PETROLEUM EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Volume 36, Issue 6, December 2009

Online English edition of the Chinese language journal

Cite this article as: PETROL. EXPLOR. DEVELOP., 2009, 36 (6): 768-775 RESEARCH PAPER

Multilateral drilling & completion technology based on

Solid Expandable Tubular fixing system
Zhang Yanping1,*, Ren Rongquan, Wang Hui, Wang Jun
CNPC Drilling Research Institute, Beijing 100195, China

Abstract: A new multilateral technology is developed based on the Solid Expandable Tubular (SET) fixing system. By this new
technology, every kinds of tool in drilling, completion, well repair, and oil-formation improvement are located and operated according to
down-hole SET-fixing equipment. This SET-fixing multilateral technology reaches the international Technology Advancement Multi
Laterals (TAML) 4 completion level and has such characteristics as simple procedure, big bore size after completion, and drilling several
branches in small-size casing. In this technology, whipstock is located reliably on down-hole SET-fixing equipment, which can stand
great drill pressure and torque to meet implementation requirements such as windows cutting, side drilling, and washover. The successful
application in 3 wells in offshore oil fields shows that the SET-fixing multilateral technology has low difficulty job procedure and
operation, high reliability of job security, and obvious implementation signal to make driller easy operation. Two series of SET-fixing
multilateral tools and technology have been developed with their respective main casings being 177.8 mm (7 in) and 244.5 mm (9 in).

Key words: multilateral well; SET fixing system; TAML 4; working principle; special tool; operation technology

Level 1: the major and lateral boreholes both adopts open

1 Multilateral technology overview and introduction
of Expandable Tubular Technology technologies
Multilateral drilling is a new technology developed after
directional drilling, sidetrack, and horizontal drilling[1-4]. The
technology can increase oil-drainage area, improve oil well
production, and greatly reduce reservoir development cost
through drilling several lateral wells in one borehole. Up to
December 2006, there were more than 8 000 multilateral wells
all over the world, and remarkable economic profit has been
obtained[5-8].
Along with the rapid development of multilateral technology,
in March 1997, the global major oil companies held the first
multilateral technology conference “Technology Advancement
Multi Laterals (TAML)” in Aberdeen, Scotland. The
conference created the TAML classification system according
to three characteristics of multilateral well, that is, connectivity,
isolation, and accessibility (connectivity refers to the
connecting ability between the major and lateral boreholes;
isolation refers to the isolating ability between the multilateral
well and formation after completion; and accessibility refers to
the repeated accessing ability into the multilateral well), the
TAML classification system is set up and the TAML
complexity ranking which decide to the completion method of
multilateral well is divided into Level 1-6S[7] (Fig. 1).
hole completion, the completion operation doesn’t isolate each
net pay and cannot carry out any treatment on the intrabed
pressure difference (Fig. 1a).
Level 2: the main borehole casing injects cement for
completion, lateral borehole trips in completion string but
doesn’t tie back the main borehole, and the cementation are not
conducted (Fig. 1b).
Level 3: on the basis of Level 2, the lateral borehole trips in
completion string and ties back the main borehole, which
provides connectivity and accessibility (Fig. 1c).
Level 4: the major and lateral borehole both injects cement
into casing for completion, which provides mechanical support
and connection, the interface between the multilateral and
major casings relies on the cement for sealing (Fig. 1d).
Level 5: on the basis of Level 4, the pressure integrity at the
interface is realized through the tripped production string and
packer (Fig. 1e).
Level 6: the pressure integrity at the interface is realized
through the prefabricated “pant-like” casing (Fig. 1f).
Level 6S: a large main borehole is separated into two small
lateral boreholes, which is equivalent to the downhole
double-casing wellhead (Fig. 1g).
Like the development of horizontal well depends on the
advancement of drilling technique, the multilateral technology

Received date: 07 March 2008; Revised date: 25 July 2009.

