Chapter 1 - Repairs with Expandables

1.01 Repairs with Expandables (19 min.) Sample Lesson

Chapter 2 - Wireline Operations

2.01 Wireline Operations - Part 1 (20 min.)
2.02 Wireline Operations - Part 2 (26 min.)
2.03 Wireline Operations - Part 3 (24 min.)
2.04 Wireline Operations - Part 4 (26 min.) Quiz: 2.04 Wireline Operations - Part 4

Chapter 3 - Plugs and Profiles

3.01 Plugs and Profiles (26 min.) Quiz: 3.01 Plugs and Profiles

Chapter 4 - Coiled Tubing for Workovers

4.01 Coiled Tubing for Workovers - Part 1 (20 min.)
4.02 Coiled Tubing for Workovers - Part 2 (20 min.) Quiz: 4.02 Coiled Tubing for Workovers - Part 2

Chapter 5 - Hydraulic Workovers - Snubbing

5.01 Hydraulic Workovers - Snubbing (16 min.) Quiz: 5.01 Hydraulic Workovers - Snubbing

Chapter 6 - Workover Fluids

6.01 Workover Fluids - Part 1 (17 min.)
6.02 Workover Fluids - Part 2 (14 min.) Quiz: 6.02 Workover Fluids - Part 2

Chapter 7 - Pickling Procedures

7.01 Pickling Procedures - Part 1 (14 min.)
7.02 Pickling Procedures - Part 2 (14 min.) Quiz: 7.02 Pickling Procedures - Part 2

Chapter 8 - Acidizing to Remove or Bypass Formation Damage

8.01 Acidizing to Remove or Bypass Formation Damage - Part 1 (23 min.)
8.02 Acidizing to Remove or Bypass Formation Damage - Part 2 (21 min.)
8.03 Acidizing to Remove or Bypass Formation Damage - Part 3 (24 min.)
8.04 Acidizing to Remove or Bypass Formation Damage - Part 4 (23 min.) Quiz: 8.04 Acidizing to Remove or Bypass Formation Damage - Part 4

Chapter 9 - Refracturing

9.01 Refracturing - Part 1 (20 min.)
9.02 Refracturing - Part 2 (20 min.) Quiz: 9.02 Refracturing - Part 2

Chapter 10 - Deviated Well Interventions

10.01 Deviated Well Interventions (23 min.) Quiz: 10.01 Deviated Well Interventions

Chapter 11 - Alternate Stimulation Methods

11.01 Alternate Stimulation Methods - Part 1 (14 min.)
11.02 Alternate Stimulation Methods - Part 2 (12 min.) Quiz: 11.02 Alternate Stimulation Methods - Part 2

Chapter 12 - Water Influx & Conformance Control

12.01 Water Influx & Conformance Control - Part 1 (19 min.)
12.02 Water Influx & Conformance Control - Part 2 (21 min.) Quiz: 12.02 Water Influx & Conformance Control - Part 2

Chapter 13 - Coning Control

13.01 Coning Control (12 min.) Quiz: 13.01 Coning Control

Chapter 14 - Downhole Chokes & Inflow Control Devices

14.01 Downhole Chokes & Inflow Control Devices (13 min.) Quiz: 14.01 Downhole Chokes & Inflow Control Devices

Chapter 15 - Pipe Cutoff Methods Downhole

15.01 Pipe Cutoff Methods Downhole (24 min.) Quiz: 15.01 Pipe Cutoff Methods Downhole

Chapter 16 - Wireline Cased Hole Fishing

16.01 Wireline Cased Hole Fishing - Part 1 (21 min.)
16.02 Wireline Cased Hole Fishing - Part 2 (21 min.) Quiz: 16.02 Wireline Cased Hole Fishing - Part 2

Chapter 17 - Perforating and Reperforating

17.01 Perforating and Reperforating - Part 1 (20 min.)
17.02 Perforating and Reperforating - Part 2 (18 min.)
17.03 Perforating and Reperforating - Part 3 (18 min.) Quiz: 17.03 Perforating and Reperforating - Part 3

