Hardbanding materials are used to protect tool joint drillpipeagainst wear in drilling operations. Hardbanding shall resistwear in openhole conditions with a minimum damage to uppercasing. Laying down drillpipe for hardbanding repair cansignificantly increase rig time and tubular costs. Allhardbanding products applied for Sincor were wearing outcompletely after drilling 15,000 ft in 50 hours in the reservoir.It was necessary to search for new hardbanding alternativeswith an extended lifetime. A field evaluation program wasdesigned to compare wear resistance of different commercialhardbanding materials and to evaluate new techniques forwelding tungsten carbide pellets with alloying wires and fortesting of tungsten carbide spheres being laser applied.Hardbanding products were selected upon analysis of wearmechanisms occurring in drillpipe while drilling horizontalwells in Sincor. Wear resistance was monitored in terms ofcumulative drilled footage until gauging complete wear ofhardbanding on tooljoints. One of the newly developedhardbanding products was finally selected as the best optionafter considering its superior wear resistance, minimumexpected casing damage, and moderate cost. This is the firstreported successful application of tungsten carbide pelletswelded within a hard matrix provided by an alloy wire forhardbanding purposes.
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