Collapsed casing or tubing can result in significant issues for operators, with access below the trouble zone in a wellbore often restricted or near impossible to access.
Traditional methods such as swaging and milling have significant limitations and can take weeks to resolve the issue, often resulting in complete abandonment of the well.
By deploying expandable technology, it is now possible to reform the restriction in a tubular, enabling the ID to be opened. This allows for either production back to surface or access for equipment below.
Our Reform tool was recently deployed to remediate collapsed casing in a remote well off the coast of Papa New Guinea. The device uses hydraulic pressure applied at surface to reform collapsed, oval or restricted tubulars. It can remediate damage in vertical or horizontal wellbores where there is limited set down weight available for conventional swaging operations and can be deployed using coiled tubing or drill pipe.
The tool was mobilized to the vertical well where the casing had collapsed just 2m from surface, preventing the operator from passing wireline through the wellbore. Due to the shallow depth of the collapse, swaging was not an option.
Two Coretrax personnel deployed two different cone sizes - 3.250” and 4.760” - to expand the collapsed intervals of casing, approximately 10m in length. The tool ensured casing integrity was maintained throughout while providing full drift of the casing ID.
The tubular was successfully expanded within three days, allowing the operator to continue with wireline operations and no further intervention was required.
Benefits
- Quick to deploy
- Expansion was completed at shallow depth
- Eliminated the risk of damaging casing string with no requirement for milling
