HyperBlade Bit

As operating environments become increasingly complex and remote, field equipment longevity, durability, and reliability are essential. Drillers need to be able to stay in control of downhole conditions, and the drill bit—the part of the bottomhole assembly (BHA) that cuts the rock to create the borehole—is a critical component in overall drilling efficiency. Diamond element technology is at the heart of the Schlumberger strategy for optimal drilling performance.

Our strategic acquisition of Smith International in 2010 added synthetic diamond material technology and manufacturing to the company through MegaDiamond, a Schlumberger company. MegaDiamond invented the first polycrystalline diamond material, which was used to create polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) cutters that have greatly improved drilling performance. As the only oilfield service company that designs and manufactures PDC cutters, Schlumberger is uniquely equipped to ensure that the development of our cutting elements is fully aligned with what our customers need to meet their drilling challenges.

In 2018, Schlumberger extended its Blade family of diamond element bits with the introduction of the HyperBlade hyperbolic diamond element bit. The HyperBlade bit uses a 3D Hyper* hyperbolic diamond cutting element with a profile that cuts more than 20% deeper into soft and plastic formations.

In these formation types, flat PDC cutters can be compromised when long ribbons of cuttings material impede the bit cutting structure. The Hyper element minimizes this effect by creating small cuttings chips through the combination of its hyperbolic geometry and the chip-breaking profile at the center of the element, which also improves cuttings removal. This also helps the HyperBlade bit increase the rate of penetration (ROP) in a variety of drilling environments without compromising steerability or directional tracking.

Technology such as the HyperBlade bit also helps limit the environmental impacts of drilling operations because less time is spent drilling due to efficiency gains, which in turn decreases the emissions associated with drilling operations as well as a reduction in noise exposure.

HyperBlade bit technology helped to reduce drilling time for a customer in the Denver-Julesburg Basin in Colorado. In this soft formation, vertical, curve, and lateral sections of the wells are drilled in one run, with each run using one bit and one BHA. A BHA fitted with a HyperBlade bit proved to be an excellent solution.

In this case, the HyperBlade bit achieved an average ROP increase of 20% in three wells on two separate pads within the same field. In one well, there was a 50% improvement in ROP in the vertical section, which saved the operator 7.5 hours of drilling time compared with offset wells using conventional bits.