Embrace the Energy of Geothermal Drilling with Merlin
Merlin delivers a wide range of engineering services, applied training programs, and dependable operational backing for Geothermal drilling. With a focus on maintaining geothermal system stability, Merlin ensures immediate risk control and extends appropriate training to strengthen your team's knowledge base. With Merlin's guidance, you'll proficiently comprehend your geothermal system's limitations, devise effective geothermal drilling designs, and navigate potential drilling complications with ease.
Explore Our Key Services
Offset Well Review
Geothermal drilling means different things to different people. Regardless of whether you are drilling Granite for steam or Coal seams for warm water, understanding the challenges which have gone before is the foundation for planning a well which will meet the subsurface objectives whilst accounting for risk. Merlin are experts at unpacking the real lessons from the noise to deliver this foundational information in a way which promotes reliability in well design and execution in later stages.
Feasibility Study
As engineers, we often have limits imposed on us. It could be down to the drilling location, the equipment we have available or the economics (and hence allowable budget) of the project we are working on. We need to know how the mechanical design of our geothermal well will impact on those constraints to make a value judgement on what to do next. A detailed feasibility study sets out what the well needs to look like in order to remain within the boundaries of your project. Merlin can help you understand where the critical elements are to ensure that your solution remains within limits at all times.
Problem Review
Operational problems are tough going. Large bore, high angle wellbores, small, shallow wellbores with precise directional control requirements, limited resources to achieve the well objectives – all situations which can stress teams and create opportunities for failures to creep in. Merlin has been involved in problem reviews since the inception of our business. We know it take sensitivity and a focus on facts to get to the bottom of what went wrong and what’s gone on in a way which brings the best out of the team. Our focus is on supporting the team to integrate the lessons learned from the problem event into the next activity.
Detailed Well Design
We are drilling engineers. Regardless of the downhole conditions, we can help you create well designs which meet the subsurface objectives, regardless of the fluid being produced. Optimized well designs come from a detailed understanding the subsurface environment and the constraints likely to be imposed by the available solutions. Our drilling engineers can help you define hole sizes, wellhead types, casing points, drilling fluids, drilling tools and so on – all of the individual elements which come together when the rig is on location to create the final end result. Merlin’s engineering focus is on designing out risk where we can and mitigating through procedure were necessary.
Public Training School
Drilling operations come in all shapes and sizes but the fundamental processes are the same, regardless of whether you are drilling for heat or hydrocarbons. Merlin’s public open seat training courses (classroom or online) have taught hundreds of delegates the fundamental success factors related to the well construction process, with a focus on deviated and high angle wells. It is also true that the factors that make these complex wells successful translate equally well to vertical, shallow or low angle wells when we talk about proactively managing hole conditions, how to write SMART drilling instructions, specifying drilling fluid properties, or size a drilling team. We discuss all of these topics and more in our internationally recognised training courses.
Client School and Bespoke Training Courses
For some clients with larger projects or high profile wells we tailor specific courses to suit the needs of these groups. Perhaps your doublet has a pair of shallow horizontal sections or large diameter surface holes to deal with large production flow rates. These sections have their own particular sets of challenges. As industry leading training providers, Merlin can adjust the agenda to more closely reflect the situation that the operational team will find themselves in, or create exercises based on previous examples from the field. These courses can be taught face-to-face if possible or virtually, should it be difficult to bring the team together in one place before operations begin.
Simulator Training
Human beings learn best by doing. Using a drilling simulator (e.g. Drilling Systems DrillSIM:5000) to reinforce the theory taught in class is a great way to ensure that the operational team is up to speed on the challenges they are likely to face on the well. These sessions are run in the classroom with around 50% of the work based on theory, the remainder of the time spent in the simulator, working through related challenges using real scenarios from the well.
Highly Recommended
Painful experience has shown that even the most robust Extended Reach Drilling Training programme can fail through incorrect implementation techniques.
Due to the increased challenges and numerous procedural revisions associated with high angle wells, educating personnel on how to identify issues before they become problems is crucial in delivering a successful deviated well.
Invest in yourself, your team and ultimately your results by attending Merlin ERD’s Horizontal & High Angle Operations & Engineering Training Course.
What will I Learn?
- How to determine the maximum reach from your location
- Key planning considerations to delivering trouble free wells
- Root cause of problems encountered in high angle wells
- Identifying minimum equipment specifications for ERD projects
- What others are doing around the world to assure success
- Latest tools and techniques used to reliably deliver ERD projects
- How to minimise downtime due to 3rd party tools
Real-time management and optimisation:
Practices & Procedures
The physics of how cuttings move from the bottom to the top of the well does not change in relation to what is being drilled. Operational requirements will vary according to hole size, inclination, the drill string and subsurface pressure limits. From experience of drilling the world’s longest wells, Merlin’s onsite advisors are experts in ensuring that the practises and procedures employed on your Geothermal well are consistent with what is done internationally in other environments, getting you up the learning curve quickly and helping to avoid mistakes.
Proactive Performance
Geothermal wells require excellence in execution. These developments are often characterised by marginally positive project value with payback periods Stretching into decades. Problems executing wells, leading to cost over-runs are very likely to push a marginal project over the edge. Merlin’s advisors take a proactive approach to well delivery and performance management onsite. They support our clients Drilling Supervisor in ensuring that focus never deviates from what the well needs at any given point.
Onsite Mentoring & knowledge transfer
Having an additional pair of experienced eyes at the well is cheap insurance. Economic conditions have conspired to create an inexperienced labour force across all aspects of the drilling business. Merlin’s onsite personnel typically have 20 years plus of experience in well execution, often as Drilling Supervisors, or highly experienced senior service hands. This knowledge allows us to see problems developing before they become critical, allowing us to guide and mentor personnel at the rigsite.
