Tubular turning point
  from: Offshore Engineer
  by: Jennifer Pallanich
  Friday, May 16, 2008

When engineer Keith Orgeron turned his attention to drilling operations a year and a half ago, he thought there had to be an elegant way to improve safety and drilling speed. Jennifer Pallanich reviews his progress to date.

The heart of drilling operations is moving tubulars,’ says Keith Orgeron, a senior engineer with Houston-based T&T Engineering Services, and one of the biggest problems is how to safely bring tubulars over well center quickly without damaging them. This is a particularly keen problem when dealing with a more valuable, longer length of tubular that could break under its own weight. ‘The longer it is, the more difficult it is to handle,’ he adds.

Many systems, Orgeron notes, have three actuators with each handling a separate movement. His proposed alternative design – which has three patents pending – requires only a single cylinder control to receive tubulars at the ground, then raise, rotate and extend them over the well center. Trademarked Pipe Boss, but more formally known as ‘a casing stabbing/pipe handling machine that handles tubulars precisely’, it is now ready for market, he believes.

‘I started scratching on a piece of paper a year and a half ago, and thought, “there’s got to be some elegant way of doing this where I can just move one pair of cylinders and achieve the same thing”.’ His goal was to design a machine that would deliver and align the tubular so a person wouldn’t have to touch it.

While he initially devised the tool for a land application, he’s also completed specifications for its use in an offshore job.

‘This machine is all about the two arcs,’ Orgeron says.

Pipe Boss preloads with cables or rods to stabilize the tubular over the well, and it is estimated the pipe will move no more than 1/8in away from center for delivery or removal of up to 10,000lbs. ‘That [small movement] probably differentiates this machine from all other pipe handling machines out there,’ Orgeron says.

The unit also has a self-centering gripper, the subject of one of the patents, which can handle outside diameters between 3 1/2in and 13 1/2in without having to change out any part of the gripper. ‘That’s an extremely large range to handle with a gripper that never needs to be changed,’ he says, adding, ‘and it’s self centering.’

T&T Engineering Services has yet to build a machine, but Orgeron says it is quoting prices to interested operators. The company has, however, built two ‘virtual’ machines, verified their kinematics and interface with the rig using solid modeling and tested the physics by simulating operating conditions using non-linear and transient dynamic FEA. The R&D was fastpaced, notes Orgeron, but allowed the firm to optimize the motion and confirm speeds, deflections as a function of the pre-loading, actuator sizes, power requirements, dynamic factors and critical stresses.

Two sizes have been designed so far, designated the 4800 and 9600 series.

‘They each have their own application,’ he explains. The 9600 series can load, build, deliver and stab/handoff up to 96ft stands of drill pipe and drill collar. Orgeron says the 9600 series will be able to bring triple stands to vertical without hurting the pipe. The 9600 and 4800 series can load, deliver and stab casing, drill pipe and drill collar up to 48ft. Both series can be outfitted to handle up to 20in OD tubulars with 30,000lbs payload for over 3000ft/h tubular delivery/removal speeds.

Pipe Boss, designed to be fully independent of a rig, skids on its own frame so it can retrofit to any rig on or offshore.

‘The machine is right now ready for any rig that has a top drive or any rig without a top drive that wants to run casing faster or run their own,’ he says of the ‘no touch’ system, which does not require derrickman or floorman assistance to stab. OE

Click here to register to receive your own copy of Offshore Engineer each month.