* Corresponding author: Zhang Yanping. E-mail: zypdri@cnpc.com.cn
Foundation item: Supported by the CNPC Program “Special Technology Drilling and Drilling Techniques for Improving Single Well Production”.
Copyright © 2009, Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, PetroChina. Published by Elsevier BV. All rights reserved.
 Zhang Yanping et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2009, 36(6): 768-775
Fig. 1 TAML classification system
development mainly depends on the advancement of
completion technique. At present, in view of the multilateral
well completion, most of the multilateral wells in the world
adopt open well completion of Level 1 and 2 and slotted liner
completion of Level 3, whereas less wells adopt tripping in
casing and injecting cement, which is because Level 4
multilateral technology and tool are complicated, and the
construction risk is high, therefore it is still at the development
stage. According to the statistics, among more than 8 000
multilateral wells in the world, only 351 wells adopt Level 4
completion[8].
As to the Level 4 multilateral well completion, the
recoverable whipstock sidetrack cutting with forced bit is
mostly used to drill new borehole at home and abroad. This
whipstock integrates the location and direction, when the
whipstock is tripped into the preset position, the location is
fixed through tubing packer and slip[1,9-11]. At present, these
location technologies can bring about some bottleneck
problems of TAML 4 multilateral completion during the
multilateral borehole sidetrack:
(1) After multilateral well completion, the major casing drift
diameter will decrease greatly, which will cause some
difficulties to the consequent oil production, workover, and
oil-layer reformation.
(2) Lateral well “selective re-access” is difficult. The reason
is that at present the international lateral well location
technology basically adopts tubing packer, slip location, or
long-distance tie-back location from top to bottom with casing
because of weak axial force resistance and large torque
resistance, and poor high-pressure sealability of tubing packer
or slip, anchored slip will cause tough damage to casing; and
long distance casing tie-back cannot bear large load and torque.
Therefore, these location technologies will result in inaccurate
orientation and difficult line-in and location of the tripped
lateral well tools.
(3) Because of the increased research difficulty of drilling
and completion wells caused by small drift diameter, more than
three Level 4 branches are unsuitable to be drilled in the
small-size major casing.
The increasing maturation and improvement of SET makes
its application into multilateral drilling possible. As a
supplement of multilateral technology, the SET-fixing
multilateral technology is developed. This technology is
characterized by simple process, large drift diameter after
completion and multibranches inside small-sized borehole,
compared with the other TAML 4 multilateral technologies.
This paper introduces the technical scheme, construction
technique and technical characteristics in detail. The
application effect in three wells demonstrates high reliability
and practicability, broadens the application range of SET and
meanwhile provides a new design method and technical way
for multilateral drilling and completion technologies.
2 Application of SET in the multilateral well
SET conception originates from 1990s. Since Shell
Company, firstly, began to study SET throughout the world,
this technology has been applied in many aspects of drilling
engineering and has effectively solved many problems in the
drilling process. It is a revolutionary technology in the
petroleum drilling and production[12,13]. The principle is to
 Zhang Yanping et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2009, 36(6): 768-775
Fig.2 SET-fixing multilateral technology
Fig. 3 Downhole-expandable setting and locating equipment
make a section of tube made from special material produce
plastic deformation to change the OD and ID and material
intensity with expansion cone, and the objective is to meet the
downhole technical requirements. The largest advantage of
SET is that the string with OD less than upper casing ID can
conduct downhole radial expansion, to make the difference
between the ID and upper casing ID be zero or just a wall
thickness, which is equivalent to “save” the borehole diameter.
Therefore, SET technology can greatly improve the existing
hole structure[14]. According to the investigation into the SET
researches in the companies of Weatherford, Baker Oil Tools,
Halliburton, READ, TIW, and Enventure, the SET technology
is, at present, mainly used for liner cementing. The total length
of expandable tubular construction implemented by the
Enventure Company exceeds 115.8 km[15].
