API SC13 WINTER MEETING
June 26, 2008
Calgary, Alberta
Chair: Keith Morton Vice-Chair: Paul Scott Secretary: Judy Guy-Caffey
Meeting started at 8:00 A.M. Keith thanked all the attendees for coming to the meeting as well as the sponsors for Tuesday night’s Social.
Call to Order: Members Present or Represented – 24 (K. Morton, J. Guy-Caffey, S. Al-Ammari, A. Balestrini, W. Benton, R. Bland, R. Caenn, D. Dino, D. Ekas, B. Estes, P. Javora, C. LaCombe, M. Mas, M. Melbouci, L. Mitchell, P. Nogueira, L. Robinson, T. Shumate, J. Smith, A. Son, C. Stark, C. Steele, D. Weintritt and T. Wilkin) out of 37, constituting a quorum.
Review and Approve Previous Meeting Minutes/Action Items
Keith asked for comments on the January 2008 meeting minutes. No comments were made. Keith indicated he found one change that needs to be made to the January 2008 minutes:
· p. 1 List of action items – Tom Marshall should be Tom Larson
Keith asked for a motion to approve the minutes. Cheryl Stark made the motion and Del Son seconded. The attendees voted to accept the minutes as amended.
Keith reviewed the list of action items from the January 2008 meeting:
· First four items (SC13 guidance to TGs on publication issues, SC13 audit of ISO publication process, off-line meeting on publication process, documents back to TG members for review and comments back to TG chair) – Cheryl, Keith and Paul Scott met. Cheryl sent ISO 13500 document to Andrea Balestrini. These items will be on-going.
· Get PSD data/procedures from Hans van den Berg and give to TG4 – Keith got most of information from TG1 and will get to new task group chair of TG4 (David Breeden) when he gets back.
· Hand over API TG4 materials to Scott Gordon – these materials will need to be given to David Breeden.
· Investigate meniscus question – the issue was addressed by the retort work group. A procedure or guideline on how to read the meniscus needs to be written.
· Conduct water mud round robin – it was agreed at the TG4/WG1 meeting to conduct a round robin study for water-based muds.
· Have gravimetric procedure ready for task group vote at summer meeting – after finalization, procedure will be submitted to SC13.
· Have contractor prepare report on work to date using funds available in contract – PSD report from Porotechnology has been received by Larry Mitchell and will be attached to the minutes. In addition, Larry will have 10 hard copies made for those who want one.
· Ask Saleh Al-Ammari to provide additional information for his request to review 13A Starch – Saleh will prepare a document indicating where we really need to go with this and the minimum requirements as far as starch.
· Check with BHDF on getting sample of 4.1 barite – dropped action item based on decision not to do any more round robin testing.
· Find phrasing regarding specific materials – Cheryl submitted the following wording from API S1 (1997) regarding limitations and boundaries on what we are supposed to be setting specifications for:
This document is issued by the API Exploration and Production (E&P) Department Executive Committee on Standardization of Oilfield Equipment and Materials. The mission of this committee, as stated in Appendix A, is to provide leadership in the efficient development and maintenance of standards that meet the priority needs of the domestic and global oil and gas exploration and production industry by: minimizing needs for individual company standards;
promoting broad availability of safe, interchangeable oilfield equipment and materials; and, promoting broad availability of proven engineering and operating practices.
· Send out information related to NWIs on emulsion testing and formation damage – information has not yet been sent out. At the TG6 meeting yesterday, Paul Javora discussed the ISO work groups on these two topics. Paul indicated we have a representative that will attend the next formation damage WG meeting on July 25. The emulsion testing WG is asking for procedures that they can evaluate.
· Determine meeting format for summer meeting – discussion of alternative formats took place. The issue was not resolved, so Keith suggested a future off-line meeting. The draft document prepared by the SC13 Business Practices WG needs to be forwarded to Keith for review.
· Discuss with Don Krause on what to do with API reference bentonite – Keith referenced a PowerPoint presentation entitled API Reference Bentonite Replacement put together by Don in which he proposes either using a standard API approved bentonite as API reference material or investigating the use of commercially available ceramic or refractory grade clays. A NWI needs to be submitted.
· Start draft of 4.1 barite based on existing 4.2 barite document – draft has been completed and Tim Wilkin will work with Cheryl to get the document in the appropriate format prior to submitting to SC13 and ISO for vote.
· All WGs/TGs need to establish vice-chair – consensus is that it can be difficult to find a chair, much less a vice-chair. Those that can establish a vice-chair should do so.
Welcome New Participants
Keith welcomed new participants – Bryan Estes with Environmental Drilling Technology, Inc., Jarod Hammar with OFI Testing Equipment, Inc., Christoph Kayser with Clariant, Arti Patel with Baker Hughes Drilling Fluids, Armin Schlegel with Canamara Equipment Services and Carl Stouffer with Drilling Specialties.
New Work Items or Published Manuscripts:
NWIs which need to be submitted:
1. 4.1 Barite (Tim Wilkin)
2. Oil mud salinity – revision of 13B2 (Ron Bland)
Keith and Brad Bellinger will discuss the status of existing NWIs. Brad suggested designating a place to post NWIs. Brad indicated an NWI needs to be submitted any time a new work group is being contemplated.
Task Group Reports:
a. TG02 Publications (Cheryl Stark, Chair). Cheryl reported on the status of the
documents:
a. 13A (13500), ISO FDIS ballot should be out soon.
b. 13B-1 (10414-1) is currently out for ballot.
c. 13I (10416) is currently out for ballot.
d. 13L, a document for mud engineers, will be coming up for renewal shortly. It will need to be voted for revision, reaffirmation or deletion. Cheryl indicated the document could be updated if anyone wants to take on that task.
c. TG03 Oil Mud Testing Procedures (Ron Bland, Chair). Ron reported that the TG meeting had a quorum. The charge for the group is to recommend needed changes and develop oil mud testing procedures. There are three active WGs.
