In 2016, Santos contracted FORACO to drill three stratigraphic core holes in the McArthur basin in the Northern Territory. The extreme remoteness of these locations required months of pre-planning and project de-risking by both Santos and FORACO to ensure that the program was delivered safely, efficiently and within the specified time frame due to the northern wet season risk.
Rig 12, an ATEX compliant KWL 1600 was prepared for the job, along with supporting well control equipment, rod strings and ancillary equipment. FORACO was also contracted to provide a mobile 30-bed camp to accommodate the drilling, well testing, evaluation personnel and client representatives who would be on site. All wellsite support services except for wireline logging were organised by FORACO.
In total, the mobilization consisted of 12 x 12m semi-trailers (2 x triple road trains and 3 x double road trains), Rig 12, 8 x 8 Tatra flat bed and crew vehicles. Mobilization from the FORACO base in Moranbah, Qld to the NT site was over 3,000km.
The Santos Drilling Program required a 12 ¼” conductor hole rotary mud drilled to ~10m and grouted. A 9” diverter was installed and 8 ½” hole was then rotary mud drilled to 100m with 4-1/2” casing run and pressure cemented. A 3,000 psi 7 1/16” BOP stack was nippled up and pressure tested. HQ3 coring was then continued to TD at between 200 and 750m. Cementing operations including conductor, surface hole and abandonment cement plugs were carried out by FORACO.
The program was completed ahead of schedule, under budget, and without incident (including zero first aids). In total over 80,000km were driven on the project, including mobe/demobe, crew transfers, service company and client travel – all without incident. Productivity was in the 10th percentile to plan with zero NPT (non-productive time).
The success of the NT program highlighted what can be achieved with a collaborative risk based approach to project planning and execution, coupled with the FORACO values of integrity, innovation and involvement.
