Field Results And Applications Stressed Steel Liner Casing Repair Process
Authors: Villalon S. Leonard 
Published: December 2007

Villalon, S. Leonard, Halliburton Oil Co.

Publication Rights Reserved

This paper is to be presented at the Rocky Mountain Petroleum Section Regional Meeting in Casper, Wyo., on May 25 and 26, 1964, and is considered the property of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Permission to publish is hereby restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words, with no illustrations, unless the paper is specifically released to the press by the Editor of the Journal of Petroleum Technology or the Executive Secretary. Such abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request providing proper credit is given that publication and the original presentation of the paper.

Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines.

The Stressed Steel Liner Casing Repair Process has been successfully applied to many types of casing damage which could not be readily repaired with other, more common methods.

Since the introduction of the process in Aug., 1962, approximately 100 jobs have been successfully run to repair leaks, to alter the production characteristics or to vary the injection rates into various formations in flooding operations. Another application has been the use of the Stressed Steel Liner to temporarily close off an existing set of perforations for down casing treatments of deeper formations.

The advantages associated with the Stressed Steel Liner Process stem from the fact that the repair is contained almost completely within the casing string. The process being limited to the casing also allows its use for applications where either formation damage or casing salvage value must be considered.

Equipment, procedure and cost of this repair method will be discussed along with applications made to date.

Introduction

For many years a need has been apparent for means of downhole casing repair to supplement the older established methods of squeeze cementing, setting of casing liners and isolating of leaks by means of straddle packers.

Because of the familiarity of the oil industry with these more common methods of repair, a situation where one of these methods can best be applied is readily recognized. Almost all problems which may be encountered and the chances of obtaining a successful repair are known within narrow limits because of this past experience. This paper proposes to discuss one of the most recent developments in the casing repair field and relay sufficient background concerning this process to allow its addition to the list of casing repair methods.

Process and Materials

The process is known as the Stressed Steel Liner Casing Repair Process. This repair method consists of cold forming a fiberglass and plastic coated steel tube out tightly against the inside diameter of damaged casing. This, in effect, does nothing more than install a second layer of casing over the damaged area of the existing casing string. Fig. 1 shows the Stressed Steel Liner both before and after expansion in the casing string.

The materials used to effect the repair are a stressed steel liner and a thermal setting plastic.