Through testing and research for many years, CNPC grasps
the SET technology that is firstly applied to multilateral
drilling and completion, thus a new multilateral technology is
developed—SET-fixing multilateral technology (Fig. 2). The
technology uses all kinds of tools to fix with the
downhole-expandable setting and locating equipment during
the operation of multilateral drilling, completion, consequent
oil recovery, workover, and oil-layer reformation. And the
technology reaches the international TAML 4-completion
level.
The key of SET-fixing multilateral technology is the
downhole-expandable setting and locating equipment. One of
Fig. 4 SET metal-ring setting and sealing configuration
its functions is location fixing: it is equivalent to isolating the
anchoring function of the traditional whipstock, with SET
technology the downhole-expandable setting and locating
equipment is tripped into the lower cutting window in the
major well bore, the equipment expands under the hydraulic
pressure and attaches the internal casing wall to form
permanent and reliable location (Fig. 3). This function replaces
the conventional slip anchoring way in the consequent
operations of multilateral drilling, all kinds of tools conduct
location fixing and operation according to the downhole
SET-fixing equipment; the second function is orientation: with
oblique mouth orientation, the phase difference between the
whipstock and oblique mouth can be figured out according to
the azimuth regulated by directional sidetrack, the adjustment
of relative angle between the whipstock and downhole-
expandable setting and locating equipment can realize the
orientation function[16].
The SET technology can apply to multilateral downhole
location fixing, solve the bottleneck problems caused by
conventional slip location fixing to a large extent and result in
a series of advantages:
(1) Compared with conventional multilateral downhole
location fixing, the SET metal ring setting and sealing location
has a larger axial load resistance, large torque resistance, shock
endurance, and high pressure sealing ability, which greatly
improves the multilateral downhole locating ability and
reliability and solves the problem of “difficult re-access of
lateral well.” Fig. 4 is the SET metal-ring setting and sealing
configuration.
(2) The downhole-expandable location equipment produces
a large drift diameter after multilateral well completion, which
is because the expandable tubular with locating equipment is
attached on the internal casing wall (Fig. 3), the major casing
diameter only reduces the thickness of two SET, the 177.8 mm
(7 in) major casing drift diameter can reach 138-140 mm after
completion. Therefore, the regular workover tools can carry
out conventional workover jobs directly through these
downhole-expandable tubular-locating equipment, even carry
out the downhole operations of washover, sand washing, break
down, and paraffin removal combined with the “re-access
lateral well” tools to postpone the multilateral well life and
 Zhang Yanping et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2009, 36(6): 768-775
improve the multilateral well production.
(3) With the downhole-expandable setting and locating
equipment, the multilateral well can be drilled in a small-size
casing, for example, the multilateral well can be drilled in
139.7 mm (5 1/2 in) casing.
(4) According to the multilateral drilling order from base to
top, the SET-locating equipment, multilateral drilling and
branch borehole cementing are successively placed in the main
borehole. After each branch borehole successively completes
all construction sequences, the major casing drift diameter still
reduces the thickness of the two SET. Therefore, the
technology can be used to drill many branches in the major
casing (Fig. 2), and the major casing drift diameter is not
affected by the branch well number, meanwhile the branch
number is not limited by major casing drift diameter.
3 SET-fixing multilateral technology
3.1 Working principle
The major working principle of SET-fixing multilateral-
drilling technology is as follows: SET technology realizes the
downhole permanent and reliable positioning, the whipstock
realizes the window-cutting sidetrack and branch liner string
tripping in, the cementing tool realizes branch well
cementation and cement squeezing at window, the casing–
milling tool realizes liner overlapping section and milling and
recovery of whipstock, cone milling shoe realizes the
connection between the main and branch boreholes, branch
re-access whipstock and recovery tool realizes the selective
access into branch.
3.2 Major technical characteristics
Multilateral technology is a new technology developed in
the past decade abroad, many problems are not actually solved,
especially the success rate of sidetracking for old slim-hole
wells is not high.
