The 30,000 Lbs Extreme Pull Wireline Conveyance System and the Highest Pull Ever Help Gulf of Mexico Operator Save 5 MUSD by Avoiding Drill Pipe Conveyance and Tool Fishing Operations in the Most Challenging Deepwater Well
Authors: Sarian Serko , McManus Dacey , Lake Patrick , Babin Chris , Varkey Joseph , Hackett DJ 
Published: February 2017

The Torque balanced and polymer encapsulated Wireline high pull cable was first introduced in 2012 with 18,000 lbs safe working load rating. The benefits it brought to Wireline Cable armor technological advances have led to a second generation of extreme pull high powered polymer encapsulated cables rated at 30,000 lbs, 9,000 lbs stronger than the highest available in the market today. To accomplish the full potential of the cable and convey wireline toolstrings with the highest efficiency and minimum sticking risk, a complete conveyance system has been developed around the cable. Further, the high pull capacity coupled with the latest generation high power and telemetry integrated acquisition system help avoid pipe conveyed operations, effectively reduce the number of descents with larger tool combinations and increase the logging speed. Substantial rig time savings and associated cost can then be achieved per logging program.

In February-March 2016, the operator performed a wireline operation to evaluate an ultra-deepwater Gulf of Mexico well with 31,200 ft total depth. During the drilling process, multiple by-pass operations were needed to reach the targeted total depth. This led to a highly tortuous well path which would drastically increase the expected wireline cable friction in the wellbore leading to unprecedented high logging tensions around 21,000 lbs. The initially planned 26,000 lbs conveyance system would only offer a marginal overpull capacity to prevent and mitigate sticking risk. To avoid lengthy pipe conveyed alternative, the decision was made to deploy the field testing 30,000 lbs polymer encapsulated cable and associated conveyance system. The new cable allowed the successful logging operation in this highly challenging environment. The industry's highest pull capacity permitted avoiding the use of pipeline-conveyance logging (a time consuming, costly and risky operation) and reducing the number of descents by combining multiple tools in single descents, thereby decreasing operating time and associated rig cost.

During descent #3, two wireline logging records were broken: highest normal logging tension of 21,200 lbs, and the highest pull ever in a logging operation of 29,361 lbs to free the logging cable, stuck during one of the stationary measurements. With the reservoir monitoring toolstring in sampling configuration (MDT) in the well and the limited pull capacity, a cut and thread fishing operation would have been unavoidable with any other conveyance system available in the industry at the time of logging. A four day fishing operation costing over 3 MUSD was thereby avoided while securing valuable reservoir sampling data during the sampling descent #3.

The new second-generation high-pull system integrating extreme-strength polymer-encapsulated wireline cables, fit-for-purpose surface equipment and downhole conveyance accessories, has brought a step change in ultra-deepwater wireline conveyance operations. Tool fishing incidents are minimized while high-quality advanced wireline data acquisition is assured with reduced operational and HSE risk in any well trajectory or adverse wellbore conditions in well depths exceeding 40,000 ft.