Wireline Launches Open Hole Roller Bogie Technology

A wireline conveyance tool that provides major cost savings to the oil and gas industry has been used in the UK North Sea for the first time.

Wireline and well intervention technology specialist Wireline Engineering said its patented Open Hole Roller Bogie technology has been used successfully on the Catcher field in the UK central North Sea, operated by EnCore Oil.

The technology was used by well management company Applied Drilling Technology Inc. (ADTI), a division of Transocean, to perform a number of wireline runs and it is the first equipment of its kind to be commercially available in the UK and worldwide.

Wireline Engineering's Open Hole Roller Bogie is a specialist conveyance tool that is used in downhole operations to eliminate tool string friction in deviated oil and gas wells. It can be deployed in extremely challenging downhole conditions and by increasing the envelope of wireline conveyance it provides significant cost savings.

It is capable of conveying the longest tool strings and has been successful at up to 75 degrees deviation. The ability of this technology to remove tool string friction at high deviation dramatically extends wireline capability and can mean the difference between acquiring critical well data or not.

As well as providing more effective access for data-acquisition equipment, these tools were directly responsible for operational savings in the region of £150,000 per wireline operation through time saved and reducing the need for the deployment of other more expensive techniques.

Prior to introducing the technology to the UK offshore sector, Wireline Engineering's Open Hole Roller Bogie already had an impressive international track-record, operating on high profile projects in Vietnam, Indonesia and several locations across the Middle East and Europe. It has more recently also been adopted to support drilling activities in Angola.

It is the latest addition to the firm's established Roller Bogie product line and retains elements of the design philosophy that has proven so successful in its cased hole counterpart. Introduced to the market in 2001, the Cased Hole Roller Bogie has completed more than 85,000 operations worldwide for a wide range of oil majors, IOC's, NOC's and service companies.

Bill Petrie, managing director of Wireline Engineering, said, "The Open Hole Roller Bogie provides operators with deviated wells a safe alternative to expensive options such as pipe conveyed logging. It does this by eliminating much of the frictional limitations of running wire in these conditions, providing a more efficient, reliable and cost effective alternative for wellbore data acquisition.

"We are delighted that we have now delivered this product to the UK oil and gas market. It was already achieving significant success in other regions with an impressive zero failures record, therefore we were confident that first use of the technology in the UK offshore sector would be also successful.

"Our in-house team of engineers developed the product following the remarkable success of our Cased Hole Roller Bogie and we now expect strong operator demand for the open hole application of this unique industry leading product.”

Iain Mackay, project manager at ADTI, said, "We used Wireline Engineering's Open Hole Roller Bogie because we needed to convey logging tool strings at high deviation. In this operation we successfully conveyed to 61 degrees deviation and potentially saved around 36 hours rig-time over traditional pipe conveyance techniques."


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