Continually evolving, experience-based technology is improving rig efficiency and safety while delivering more economical and reliable tools.

By carefully balancing the benefits of new technology with the advantages of simple solutions, Varco has recently introduced a group of new products to the worldwide drilling industry. The company's philosophy is to combine the latest technology with proven design practices to maximize performance while keeping size, weight, complexity and cost to a minimum. Examples of these products include a lightweight blowout preventer (LXT BOP), a compact Iron Roughneck (ST-80), a casing running tool (CRT), an inexpensive, compact pipe racking system (VCR), and a powerful, yet simple, integrated control system (Amphion). More detailed descriptions of these systems follow.

ST-80 Iron Roughneck

One of the most prominent rig equipment successes in the industry today has been Iron Roughneck. In the late 70s, Varco introduced integrated spinning wrenches and torque wrenches on a floor track resulting in a major impact on offshore drilling rig floor safety. These systems were automated in the 80s and continued to grow in functionality evolving to bit breaking, doping threads and handling mud buckets during the 90s. The ST-80 Iron Roughneck represents a new machine that is smaller and more efficient than earlier designs. Taking another key step in bringing the benefits of integrated power make-up tools to the industry, the ST-80 offers a more compact, efficient and fit-for-purpose system that is equally at-home on land or offshore rig installations. More than 200 ST-80s have been purchased and installed since its introduction at the beginning of 2003.

The key step in meeting the goal of a smaller package has been obtained in the integration of the spinner module and the torque wrench module, usually separated on a traditional Iron Roughneck. The tool makes up connections at the same rate or quicker than manual operations and is lifted quickly and safely from a storage position to the mousehole or well center without the need for floor tracks, removing a potential trip hazard. The smooth and controlled deployment can be handled and the tool operated by a single floor hand.
With its compact design and pedestal-mounting, the machine facilitates the use on any rig floor, and the simplicity of design means that tool is affordable for typical rig operations.

All-hydraulic controls are fitted for typical rig maintenance and operations crews providing mechanized make-up and breakout of connections ranging from 4-¼-in.to 8-½ in. diameter. With up to 80,000 ft-lbs of torque available, most traditional drilling connections can be handled with ease.

LXT BOP

Shaffer's LXT Ram BOP incorporates advanced technological features in a compact, lightweight and economical package. The 11-in. by 5,000 psi LXT is a hydraulically operated BOP with Shaffer's unique "boltless door" assembly for quick access to the rams. Fastened to the body by two locking rods that span the length of the door directly above and below the ram cavity, the boltless door locking arrangement minimizes deflection associated with the applied wellbore pressure load. The LXT door-to-body interface is sealed with a new proprietary radial seal. This negates the high preload required in the traditional compression-style seals used in older BOP designs. The LXT is also equipped with a ram extraction tool that enables ram block removal from the lower cavity of a double BOP without first opening the upper cavity in order to gain access. These unique LXT features greatly reduce the time required to change rams while significantly enhancing safety. The LXT is priced at about the same price as a reconditioned, used BOP. The cost of conversion to the LXT design is reduced since the LXT will accept either new, one-piece, 11-in. by 5,000 psi LXT ram assemblies or the users' existing 11-in. by 5,000 psi LWS Type 70 ram assemblies. The LXT is also available in an 11-in. by 3,000 psi model.

CRT

The CRT is a new product that allows existing rig crews to run casing, and demonstrates potential to make casing running safer and more efficient.

Conventional casing operations typically involve specialized crews and equipment. The casing crew and equipment are mobilized to a rig, they rig up and operate the equipment, and are demobilized at the completion of the casing job. However, top-drive systems have been used for years to make up pipe connections and to efficiently drill well. The challenge was to develop a viable method to use top drives, with the addition of a CRT, to make up and run casing strings, just as strings of drill pipe have historically been run.

The CRT incorporates a simple method of picking up single joints and stabbing them into the string, and eliminates the need for a person at the casing stabbing board. Because the top drive provides the torque to make up the connection, additional casing tongs are not required and fewer personnel are required on the rig floor during casing operations. The result has been proven to be faster and safer casing runs.

VCR

Pipehandling equipment is often thought of as the expensive automation found on the most sophisticated rigs in the world, but the ever-evolving drilling industry has begun to adopt a new breed of fit-for-purpose pipehandling with the VCR to increase safety and efficiency in drilling operations.

The VCR is primarily a racking assist arm which can adapt to any rig fingerboard to remove the derrick man from the potential hazards of tripping pipe while meeting or exceeding the performance of manual tripping. It consists of a lightweight, powerful and versatile pipe racking arm located under the derrick man's work platform, and uses a fixed mechanical arm that rotates and extends to assist in hoisting and manipulating drill pipe and guiding drill collars efficiently between the setback position and well center.
The dawning of a new era in simple and rig appropriate controls for drilling rig equipment has helped make the VCR possible. Historically mechanical arms have been used with limited success. The main barriers have been complexity of manipulating an arm round the fingerboard with multiple control steps and the level of training and expertise needed to support any levels of automation applied. The introduction of the Single Board Computer took the use of robotic controls from other industries to the rig floor with simple pictorial operator interfaces to set up automated sequences. In recent history these types of machines would require a programmer and skilled technician to operate the machine and the complexity was prohibitive to use in traditional drilling environments.

Wireless remote controls also make installation and operation very simple and intuitive. The first system has been operating on a land rig in the Middle East and the second unit has been purchased for a jackup. Combined with the success of the ST-80 iron roughneck, rig operations have an opportunity to reach new levels of safety and efficiency with the benefits of systems once reserved for large rig operations on systems now fit for rigs on a worldwide basis.

Amphion integrated rig control system

The Amphion integrated system enables drilling personnel to control multiple machines and equipment, supplied from any number of suppliers, from one ergonomically designed workstation. The heart of the system is the Amphion tool controller, a leading edge hardware/software platform that provides superior automation and robotic processing capability at much less cost and complexity than conventional machine control systems.

The scalable architecture enables customers to install systems to operate anywhere from one to 10 or more individual tools. Unlike conventional PLC based systems, which typically require a separate tool control cabinet for each drilling machine, the Amphion platform accommodates up to nine separate controllers in one multi-tool control cabinet (MTC). Multiple controllers, touchscreens and even multiple MTCs are connected over a redundant ethernet ring network to ensure robust operation. The architecture easily scales down to provide cost effective systems with one tool controller and one touchscreen.

Touchscreen based workstations provide greater flexibility to the drilling process within an integrated rig control scheme. Such systems, often named supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, offer improved productivity while increasing operator safety. The amount of information displayed, the number of control buttons and the number of touchscreens is dictated by the process situation being controlled, not the amount of equipment on the rig. Process specific screens (drill, trip, etc.) enable complete control of active equipment from one screen.

However, adding this functionality to a rig typically requires even more cabinets filled with PCs and data acquisition servers, adding a high level of complication and long-term information technology support for these installations. The Amphion platform changes this traditional paradigm by embedding all of the attributes of a typical SCADA system into each and every tool controller. These attributes include full diagnostics, graphing, trending, alarming and logging. The graphical user interface for all this capability is completely browser-based, which means that lower cost touchscreens can be utilized with absolutely no special software.

These new products can be installed separately on a wide range of rig types, or combined to produce even more efficient rig operations.

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