We all know lightning never strikes twice at the same place, but Kinetic Upstream Technologies, Inc., saw it happen last week at the Catoosa Drilling Test Facility when a lightning bolt struck the test rig and put the rig out of service for a day, then again, when the Kontour™ Automated Steering System from Kinetic, drilled a one-run vertical, curve and lateral (VCL) on the very first well using prototype Serial Number 001!
The Kinetic Engineering & Operations team has worked tirelessly, with tenacity and vision, over the last two years to design and build an industry changing downhole rotary steering technology. The stellar first downhole run of serial number 001 has surpassed even the lofty expectations of the team. The high performance of this novel downhole steering system, on its maiden voyage, is as rare as lightning striking twice in the same place!
Controlled via MWD downlinks, the 8-3/4” hole, 7” BHA, kicked off from vertical and achieved doglegs above 10, controlled a soft landing to horizontal and achieved doglegs below 1.5 while drilling laterally. The system drilled smoothly and tripped easily on elevators, performing without failure over the entire run.
Jeff Lasater, CEO, George Sutherland, COO and Gary Althoff, VP Engineering, are extremely proud of the Kinetic team, our design partners, vendors and supporters, who contributed to this huge accomplishment. We are excited about the future and will look to commercialize the technology in Q4 of this year.