Stuck Pipe Prevention—A Proactive Solution to an Old Problem
Authors: Yarim G. , Uchytil R. , May R. , Trejo A. , Church P. 
Published: December 2007

Stuck pipe incidents have been one of the major technical challenges of the drilling industry and events typically result in a significant amount of downtime and remedial costs. The recent increase in drilling activity, shortage of experienced personnel and equipment, and drilling in higher-risk areas has increased the risk of stuck pipe events in all drilling operations. While stuck pipe continues to be a problem much has been done in a recent campaign in Latin America to reduce the occurrence of such events and to minimize the time and cost impact when such events occur.

In Latin America, an initiative to reduce stuck pipe frequency and impact began at the start of 2005, when stuck pipe trends reached alarming levels on well construction operations. A plan was developed to approach the problem by reviewing prior technical literature relevant to stuck pipe, and reviewing the existing training available within the industry. This provided a starting point to understand what was generally available and how to approach stuck pipe incident mitigation. It was found that a majority of the training provided information about how to get free once the pipe was stuck rather than on how to prevent stuck pipe incidents in the first place. As a result, the decision was taken to develop a new training course internally with a focus on the prevention of stuck pipe incidents.

Additionally it was agreed to train the rig crews first, since they are the "front line of defense" in stuck pipe prevention. Since it was recognized that some stuck pipe incidents would still continue to occur, material to ensure correct first actions in the event of stuck pipe remained important content.

The stuck pipe prevention course content was "tailored" on a course-by-course basis specifically to address individual project needs versus teaching generic prevention techniques. In addition to providing stuck pipe training, a Stuck Pipe Prevention Champion was assigned to follow day-to-day drilling operations and to lead the initiative within the projects. Furthermore, each near-miss and high-impact stuck pipe incident was thoroughly investigated by using root cause analysis methodology by an expert team providing recommendations to the project. Such recommendations included a Technical Alert, which was issued as soon as reasonably practical after the occurrence of an incident. This provided better communication within the project and more rapid dissemination of the lessons learned to other projects in other geographical areas.

Since introducing this proactive approach, the frequency of stuck pipe incidents was reduced 25%, the non-productive time impact of stuck pipe was reduced 64%, and most importantly, the total cost impact of stuck pipe incidents was reduced 81%.

This paper explains how stuck pipe prevention training, together with close involvement and follow up with the projects, significantly reduced the frequency and severity of stuck pipe events. Also, it explains how the stuck pipe problem was approached, resources were assigned, and how a solution was developed to reduce the impact of the stuck pipe incidents. The paper discusses the current performance of several projects in Latin America compared to the historical stuck pipe performance and negative impact of stuck pipe incidents. Finally, it demonstrates proven techniques to mitigate one of the drilling industry's ongoing major technical and financial challenges.