Sand bailing with Well Cleaner 218

An Indian operator wanted to perforate the bottom zone of an offshore oil producer in a 7" casing with 6.184" ID in order to start oil production.

Although the well was vertical, wireline was not able to reach total depth due to a sand build up. The operator had been using slickline bailing, but this method proved unable to remove the sand.

Due to the size of the tubing (3 1/2"), the operator needed slim bailing equipment and considered the Well Cleaner® 2 1/8" to be the most effective solution on the market for sand removal.

Due to restrictions in rig up height, the number of bailer sections were restricted to three. At first, sand was retrieved; however, the bailers also contained metal debris, gravel, cement and a sticky "pipe dope".

To supplement the Well Cleaner for picking up larger objects, slickline bailers were run when the Well Cleaner stopped picking up debris as this was restricted by the inlet nozzles. The joint operation of these two solutions worked well and the sand build up was successful recovered to surface.

When the sand was removed, access was established to the lower zone by perforating, which increased the production from 500 to 1,300 bbls/day. In total, 123 kg of debris was removed, consisting of 100 kg sand, metal and sludge.