PROFILE
Hardide Coatings has coated wear parts for a leader in the global oilfield services industry, for their operations in the UK, USA and Singapore for more than 15 years.
Their latest generation Rotary Steerable System (RSS) drilling tool was designed to drill longer wells faster and to lower the cost per barrel of oil equivalent (BOE). It was engineered with some of the highest specifications on the market, helping operators reduce well time and maximize the rate of penetration (ROP) in challenging unconventional, mature fields and deepwater environments.
CHALLENGE
Three pads extend out of the tool once per rotation and push against the drilled hole wall to steer the tool. They open and close, alone or in combination, several times per second to steer the tool while rotating faster than any other tool on the market. The bores and pins are positioned under each of the three exterior pads within the tool and are critical to the steering mechanics, while subject to the severe abrasive, corrosive and erosive conditions in the harsh drilling environments in which the tool operates.
A solution was required to protect the bores and pins from wear and corrosion and ensure they were not a point of failure and costly downtime. In addition to the external surface of the pin, the coating had to be able to protect the curved, internal diameter (ID) of the bore, which is a complex curved design unsuitable for grinding.
SOLUTION
HVOF thermal spray coating had been tried on the pins but was mostly unsuccessful due to chipping and was not able to coat the complex, curved ID of the bores. We worked with our customer to test Hardide-T, our nanostructured tungsten/tungsten carbide CVD (chemical vapor deposition) coating most suitable for demanding applications where a thicker coating (typically 35 microns minimum) is required, on the bores and pins. Testing was carried out on a drilling test rig in Texas, USA. Hardide-T exceeded our customer’s performance requirements from the outset of testing and has been specified on the tool since its launch to market.
The Hardide-T coating extends the life of the bores and pins so that the drilling tool can steer as directed and last for the duration of the drilling job from surface to the target depth which is 1000s of feet vertically and/or horizontally.
Hardide-T coated bores and pins are used on several tool sizes which are deployed in fields in North America, the Middle East, South America, Gulf of Mexico and Europe.
