Logging service provider to the upstream oil and gas industry Reeves Oilfield Services has announced it has introduced a Compact Well Shuttle for safe and fast deployment of open-hole logging tools into high-angle / horizontal wells and wells with bad-hole conditions.
"Well Shuttle is a hybrid deployment system for Compact open-hole logging tools," the company explained. "The tools are 'garaged' at surface inside drill pipe where they are fully protected while running into the well. They are released into 'open hole' only when the shuttle nears bottom, after which they remain anchored to the pipe and acquire data on the way out."
The system does not use a wireline, so the Shuttle runs-in at tripping speed. Pipe can be rotated and reciprocated to assist reaching bottomhole, and circulation can be maintained to help clean the hole and control the well. Logging can be integrated with a wiper trip to further reduce rig time.
Well Shuttle replaces wireline pipe-conveyed logging (PCL) in high-angle wells, and provides an efficient alternative to Logging While Drilling (LWD) in wells that can be drilled without real-time formation evaluation. It is also an intervention technique delivering formation evaluation data when other logging solutions have failed.
In 2001, the Compact Well Shuttle successfully completed a nine-month programme of trials in the Reeves 1.4-Km Large Flow Loop facility at the Reeves research labs in East Leake, UK, and in the horizontal test well at the Downhole Technology Centre in Aberdeen, UK.
Following delivery of the Well Shuttle in late December 2001, it was deployed in Western Canada where it has successfully completed several weeks of commercial operations, demonstrating substantial savings in rig time.
The first two operations - for Husky Energy and Anadarko Canada Corporation - were in high-angle wells. In the first well the Shuttle was deployed to 10,200 ft, and 1,864 ft of triple-combo data was recorded covering a horizontal interval from TD to casing shoe. TD bit size was 6.25 inches.
The second well was drilled to 90 degrees deviation at 4,019 ft. The Shuttle was deployed close to TD from where data was recorded across the build section back to casing shoe at 607 ft using a quad-combo measurement stack (gamma, photo-density, neutron, array induction, sonic). On this occasion, the TD bit size was 7.875 inches.
The conventional logging solution in these wells is wireline pipe-conveyed logging (PCL). According to Reeves, the Compact Well Shuttle saved 13 hours rig time for the first well and 16 hours for the second well, representing reductions of 43 per cent and 67 per cent respectively. Multiple wet connects were avoided in the second well by using the new technology.
"The Shuttle allowed both operators to meet their formation evaluation objectives safely and reliably, and at a substantially lower total cost relative to PCL," said Reeves.
James Hayward, senior petrophysicist, Husky Energy, commented: "The efficiency of this logging operation was easily measurable in terms of rigtime savings. The simplicity of the operation was quite evident with the elimination of the wet connect Ñ Protected sensors, quality logs, simple, efficient and cost-effective."
Reeves has now deployed the Shuttle for other Canadian operators, including ExxonMobil Canada, and is due to commence Shuttle operations in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific.
Founded in 1970, Reeves Oilfield Services Ltd is a leading international oilfield service provider of well logging products and services.
Reeves employs over 400 staff throughout its R & E Group and regional network of offices in the UK, USA, Canada, the Middle East, Australasia and South Africa.
