Chapter 4: Life of Well

Operations
Well operations through well life
• Data acquisition
• Downhole meter/gauges
• production logs, cased hole formation logs and downhole sampling.
• Integrity monitoring and repair
• measuring annulus pressures. Some well designs make this harder (subsea or gas lift).
• Repairing with straddles or expandable tubing/patches or by replacing the tubing.
• Safety valves may be repaired with insert valves or ‘‘storm’’ chokes (velocity limit)
• Water or gas shut-off
• Excess water or gas reduces tubing performance
• cement and gel squeezes, plugs, straddles, patches and mechanical closing of sleeves.
• Debris removal and sand control
• removed by slickline (bailing)(slow)
• Coiled tubing and jointed pipe (hydraulic workover unit) more effective and can incorporate mills and jetting.
• Reverse circulation (overbalance) more effective than forward circulation
• Remedial sand control is difficult (sand consolidation, insert screens and sidetracks for total screen failure).
Well operations through well life (continued)
• Sidetracks and well deepening
• through tubing rotary drilling (TTRD)
• Sidetracks are easier (reduced numbers of casing/tubing strings to mill + these strings are cemented)
• Conventional sidetracks require the removal of the upper completion.
• Tubing replacements
• Top hole workover (reservoir remains isolated) or full workover (entire completion pulled).
• Techniques include straight pull (e.g. above a tubing disconnect) or a chemical/mechanical cut.
• Packers may need to be milled.
• Flow assurance
• Caused by scale, wax, asphaltene.
• Prevention methods: inhibitor squeezes (bullheading) and batch treatments.
• Removal techniques: bullheading or circulation of chemicals from surface, pipe operations ( jetting, washing,
milling, pulsation) or mechanical removal with wireline (blasting, cutting, reperforating).
• Stimulation
• Proppant fracturing (extensive clean-up operations)
• Chemical treatments (require compatible materials)
Well operations through well life (continued)
• Perforating
• post well construction will be through tubing (wireline or coiled tubing/jointed pipe).
• Add new intervals or reperforate old ones (poor performance or scale/damage)
• Tubing performance enhancement
• Lift problems because of excess water or gas or declining rates.
• Velocity string
• Deliquification includes plungers, surfactant injection and pumping.
• Retrofit artificial lift
• Needed when when pressures are lower and water cuts higher.
• through tubing interventions (gas lift, jet pumps, some rod pumps and hydraulic submersible pumps) and possibly
electrical submersible pumps
• Other techniques require a tubing replacement.
• Conversion of duty
• For mature wells
• no downhole intervention needed.
• The production intervals may require reconfiguring (shutting off some intervals, opening up others).
• If the tubing metallurgy or size is not suitable for the new duty, it may need replacing
• Water inj, water/gas alternating WAG, carbon dioxide
Well operations through well life (continued)