Based on Welltec’s capabilities, what began as a drift run developed into a record setting clean-out job with multiple runs in the hole. The well in question was located in the North Sea and completed in January 2010 after which it was put on production.

In 2011 and in 2013 the well was tested to see whether it could produce with lower pressure, but both times the well began producing excessive amounts of sand. In 2014, the operator wanted to check the integrity and add more perforations, but was not aware of the exact hold up depth (HUD). The strategy was initially to run the Well Cleaner® RCB as a drift run for debris removal in order to determine the current HUD and conclude whether it would be possible to log the well and add perforations.

Offshore the plan changed due to the efficiency demonstrated by Welltec®. A total of nine runs were performed using various e-line clean-out technologies. For the first two runs the Well Cleaner RCB retrieved approximately 120 lbs of sand. Determining it was loose debris, the Well Cleaner PST was put into action for runs three to eight, increasing the number of bailer sections incrementally up to the maximum number of eight.

With this configuration, the Well Cleaner PST set a record by collecting >300 lbs of sand in each run. At this point a hard restriction was located in the well and the operator turned back to the Well Cleaner RCB to attempt to remove this and recovered another ~ 60 lbs of sand. In total over 1,500 lbs of sand was successfully retrieved via e-line clean-out methods before the logging run was conducted.

The operator was very impressed with the efficiency and recovery rates of Welltec’s clean-out solutions which in total cleared ~1,735 ft (529 m) of the well from solids from 10,066 – 11,801 ft MD (3,068 – 3,597 m).

This enabled the operator to log for well integrity and take a decision on adding perforations. The excellent results have demonstratedto the operator that Welltec’s cleanout solutions can deliver many of the objectives that they have for other wells; optimizing production without a workover rig or CT.