Chapter 18 - NORM – Naturally Occurring Radioactivity

18.01 NORM – Naturally Occurring Radioactivity (25 min.) Quiz: 18.01 NORM – Naturally Occurring Radioactivity

Chapter 19 - Wellhead Isolation

19.01 Wellhead Isolation (13 min.) Quiz: 19.01 Wellhead Isolation

Chapter 20 - Wellbore Cleanout and Debris Removal

20.01 Wellbore Cleanout and Debris Removal - Part 1 (17 min.)
20.02 Wellbore Cleanout and Debris Removal - Part 2 (19 min.)
20.03 Wellbore Cleanout and Debris Removal - Part 3 (15 min.) Quiz: 20.03 Wellbore Cleanout and Debris Removal - Part 3

Chapter 21 - Wellhead Problems and Repairs

21.01 Wellhead Problems and Repairs (17 min.) Quiz: 21.01 Wellhead Problems and Repairs

Chapter 22 - Stuck Point and Backoff

22.01 Stuck Point and Backoff (11 min.) Quiz: 22.01 Stuck Point and Backoff

Chapter 23 - Filtration

23.01 Filtration - Part 1 (21 min.)
23.02 Filtration - Part 2 (17 min.) Quiz: 23.02 Filtration - Part 2

Chapter 24 - Sand Control Failure Causes and Repairs

24.01 Sand Control Failure Causes and Repairs - Part 1 (19 min.)
24.02 Sand Control Failure Causes and Repairs - Part 2 (19 min.)
24.03 Sand Control Failure Causes and Repairs - Part 3 (23 min.)
24.04 Sand Control Failure Causes and Repairs - Part 4 (22 min.) Quiz: 24.04 Sand Control Failure Causes and Repairs - Part 4

Workover Equipment & Methods / Chapter 1 - Repairs with Expandables

Lesson 1.01 Repairs with Expandables

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Transcript

01. Lesson 1.01: Repairs with Expandables 02. Expandable Steel Patch 03. Expandable Patch Challenges 04. Patch Site Preparation 05. Expandable Casing Patch 06. Expandables - Challenges - Case History 07. Case History - Setting Patches to Reduce Gas Coning 08. Expandables - Metal Expandables packer (MEP)09. Expandables Sand Screens 10. Expandable Screen 11. Compliant and Non-Compliant Expansion 12. Expansion Tools 13. Reliability of Expandable Screens

01. Lesson 1.01: Repairs with Expandables

Repair work in workovers and rig completions has become more interesting with the development of expandable tubular screens, packers, etc., that can be carried in an expanded and larger casing or even tubing diameters and still be able to pass through the upper part of the well before they are expanded. We'll look at this and the next coming slides, as well as the steel patch which was one of the first things to come out.

02. Expandable Steel Patch

The value of this comes from being able to go down into the well where you might have had damage, where you might have been perforated in the wrong place or corrosion, almost any factor there, and be able to expand a steel patch to the I.D. of the casing and seal that to where gas and fluid leaks coming through there would be minimalized. So the expandable steel patch is a very significant option for repair and well modifications, particularly if you want to cover up a large amount of perforations or move the pay zone that you want to look at to a different depth. So the ability of being able to expand this steel patch really gives you more opportunity to start again in a near primary application. Now, the metal tubes that are expanded, they have to have a significant amount of a growth ratio as they're expanded out against the wall. Now, the metal tubes are expanded out either by a swedge that is pushed through it, pulled through it and in some cases, simple pressure alone will expand the material out and repair areas that we have been unable to really repair before. The benefit here is it uses much less of the diameter that we need inside of that well. It's not anything like running a jointed patch through there and then cementing and losing two inches of your I.D. In the expandable patch technology, you might lose about a centimeter total of inside diameter, which leaves you a lot of application abilities. There are some drawbacks to it, and we'll cover those as we go along.

03. Expandable Patch Challenges

Now, the metal patch has to have a high expansion ratio to enable that inner tube that you're inserting through any restrictions up above to be able to expand out against the idea of the casing and in some cases against the idea of the bore hole itself. What's required here is you've got to be able to have a setting tool which can hold the patch from the surface, transfer it down through the well, get your depth control right, and may have a gauge ring on to go through the area that you want to expand into, make sure it is smooth and doesn't have a buckle in it, for example, and then allow the down hole expansion tube to enlarge the patch. And if you have sealants on the outside, you can even stop small amounts of gas from coming through there. So, this is a very handy tool.

