Applied High Power Laser in Drilling Oil and Gas Wells

This article reviews the available research and innovations in high power laser to understand and assess the feasibility and advantage of applying laser in drilling oil and gas wells. Small thermal conductivity in rocks makes them good heat insulator, and based on this fact, current research study and evaluate laser and rock interaction with extensive focus on the principle of rock properties, laser parameters and key variables of heat transfer in different methods of rock removal with laser. This paper demonstrates through examples when advanced mechanical drilling techniques such as MPD/UBDCTD are equipped with appropriate surface and downhole tools to transmit laser to deep bottom hole harsh environment, with no limitation to maintain wellbore stability, hole cleaning, wellbore steering, and real time downhole monitoring, industry would be able to merge or replace mechanical drilling with laser drilling. Drilling hard rocks and developing expensive unconventional resources would be economic with faster and cheaper drilling without compromising safety. Less energy input with higher ROP output and eliminated numerous drilling challenges, makes laser energy an appropriate candidate to begin a revolution to transform the aged mechanical drilling. Laser drilling with low energy consumption is a step towards worldwide energy saving and CO2 emission reduction.