GTI Catoosa Test Facility

Summary
GTI Catoosa is a facility for the evaluation of advanced drilling, formation-evaluation, and completion technologies associated with the drilling of natural gas and oil wells. It is located 18 miles northeast of Tulsa, Oklahoma. A total of over 2,000 holes have been drilled at the Catoosa Test Facility and serve as the foundation for field testing operations.

Capabilities
At the 80-acre Catoosa site, a wide variety of sedimentary rock including limestone, dolomite, sandstone and shales are compacted into a 3,100-foot section, overlying crystalline basement rock. The rock types found in this section provide an ideal environment for testing drill bits, downhole tools and new drilling procedures. The fluid content of the porous rocks includes connate water and hydrocarbons; this provides variable fluid characteristics highly useful in testing geophysical logging devices. The entire sedimentary section has been cored and is available for sampling. A complete suite of log data also is available through the sedimentary section.

Operations
Tests of (or using) the following kinds of systems are carried out at Catoosa:

• Directional, horizontal, and multi-lateral drilling
• Measurement-while-drilling and logging-while-drilling instruments
• Systems for mud logging, wire logging and well cementing
• Formation-evaluation sonic tools, electromagnetic tools, and borehole gravimeters
• Vertical cable seismic systems and horizontal-well seismic tomography
• Systems/processes for handling drill cuttings and other wastes

Equipment
The site includes a range of drilling equipment, data acquisition and analytical facilities, and infrastructure to support many types of research. These include:

• Top-drive drill rig on a pivoting rail system that allows rapid rig repositioning (under 1hour) along a 270° semi-circular path. Rig 11 has a 107-foot double mast derrick, Triplex pumps (5 to 650 gal/min), rig Kelly bushing at 22 feet, a National T-20 hydraulic draw works hoisting system (200,000-lb drilling load capacity), and a 330-barrel active mud system.
• Trailer-mounted Chicago-Pneumatic workover rig, with Gardner Denver pump, capable of slim-hole and short-radius drilling, horizontal drilling, and rotary steerable operation.
• Data acquisition module (on drill-rig floor) using a Sperry-Sun Drilling Services’ Integrated System for Information Technology and Engineering (INSITE^TM). Housed in a climate-controlled room, the system can record most drilling parameters, including but not limited to hook load, weight on bit, rotary speed and torque, hoist position, bit depth, pump pressure, mud flow rate, and drill-string axial acceleration.
• As many as 25 open holes, ranging from 6 inches to 12¼ inches in diameter may exist at any given time. Some may be cased deep, others may be open hole. Surface casing on all the holes extend to approximately 185 feet.

The site also has office and conference facilities for project planning and training, as well as a welding shop, machine shop, and T-1 internet connections.