04. Patch Site Preparation

The preparation for actually setting one of these patches requires that you have to go in that interval and clean it up. You might use a jet washing, you might use a brush, you might use almost anything that will clean it. You really need to run a caliper through there to make sure that this area is all clear, doesn't have any obstructions in it. And importantly, that it's relatively round because highly oval or partially crushed pipe require many steps in advance to try to straighten them out before you can set the patch. Now, when you get ready to run, you should have already run a gamma ray to check your depth against the initial gamma ray. That was done when the well was drilled. And you're in the right place to cover up the damage in the wellbore. Now, the expansion tool without pads should be run through that area just to make sure you've got plenty of clearances and then run in with the patch itself. So, once you've got it ready to go, running the patch, expanding the patch and then removing the setting tool takes about 10 to 11 hours altogether, or maybe a little bit less, depending on the depth of the well and the ability of the equipment and the operators that are running it.

05. Expandable Casing Patch

Let's look at a couple of case histories here. One is a four wheel case history. This one was in Indonesia where they had a number of wells. Several of them were perforated completely through the zone and it had a gas cap on top so it was producing a lot more gas than they needed. And the facility was gas volume limited. Thus, they wanted to shut off some of that gas that was flowing through they came up with a 70 foot patch. By the time they had the running tool and all the other material that go on it the BHA was 90 feet, which meant that they had to build a tower around the wellhead and upwards to be able to control all of that. And of course the coiled tubing unit which was used here, had to sit on top of all of that tower that was built up. Now they had a couple of other plays or a couple of other situations that they needed to handle. One had elastomer in it and the bottom hole pressure had a fairly high presence of gas there. Of course, sour gas and a bottom hole temperature that was into the high range is going to give you a little bit of problem at almost any workover. On this one, they had to pressure up to be able to set that patch and then deep pressure it to be able to pull the setting tool back through. But if you had elastomers, which they used here, high temperature elastomers. If you have those in a gas situation, you're going to absorb some of the gas into the elastomer. If you drop the pressure too quickly and this can happen in the well or happen in the lubricated, but if you drop the pressure too quickly, the gas will try to come out, the elastomer will swell and you have a pretty good chance of getting stuck. So they did take some efforts here. They used a little bit larger sizes of the riser. And they also really had a procedure here to bleed the well pressure down very slowly and that helps to get that gas out of the elastomer without having excessive swelling.

06. Expandables - Challenges - Case History

Now, when you look back at some of the case histories here in this paper and you can see the reference to the paper down below: all of the elements of the tool string, including the packing elastomers had to be selected carefully to meet the qualifications here of the bottom hole temperature and of a sour gas environment. So this is the first part. This has to be done before you even plan the workover. You have to see if this is possible to do. And then you look at the effect of pressures on the tool position where the liner would be hung, how to hang it and how to keep it to where, as the setting tool goes through, that the pressure would not elongate the patch. Instead it would work on swelling the walls of the patch or pushing them out and sealing off the perforations that went through the gas. There were multiple wells involved. I think there were four of them in total, in a severe sour gas environment, hardball bottom hole pressure.

07. Case History - Setting Patches to Reduce Gas Coning

The target of preventing gas leaks requires you to actually use a sealer on the outside of this patch to prevent as much of the gas flow as you can from coming through the micro annuli. So 70 foot patches were installed and they got all these patches done on these four wells all successfully. And if you look at the time to build the tower and to rig up the equipment, you're talking about probably ten days or more. But the actual running of the patch, which is more applicable to what we're going to be doing onshore where you're where you don't have to have huge equipment. Those were about 18 hours a well, so reasonably efficient for shutting those off.

08. Expandables - Metal Expandables packer (MEP)

Another way that expandable walls are used is as expandable metal anchors. These have some application where you need a packer that does not take up a large amount of room in your well. And these have multiple seals on the outside and then you swell this out with pressure to push out against the casing. Now you hang the packer and you seal it, so that you can tie into it later and you have an isolated annulus. It's good for protecting zones well above the perforations, which might be a problem if the well suddenly goes to sour or gets out of control or other types of corrosion.

