?Stuck pipe can make or break a drilling project. Lost time, equipment damage, and lower return on investment are symptoms of this common problem. Conventional fishing tool techniques have been in use since the early 1800s. They still are the first choice for many operators.
Since 1996, Vibration Technology Inc., a Layne Christensen company, has used resonant energy for stuck pipe applications. The company applies acoustic theory to transmit standing wave resonant energy over long intervals of pipe in oil and gas wells. The company’s equipment and procedures have proven to be one of the most cost-effective means of stuck pipe recovery currently available to the industry.
Even now, after a decade of use, vibration technology is considered by many to be a last resort. That means the company’s procedure often is deployed after the tubulars are stuck tighter than when the incident first occurred. “Even as a last resort, our success rates are very good,” said Ozzie Gonzalez, senior technology development engineer.
Acoustic energy delivered at resonant frequencies can reach extreme depths and provide billions of ft/lb of energy in just three hours, even in highly deviated well bores. Compared to jarring, which delivers a few tens of millions of ft/lb of energy within a similar time frame, vibration technology has proven to be somewhat more effective in relieving stuck pipe. “It is the ‘energy’ not the force that frees stuck tubulars,” Gonzalez said.
One benefit Vibration Technology provides is a fast turnaround. “Rarely do we stay on location for more than one day,” Gonzalez said. In some cases, the pipe comes free within a few minutes of resonant oscillation or after just a couple of hours. For the most part, the process takes less than a day. “The exception would be thousands of feet of mud stuck tubing or casing. That usually takes more than one day,” he said.
The deepest extraction to date is more than 18,000 ft (5,486 m) in the Gulf of Mexico. The company routinely operates on horizontal wells where problems occur from drilling out frac plugs or from stuck mud motors. The company has deployed resonant acoustic energy for the full gamut of stuck pipe scenarios including sand stuck, junk or mechanical sticking, differential sticking, key seats, swelling shales, and cave-ins, just to name a few.
Financial benefits notwithstanding, the industry is slow to deviate from “what has always been done,” although several operators have experienced a substantial cost savings from using surface resonant vibratory techniques as a first resort. In the Alba field in Equatorial Guinea, an operator had 4,500 ft (1,372 m) of 4½-in. tubing stuck in a packer and seal assembly with dehydrated mud on the backside. A sister well with mud stuck tubing took more than 50 days to free up using conventional methods, with a daily spread cost of US $192,172. Vibration Technology’s resonant acoustic energy procedures freed the stuck pipe in less than one day with a total vibration cost of $125,000, saving the operators millions of dollars in nonproductive time.
“The theory that underlies our technology was first conceived more than fifty years ago,” Gonzalez explained. Vibration Technology has designed reliable equipment that applies the technology to all manner of stuck pipe from coiled tubing to casing conductor pipe. The company has developed a range of effective and practical tools on theoretical concepts that sat idle for years due to the lack of available hardware.
Vibration Technology is building on its process and equipment to supply resonant acoustic energy for a number of advanced downhole applications. The company currently is working to expand its presence and has taken its
service to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Central America.
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