The SET technology is applied to the multilateral drilling to
replace the conventional positioning method, the downhole
location is reliably fixed, and “selective re-access of
multilateral well” of each tool in the consequent oil recovery,
workover, and oil-layer reformation is realized. It should be
pointed out that after the oversea special companies complete
the multilateral drilling, the specially made tool by that
company is required to carry out the consequent operations,
such as workover. As a result of the simple borehole
configuration, small drift diameter change of main bore, and
direct access of conventional workover tools, the SET-fixing
multilateral technology can greatly lessen the construction
difficulty of workover and consequent maintenance cost of
multilateral well.
In addition, the conventional multilateral operation is
complicated and has a large construction risk, which results in
low operation–success ratio, whereas SET-fixing multilateral-
drilling operation is simple with less tools and less trip times,
which greatly improves the construction success rate.
Finally, the technology can drill many branches in a main
borehole, which is still suitable in a small-sized borehole. This
technology can greatly save drilling cost and each ton oil cost
of single well; meanwhile, in the offshore or the limited area,
the occupying area can be reduced through increasing branch
number and decreasing wellhead number.
3.3 Special tools
On the basis of SET-fixing way, the recoverable integrated
drilling and completion whipstock is independently designed
with the mechanism matching the SET-fixing equipment. After
the whipstock and the SET-fixing equipment complete the
matching lock, the drill tool assembly can be tripped in for
conventional sidetrack lateral borehole, and the completion
string can be tripped in for cementation and completion.
On the basis of oblique plane locating of the recoverable
integrated drilling and completion whipstock, the special
release tools of the liner cementation for lateral well is
designed. Through this tool, the completion string can be
smoothly tripped into the branch borehole, and release is
performed by hydraulic pressure. After the releasing, the bit
may not be tripped out to carry out the conventional cement
injection, and this tool can be milled and recovered.
With the specially designed mill-recovery tool, the branch
well completion string overlapped with the major casing can be
milled and fished along with the whipstock.
With the specially designed mill shoe, the base seal of the
SET-fixing equipment can be milled out, and the metal seal
ring of the fixing equipment is not destroyed to connect the
major boreholes and the branch boreholes[17].
3.4 Special techniques introduction
Aiming at the working principle and major technical
characteristics of the SET multilateral technology, the
particular drilling, completion, and workover techniques are
developed.
3.4.1 Drilling and completion technique
The major procedure of the drilling and completion
technique is as follows:
(1) The SET-fixing equipment is tripped into the downhole
preset position by the drill pipe, and when the pressure inside
the pressure chamber rises to a certain value, the expandable
cone begins to move upward, the SET section expands and
then attaches to the inside casing wall. At this time, the
SET-fixing equipment and casing internal wall forms hanging
and sealing. The expandable cone continues moving upward
under the hydraulic pressure, when the pressure suddenly drops
to zero, there is liquid returned to the wellhead, which shows
that the SET expansion ceases. The drill string is tripped out,
and the release tool is pulled to the wellhead, then the
permanent locating equipment is kept downhole (Figs. 5a and
5b).
(2) The whipstock is tripped in by the drill pipe when the
SET-fixing equipment is met; the drilling pressure begins to
 Zhang Yanping et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2009, 36(6): 768-775
Fig. 5 Major drilling and completion technique of SET multilateral technology
rise when the drill pipe is slackingoff; and the drilling pressure
suddenly back to zero shows that the shear pin bolt has been
cut and the running tools have been released. At this time, drill
tools are picked up, running tools are pulled out to the
wellhead, and the whipstock and the SET-fixing equipment
are locked and matched (Figs. 5c and 5d).
(3) The conventional window-cutting operation is carried
out when the window-cutting tool assembly is tripped into the
whipstock top, the bit is pulled out and the rotary steering
drilling assembly is tripped in to keep drilling (Fig. 5e).
(4) Trip in the special release tool for liner cementation of
lateral well + liner string assembly, hold the pressure by
throwing small ball after tripping in to the bottom; perform
release; keep pressurizing, shear ball carrier, get circulation
through, and enter the conventional cement injection. After
tripping out, only the external wall of milling aluminum
centralizer and release tool for liner cementation are left (Fig.