09. Expandables Sand Screens

Now, the last thing here is something that really has helped the same control industry, and that's the expandable sand control screen used for either initial completions or like we're talking about here for repair operations. And it's about the same type of behavior here. You're running a swedge through the assembly once it's on depth and pushing this out against the formation or against the open hole. Now to make this work, you need a compliant extension. In other words, it's got to push out tightly against the the open hole positions and fill that area up. So it's very important that you get this expanded correctly and you need to gauge a hole a lot of times to be able to do this. You can do the same thing in perforated intervals. Say it's cased in perforated and over time it starts producing sand. You can go in, clean it out, put one of these screens in line and expand it. But before you expand it, let me give you a little bit of a hint here. You've got to fill the perforation tunnels up with good, high quality, larger sand to allow maximum production through the perforations before it gets to the screen itself. Now, in those the gravel has to be matched to the formation particle size distribution of about 50%. And look into the areas of sand control operations for sizing information. But if you can pack the perforations and then seal it with this sand extruded tightly against the casing, you can rejuvenate a lot of these wells that we're having to walk away from or spend a lot of money recompleting them in the same zone.

10. Expandable Screen

So the expandable screen looks something like this. You've got the insert screens to repair failed open hole gravel packs. You can put these in sand producing areas. If you are fracturing, you can put these over your perforated fracturing integral to stop backflow of some of the sand that comes in and of course sand production as well. And in some cases you can even repair pre drilled or slotted liners or extremely large sand screens that have failed. You can wash those out, put the screen in, expand it, and there's a good chance that you're going to be able to do a very good repair job. Now that screen is going to look something like this when it's expanded-when before it's expanded-if those bars on the inside are very tight against each other and these bars that run the length of the screen are pushed out by the expansion tool. And if done correctly and you get a compliant expansion, then it's really a good competition for either a paste hole gravel pack or some open hole gravel packs. So this is something you'd need to look at in terms of repair. And that's what we're talking about in this particular presentation.

11. Compliant and Non-Compliant Expansion

Now, the compliant and the non-compliant is going to make a big difference here. There's a split between the same control applications that on one side you've got the non-compliant. You just put the screen in there, you enlarge it a little bit, but you still have that open annulus. That should not behave too much differently than a standalone screen. You're not changing anything there. But if you can take that well bore, maybe you mill it out or do whatever you need to do and you expand that tightly to make it compliant with the formation, then you have a "very significantly improved", say, in control completion. And this is a repair method. Now, there's a little bit of an element here on cleaning the wellbore up. There's mud filter cake mixing with field formation materials. If this goes on too long, it will be a problem. But most of what we've seen is you can put this in as a repair after it's cleaned up. And if you pack your perforations or a larger hole, then you can get a good tight fit.

12. Expansion Tools

Now, in some of the expansion tools, you'll see the swedge over on the far right hand side and then the middle. It's a hydraulic anchor because you've got to anchor these undersized pieces in and then expand them to make them fit tightly against the formation itself. So the expansion methods, as I mentioned, may be upward, downward or pressure only and the type of material and the company that builds these are available right now. This has been going on for about 25 years in terms of a commercial business. And over that period of time, in terms of the testing, there now are a lot of different ways to do this. One of the things we'll reveal before we leave this slide is if you do downward expansion, there are a few of these tools that required you to leave the swedge in the bottom of the screen. Not a great idea because these swedges are extremely strong and if you do want to deepen that well it might be problematic. So you might choose another off, you know, another avenue to do that.

13. Reliability of Expandable Screens

The final thing here we're looking at is the reliability of these sand expandable control screens. And this is on the comparison that was done in 2003, but it covered 2200 wells eventually. And you can look at the failure methods across there, the design failures, the application failures, the early failures, and then look at the production failures in terms of wells failing per year of operation. And that's where you really see the key here. The cased whole frac pack, the most durable same control method we have can be used even to repair sand control failures. The expandable SAM control screens have a very comparable rate of failure with case total gravel packs - actually about the same thing. And some of the open hole gravel packs, even best those a little bit in terms of durability.