WG1 Chemical Analysis of OBM (Tom Shumate, Chair). The group has conducted 15 RRs. They have been focusing on the discrepancies between the theoretical and the analyzed alkalinity, particularly at low water contents. The discrepancies were traced back to poor-quality deionized water. Once that was resolved, results within 5% of theoretical values were obtained. They are now comfortable with test procedures for both low and high water content oil muds as well as low and high salinity. They are coordinating with Carl LaCombe’s work group on retort. Carl’s group is satisfied with the retort procedure for water content. Tom’s group is satisfied with their experimental test procedures and is now willing to tackle aqueous phase salinity, however Tom has some new responsibilities so he will not be able to devote much time to any of the work groups for the next four to five months.
WG2 HPHT Viscometer Procedures (Keith Morton, Chair). The group is charged with developing a recommended practice for direct-indicating HPHT viscometers. The group has conducted five RRs. They are satisfied with the results and do not intend to do any additional testing. They have a draft procedure circulating with the task group which will be voted on at the Winter Meeting.
WG3 Barite SAG (Peter Bern, Chair). Their work is broken down into six sets of tasks with a chairman for each of those subtasks:
Monitoring SAG based on surface density – Peter Bern
Downhole pressure measurements – Terry Hemphill
Viscometry techniques at the surface – Dave Marshall
Use of M-I SAG shoe – Mario Zamora
Novel techniques – Tor Omland
Round robin testing – Dave Beardmore
Round robin test results are back and look pretty good. The work group is comfortable with the results they are getting from the SAG shoe. The viscosity techniques are promising, but there are still some issues to resolve. Tor has some very interesting results that are not ready for prime-time yet. They have a draft procedure in circulation for peer review. They expect to have the draft finalized for submission to SC13 by the Winter Meeting. They originally planned to incorporate the document into 13I, but some of the material is probably more suitable for 13B2 and 13D. They have already published some of their results and plan to publish a paper in 2009.
Old Business: A draft of 13B2 is available with all the known errors corrected. It is believed that the oil mud salinity calculations can be drastically simplified. A completed draft should be available by the Winter Meeting.
There was an action item to revise the guidance on direct-indicating viscometer test temperatures for 13B2. The recommended revisions have been made. The task group voted on it and it was sent to SC13 for letter ballot.
Another action item was to send the sand content procedure prepared by Tom Carter. The task group voted on it and it was sent to SC13 for letter ballot.
New Business: A recommendation was made by David Breeden to form a work group to look at replacing Arcasolve in the oil mud chemical analysis. It doesn’t work quite as well as IPA/xylene. David indicated Arcasolve appears to be going bad on the shelf. Cheryl will search her files for records from the original work group. David Breeden has reluctantly agreed to chair the work group if necessary.
d. TG04 Testing of Drilling Fluids (David Breeden, Chair). Scott Gordon had originally agreed to take over TG4 from Harry Dearing, but has since declined due to other commitments. David Breeden will take over as chair. Keith indicated a quorum was present at the task group meeting yesterday. The charge of the task group is to recommend needed changes and develop test procedures for field and laboratory testing of water-based drilling fluids. Their work is reported in 13B1 or 13I. One issue that needs to be addressed once David is in place as chair is a name change for the task group. The minutes from the previous meeting were not located.
There are two active work groups – one on retort and one on ceramic disks. For the retort group, a motion was passed to read the bottom of the meniscus. Keith and Carl will work on a drawing indicating how the meniscus is to be read. A round robin will be conducted with water-based muds. For the ceramic filtration work group, a motion was passed to accept the results from the mercury testing as final. No further testing will be conducted. Guidelines on the relationship between pore throat diameter and permeability of ceramic disks will be prepared. Any funds remaining after Larry prepares the additional reports will be sent back to API. The task group minutes will contain a digital copy of the report. Keith requested agreement from Fann and OFI on how ceramic disks will be classified. Information needs to be obtained on how to do d10 and d90 calculations from the mercury results.
Old Business: Newpark conducted abrasivity tests which need to be reviewed to see whether this should be considered as an alternative approach to what is currently in the API bulletin. Keith has contacted Peter Mihalik to get as much information as he can about what has been done with regard to laser sizing of barite.
New Business: A request was made by Dave Marshall to look at how we determine the concentration of formates in the water phase of water-based or oil-based muds. William Benton with Cabot will provide available information. A decision on what to do from there will be made after a review of the information.
e. TG05 Solids Control Equipment (Leon Robinson, Chair). One of TG5’s three charges is to develop a Finder’s Method for evaluating initial screen designations. It is a laboratory procedure that allows people to select where screens go in a standard deck. The second charge is to develop a better description of screen labels because there was some confusion in the way the original document was written. The third charge is to develop a more complete analysis of the equipment solids removal efficiency which would include a method of calculating waste volume. It has been suggested that TG10, which was chaired by Paul Scott, be disbanded and TG10’s charges be folded into TG5. Two meetings have been held since the Winter Meeting in Ft. Worth. In May, the task group approved the Section 11 modification submitted by Paul Scott and it is ready for review by SC13. Cheryl will put it into ISO form and submit it for letter ballot. A meeting was held yesterday without a quorum. Submission of the Finder’s Method for letter ballot is awaiting the screen designation document. Leon proposed a new work group to monitor screen descriptions which indicate conformance to API RP13C. The idea would be to serve as a repository for service companies to submit their test data. Operators could then determine which companies are properly testing their screens for conformance with RP13C. Leon will submit an NWI for the Winter Meeting. Keith made a motion to disband TG10 and fold it into TG5 which was approved unanimously.