5f).
(5) Trip in milling-drill tools: mill shoe + mill centralizer+
mill shaft + crossover + trip-in string. The special milling
tools after cementation recovers the external wall of liner
cementing and releasing tool, liner overlapping section and
whipstock in the main borehole, and the SET-fixing
equipment is still in the main borehole (Fig. 5g and 5h).
(6) Repeat the above procedures, through the lower-to-
upper lateral drilling, a permanent positioning device is
tripped in and sealed, respectively, at the window position of
other lateral boreholes, and many branch boreholes can be
drilled in a same main borehole. The drift diameter of drilled
multilateral main borehole still reduces only the thickness of
two fixing-equipment walls, and the branch number is not
limited (Fig. 5i).
(7) Trip in drill tools: mill shoe+trip-in string. The special
mill-shoe tool drills the sealing parts inside each fixing
equipment, connects the major and branch boreholes, and
completes the drilling and completion technique of
multilateral well (Fig. 5j).
3.4.2 Workover technique
The major procedures of the workover technique are as
follows: 
(1) Trip in re-access whipstock tool assembly: re-access
whipstock assembly + bearing pup joint + trip-in string. The
re-access whipstock is tripped into the depth between the
workover branch and upper branch in the main borehole, and
pressurizing is performed. After setting key bouncing off,
continue tripping in, and set on the SET-fixing equipment
corresponding to operation branch. After reaching the position,
slowly decrease pressure, when the drill pressure suddenly
drops to zero, it indicates that the shear pin bolt is cut, and the
running tool is released (Figs. 6a and 6b).
(2) Trip in conventional workover tools for workover (Fig.
6c).
(3) Trip in re-access whipstock to recover drill tool
assembly: re-access whipstock recovery assembly + trip-in
string. Slowly trip in the re-access whipstock recovery tool,
 Zhang Yanping et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2009, 36(6): 768-775
Fig. 6 Major workover process
Fig. 7 Schematic diagram of Well CB-A22hs
after reaching the position, pressurize to bounce off the fishing
key, and hook the re-access whipstock. Trip out the string, and
the setting key of re-access whipstock returns to the body
when meeting resistance, meanwhile, the re-access whipstock
fishing tool and re-access whipstock are fished out,
simultaneously (Fig. 6d).
4 Application cases
SET-fixing multilateral drilling is successfully applied in
the offshore construction of three multilateral horizontal wells.
4.1 Well CB-A22hs: one Level 4 bilateral horizontal well
Well CB-A22 at platform A in Chengbei Oilfield, Bonan
west sea area was put into production in February, 1987, and
up to 2003, the well had produced for 17 years and faces the
possibly deforming and corroded casing, and possibly water
production after window cutting. Aiming at these conditions,
in November, 2003, the well adopted SET technology to finish
a Level 4 bilateral horizontal well (CB-A22hs) (Fig. 7).
The production casing diameter of main borehole of this
well is 177.8 mm (7 in), and before sidetracking, the well
produced fluid 108.7 m3/d and oil 11.1 m3/d, with water cut of
89.8%. The sidetracking point depth of Well CB-A22hs is 1
555 m, deviation is 32.5°, and the whipstock face angle is 65°.
The design depth is 2 246 m (truly 2 226 m), vertical depth is
1 666 m, the sidetracking length is 691 m (truly 671 m) among
which the deviation length is 391 m, and the horizontal length
is 300 m. The initial production is forecasted of 100 m3/d oil
and 280 m3/d fluid[18].
The newly drilled CB-A22hs was put into production with
electric pump in November, 2003, and the daily oil production
is 112t that is 10.1 times of the production before sidetracking,
the water cut is about 3%[14].
