Drilling carbonate formations presents challenging problems due to the high potential for massive loss circulation and well control situations. These problems can be further magnified in remote deepwater locations where access to material resources and logistics support is limited. Natural fractures commonly present in carbonate formations not only make losses and kicks more likely but they are also more difficult to control. The proper applications of Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD) methodology can help improve the safety of the drilling operations and greatly reduce the non-productive time associated with managing and solving the loss circulation problems. The project discussed in this paper was executed in deepwater offshore Indonesia and clearly showed some of the benefits of using MPD in deepwater drilling. This paper discusses both the planning and execution of two wells drilled by applying various forms of MPD. The wells were drilled from a dynamically positioned (DP) drillship utilizing the world's first known application of a below tension ring Rotating Control Device (RCD), as well as an annular preventer for riser gas handling in between the riser slip joint and termination joint. Lessons learned associated with the installation of managed pressure drilling equipment on a DP vessel and the procedures used to drill the deepwater carbonate formations are presented in the paper.
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