A quick question: completion is considered a step from Drilling or from Production phase?
Junior Member
A quick question: completion is considered a step from Drilling or from Production phase?
Active Member
Completing the well is a process per se'. It does not belong to any of them. Usually the big companies have e drilling/completion/WOver department where different guys cover different areas of expertise. Small companies contract the work out to engineering companies which can do both.
Junior Member
Ok, I understand that. But when you say E&P, completion belongs to E or P?
I'm asking that because I had a discussion with my mastering teacher and he said that its in scope of production department of a company. I know that there is a team that is responsible only for completion, but if you have to define it to drilling or production, I would choose drilling. Even so, in general, the same rig that drill a well usually does the completion. Do you agree with me?
Active Member
In some cases the well is completed by drilling guys, mostly when the downhole configuration is not too complicated and circumstances are such(eg. no service rig available etc). I most of the cases though, completion is done by service rig (it is cheaper, completion sups are more knowlegeble usw.)
Later on, on the life of the well when the well needs to be serviced, there are the same "completion" guys who go there with a service rig and do the repairs.
Now, in all of above the production guys have little to say. Their input is the specs of downhole production - the other things (holesize, casing, tubing, WH are designed and executed by drilling/completion guys. Shell calles them well engineering group, some other call them operational group, but they are not part of production. In small companies there are experienced production/exploitation guys with exposure to operations who contract the work to well engineering firms.
(sorry for the late reply as I was out in the field last week)
Completions has historically been a subset of Production. Most university courses now teach completions as part of a Production Technology course within a Petroleum Engineering degree.
Similar to the way Reservoir Engineering has been born out of general Petroleum Engineering as the need to better understand the effect of PVT fluid behavior on recovery, Completions Engineering arose out of a perceived gap between Drilling Engineering and Production Engineering. Traditionally, Production Engineers/Technologist would design a completion in different stages based on uncertainty, i.e. conceptual design, detailed design etc. and Drilling Engineers would just follow the procedure written by PT's. Note that a Drilling Engineer's main role ends when they have reached TD and have set a cement plug, but since the rig is still under the watch of the D.E., the D.E. must be involved and on standby if drill pipe and rig facilities need to be used during completions. However, since PT focuses deeply on parts of R.E. type studies, there is usually a lack of operational expertise. This is where the completions engineer comes in. The C.E. is therefore a hybrid between a Production Engineer and a Drilling Engineer.
Originally Posted by vitor_vs
Completions has historically been a subset of Production. Most university courses now teach completions as part of a Production Technology course within a Petroleum Engineering degree.
Similar to the way Reservoir Engineering has been born out of general Petroleum Engineering as the need to better understand the effect of PVT fluid behavior on recovery, Completions Engineering arose out of a perceived gap between Drilling Engineering and Production Engineering. Traditionally, Production Engineers/Technologist would design a completion in different stages based on uncertainty, i.e. conceptual design, detailed design etc. and Drilling Engineers would just follow the procedure written by PT's. Note that a Drilling Engineer's main role ends when they have reached TD and have set a cement plug, but since the rig is still under the watch of the D.E., the D.E. must be involved and on standby if drill pipe and rig facilities need to be used during completions. However, since PT focuses deeply on parts of R.E. type studies, there is usually a lack of operational expertise. This is where the completions engineer comes in. The C.E. is therefore a hybrid between a Production Engineer and a Drilling Engineer.
In either exploration or production activities, all disciplines are involved. Completions engineer is a subset of well engineering.
Junior Member
It depends on the phase your field is in. In case if your are in an Exploration company it will be clubbed in Drilling (exploration) as it will normally be drill and suspend or Plug and abandon. In case of drill and suspend they normally will come back when they have a good plan on the completions that they want to install.
If its a production field the Completions is clubbed with production as they have to keep a track of tubing, choke sizes, production rates etc.
Could not be more right!! Well said.In either exploration or production activities, all disciplines are involved. Completions engineer is a subset of well engineering.
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