4.2 Well CB-A10hs: one Level 4 bilateral horizontal well
Well CB-A10 at platform A in Chengbei Oilfield, Bonan
west sea area is put into production in May, 1987, up to 2004
the well had produced for 17 years with the fluid production
of 127.0 m3/d, oil production of 15.0 m3/d, and water cut of
88.2% and faces the possibly deforming and corroded casing,
and possibly water production after window cutting. Aiming at
these conditions, in November, 2004, the well adopted SET
technology to finish a Level 4 bilateral horizontal well
(CB-A10hs) (Fig. 8). The production casing diameter of main
borehole of this well is 177.8 mm (7 in). The sidetracking
point depth of well CB-A22hs is 1 230 m, deviation is 30°,
and the whipstock face angle is 60°. The design well depth is
2 231 m, vertical depth is 1 665 m, the sidetracking length is 1
001 m among which the deviation length is 743 m and the
horizontal length is 258 m. The initial production of new
 Zhang Yanping et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2009, 36(6): 768-775
Fig. 8 Schematic diagram of Well CB-A10hs
drilled well CB-A10hs is forecasted of 71 m3/d oil and 94
m3/d fluid with water cut of 24.5%.
The construction of each sequence is very smooth, half of
SET, and whipstock operation time is saved on the basis of the
planned operation time. But because of great difference
between the reservoir design and actual condition, the well
enters mudstone interval after entering horizontal section and
drilling bottom water, the production effect is not very
satisfactory.
4.3 Well NB35-2-A6mh: one Level 4 multilateral well with
“2+3” bottoms
Bohai NB35-2 Oilfield lies at the southwestern end of
Bohai Shijiutuo Uplift as a complex nose structure cut by one
NE-SW trending fault, the major reservoirs are lower
Minghuazhen Formation and Guantao Formation. The
oil–water relation is relatively complicated, and the
conventional 350-m well space and injection–production well
pattern has great difficulty and risk on the reservoir
development and single well reserve control[18]. In November,
2005, SET-fixing technology is adopted to finish multilateral
horizontal well NB35-2-A6mh of Level 4 with “2+3” bottoms
(Fig. 9).
The original well NB35-2-A6 is a production well, the oil
production is 40-145 m3/d, the casing diameter is 245 mm (9
5
/8 in) on which two fishbone boreholes are drilled. To keep
the oil production of the oilfield, the multilateral drilling based
on SET-fixing system is used to side track branch borehole at
244.5 mm (9 5/8 in) of Well NB35-2-A6, the planned daily
production is 85 m3; meanwhile, one more fishbone borehole
is drilled in the upper branch (Fig. 9) to guarantee the
realization of production allocation.
The sidetrack point depth of Well NB35-2-A6mh is 934 m,
the deviation is 35.84°, the design depth is 1 775 m, the
vertical depth is 1 102 m, the sidetrack length is 841 m among
which the horizontal length is 334 m. The completion requires
to trip in 177.8 mm (7 in) liner to the oil layer top, and trip in
Fig. 9 Schematic diagram of Well NB35-2-A6mh
114.3 mm (41/2 in) sand screen inside 152.4 mm (6 in) borehole
for simple sand control at open hole. After commissioning, Well
NB35-2-A6mh produces oil of about 60 m3 /d [19].
5 Conclusions
The SET multilateral technology developed by CNPC
Drilling Engineer Technology Institute realizes reliable
location fixing of the whipstock through permanent location
of the branch well; and it can bear large drill pressure and
torque, and fully meet the demands of window cutting,
sidetracking, and milling. The construction process and
operation difficulty of the technology is low, and the safety
reliability is high, the construction signal of each work
sequence is obvious for the easy operation of the driller, and
the technology is very suitable for the side tracking of lateral
wells in the small-size casing.
The successful application of SET-fixing multilateral
technology in three offshore oilfield wells demonstrates the
reliability of the technology and equipment, and initially
forms the SET-fixing multilateral well tools and techniques of
two series: 177.8 mm (7 in) (Figs. 7, 8) and 244.5 mm (95/8 in)
(Fig. 9).
The successful development of SET-fixing multilateral
technology, initially, introduces the SET technology into
multilateral domain, broadens the application of SET, and
meanwhile provides a new design ideology and technical
method of multilateral drilling and completion.
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