Coiled tubing used for slim hole re-entry

A coiled tubing unit with slim hole tools successfully re-entered and cored an existing Elf Aquitaine vertical well in the Paris basin in France. This experiment proved that coiled tubing could be used to drill, core, and test a slim hole well. Elf Aquitaine studied the use of coiled tubing for drilling inexpensive exploration wells in the Paris basin. As a result of this study, Elf believed that coiled tubing exploration drilling could significantly reduce exploration costs. This paper reports on a number of questions raised by this study: Can coiled tubing be used effectively to drill slim open hole How would the drilling rate compare with that of a conventional drilling rig If the rate were too slow, coiled tubing might not be economical. Can a straight vertical well be drilled Coiled tubing pipe has a residual curvature from bending over the reel and gooseneck. Will this curvature make it impossible to drill straight Can the coiled tubing also be used to take cores Once the hole is drilled, can it be tested with coiled tubing