

First established in 1999, Enventure Global Technology has over 20 years of experience engineering industry-leading expandable liner innovations for the downhole environment.

Now, with over 2 million feet of its revolutionary solid expandable liner technology installed worldwide, Matt Meiners, Director of Technology & Product Development, sat down with Richard Hagan to talk about how this technology is saving operators huge amounts of money, time and even the wells, of over 250 operators in 39 countries around the world.

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ell-site oil and gas operations, regardless of location, are complex and fraught with risks and technical difficulties that must constantly be assessed and overcome to ensure the successful drilling, completion, and production of a well.

Enventure Global Technology, based in Houston in the US, manufactures and supplies a range of products and services designed to enhance the entire lifecycle of a well, including exploration, development, production and remediation.

Expanding possibilities with SET® Enventure’s signature product offering, the SET® Openhole Liner, was first introduced in 1999 and is based on the use of solid expandable liner technology. The SET Openhole Liner involves the controlled expansion of a solid steel tubular in the downhole environment. For those unfamiliar with this technology, the use of expandable tubulars involves enlarging the

inner diameter (ID) of a downhole tubular and its threaded connections using Enventure’s proprietary steel metallurgies, expandable premium connections and solid or segmented expansion cones.

The expansion cone is pushed axially through the tubular using hydraulic force provided from the surface. As it travels through the tubular, it radially expands and plastically deforms the tubular, with a gain of up to 20% of its inner diameter. According to Matt Meiners, Technology and Product Development, expandable tubulars have several advantages when used for the oil and gas industry.

Enventure was established out of the necessity in deepwater Gulf of Mexico to alleviate the problem of frequent reductions of inner diameter due to having to set extra casing strings to manage openhole trouble zones whilst drilling. Whenever extra traditional casing string must be used, the subsequent string must be smaller, thereby creating a telescopic effect that can lead to prematurely running

out of available string sizes and compromising the well.

“When using expandable liners, you can optimise the inner diameter of your casing once total depth has been reached,” Mr Meiners added. “Another disadvantage of reducing ID as extra casing strings are set is that the operator may sometimes have to lay down their conventional drilling assemblies and pick up smaller, less commonly used drilling assemblies. These actions all add risk and cost to the well design.”

Enventure’s expandable liners are a comprehensively proven solution and an effective alternative to traditional casing strings. The company boasts two million feet (over 375 miles) of its tubulars installed worldwide, on behalf of over 250 drilling operators in 39 countries and nearly 2,500 installations. These installations represent “far more successful installations than any other expandable provider,” as Mr Meiners noted. Its tubulars range in size from 3½” to 16”.

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Expanding into intervention solutions The majority of the company’s installations in the early 2000’s were in deepwater open-hole drilling applications, but since the mid 2010’s, the majority of its installations have been on intervention and remediation projects.

Expandable tubulars have applications in cased-hole applications as well. “Expandable liners can be used to repair damaged casing and casing connections, to cover unwanted perforations or used as a mechanical diverter to improve recovery during refracturing operations,” said Mr Meiners.

A widely used intervention solution offered by Enventure is its ESeal Cased-hole Patches and Liners – another of the company’s very popular solutions. ESeal has been successfully used in both existing and re-entry wells to seal off leaks and/or perforations, thus reinforcing the casing, improving the integrity of the well’s architecture, and allowing full pressure pumping capability into the reservoir.

A particularly interesting, trending development that Enventure is currently involved in is cavern storage wells, for which its ESeal Liners have proven to be a winning solution in the industry.

“Using an expandable liner offers a regulatory compliant and economically feasible solution when sealing the casing of a cavern well,” Mr Meiners explained. “This solution is accomplished by repairing and sealing a corroded or damaged section of casing when it occurs over the life of the well. By repairing existing storage wells with this technology,

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Enventure Global Technology

PROFILE

the resulting inner diameter is larger compared to conventional repairs, which then maximises the well’s throughput capacity.

Assurance vs insurance Customer perception of expandable liners has historically been a stumbling block for wider-scale adoption of Enventure’s technology. But as Mr Meiners pointed out, it’s an issue the company has been working hard to change, and their efforts are slowly paying off.

“We are often viewed as a planned contingency service or a form of ‘insurance’ for drilling operations. We are called out when the client runs into problems,” he commented. “Some major operators are now using us as a planned service, or as ‘assurance’. After repeatedly fighting trouble formations well after well, with other means like cement squeezes, and getting inconsistent results, they recognise the value of investing in a reliable solution, and they plan us into their operations from the start.

“Much of our competition isn’t direct competitors, but indirect competitors,” he continued. “These are mainly technologies that can be used in lieu of expandable liners. Cement squeezes, chemical diverters and ‘pump and pray’ methods are effective when they work but are sometimes unreliable. Meanwhile, more reliable, and less-traditional methods, like managed pressure drilling, are effective but far more costly.”

The company is optimistic that it can continue raising awareness of the value of using expandable liners to its cus-

tomer base and growing it even further, through ongoing awareness campaigns and through constant exploration and development of new solutions using expandable tubulars.

An expanding global footprint Enventure employs around 100 people globally with its headquarters based in Houston, Texas. Its manufacturing, assembly, R&D, and machine shop are all located at its second facility in Katy, Texas. In addition to the above, its Katy facility has the ability to build, assemble and test both prototype and commercial equipment, with a capacity to safely conduct live test expansions of any size in excess of 200 ft.

Beyond Texas, Enventure has assembly operations in Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Norway. Further afield, it has operational centres in Aberdeen, Dubai, and Kuala Lumpur.

With such a large footprint, Enventure has been at the forefront of using video communications to meet and collaborate with internal staff and external partners. Mr Meiners highlighted the company’s recent and very successful use of video tools to connect its clients to witness development and live testing of bespoke tools and connect with third party inspections when required by the client.

“Before the Covid-19 pandemic, clients would typically oversee development operations or testing in person to ensure that their purchased equipment performs as expected, will meet their installation

requirements, that the machinery has been serviced correctly and that we have all of the right industry procedures and processes in place,” he affirmed.

“We’ve managed to transition to the use of video to connect the client to these processes instead. By not having to get everyone involved in this process to one physical location, it’s made the process much safer and more efficient with fewer distractions, and it’s saved clients from having to travel internationally, all while still delivering the same results.”

Since the early 2000’s in particular, Enventure has racked up a number of impressive milestones. In 2007, it celebrated its first monodiameter installation, and only a year later it reached its onemillionth foot of pipe expansion. By 2014,

it had established its refracturing liners into US land-based operations. A year later, it introduced its high torque rotating liners. Between 2018 and 2019, Enventure launched its strongest expandable premium connection for refracturing applications, and it made its commercial monodiameter systems available in multiple sizes.

Awards in the pipeline In early March 2022, Enventure was awarded the prestigious API Q2: Specification 1 certification. This certification is the leading standard for oil and gas service providers and has been awarded to fewer than 200 companies. This coveted certification is only given to companies that can demonstrate robust procedures to ensure personnel com-

petency, proper risk assessment, contingency planning, and service quality.

In addition, Enventure boasts an ISO 9001:2015 certification. This certification is awarded to companies that meet certain quality management system standards and which demonstrate the ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer and regulatory requirements.

In closing, Mr Meiners reflected on the company’s position in light of these awards.

“They truly reflect the success of our processes, the competencies of our personnel, and our perseverance towards safe and flawless services to our customers,” he noted.

“With these certifications, our customers can be assured of receiving the most outstanding solid expandable technologies.” n

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