Any way you slice it, conventional downhole cutting thru-tubing or thru-drillpipe is designed to severe one (1) tubular. Cutting tubulars, cement and rock in a downhole well environment is a tricky business and current conventional thru-drillpipe or thru-tubing cutters are designed to consistently cut through a tubular and surrounding pipe, clamps and/or control lines. There is an an easier way. Oilfield Innovations' have patented a simple solution to downhole cutting is a diamond wire strimmer. Horticulture has used "weed wackers" and "strimmers" for decades to cut everything from grass through rugged brush. Offshore platforms, surface and subsea conductors and subsea pipelines are regularly cut with diamond wire. Why is diamond wire is only used to cut conductors, subsea pipelines, platform jackets and many other materials that cannot be effectively cut with knife blade cutters? Why not combine diamond wire with a strimmer to cut through downhole tubing, control lines, clamps, packers, casing, cement and even rock?
Cutting tubulars downhole is necessary when pipe becomes stuck or has been installed as part of a permanent completion, but what about things around the stuck or installed pipe like collapsed casing, control lines, clamps, couplings and other debris preventing retrieval? Conventional thru-drillpipe or thru-tubing cutting is limited to the drillpipe or tubing through which is conveyed. What about cutting everything else?
There are many different types of diamond wire for many different types of cutters. Diamond wire can be as small as the diameter of hair or much larger. Diamond-like structures can be encrusted along its entire length or encrusted upon beads that are linked together with a wire.
Oil and gas wells are comprised of multiple concentric conduits that must be cut and removed during plug and abandonment (P&A) regardless of whether you use a drilling rig, workover unit, jacking unit or rigless alternatives. Provided they are severed, rig or rigless pulling or jacking units can lift and remove tubulars. Conventional thru-tubing cutting technologies can use explosives, chemicals, knives or grinding mechanisms to sever a single tubular wall provided there room in the tubing or casing, but "thru-tubing" cutters are unable to cut clamps, control lines and casing. Generally, the tubing must be removed before sufficient room for cutting multiple tubulars is available.
Various coiled tubing jetting applications have been used for jetting holes through multiple casings, but non-aqueous "thru-tubing" rig and rigless tools for severing tubing and casings simultaneously do not exist. Deploying diamond wire from a downhole motor can extend where other cutters cannot fit through the tubing. Oilfield Innovations is looking for investors who understand the quick development time and enormous value and associated with our patented diamond wire strimmer technology.
Rigless P&A can benefit from the the combination of a vertical cutter and diamond wire thru-tubing severance of multiple conduits.
Using Oilfield Innovations' patented vertical skate cutter (shown to the right) before cross-cutting with Oilfield Innovations' patented diamond wire cutter (shown above) can turn tubing, control lines, clamps, couplings, packers and other downhole equipment into "confetti" that drops further into the well.
When a diamond wire cutter is used after a vertical cutter that shreds the interior tubular (see below) the tubing can be converted into confetti-like debris that falls downward to accomplish a scope of work similar to milling without using either a drilling rig or coiled tubing.
The space resulting from cross-shredding the tubing, control lines, clamps or production packers can be used to place a piston that can further compact the debris to provide a logging space to confirm in-situ cement and place a cement plug.
Accordingly, using both a vertical cutter and diamond wire cross-cutter can dramatically improve efficiency and lower cost by displacing drilling rigs and pulling units from plug and abandonment (P&A).
As shown above, a single vertical skate cutter can be used to split and weaken tubing for bending or, alternatively, multiple skate cutters can be stacked and radially oriented to shred a tubular walls. Once shredded, the inside tubular strands can be cross-cut with a filament cutter and fall into the well bore. The next casing can them be vertically cut and cross-shredded to access the next casing, Repeating the process allows wells be be plugged and abandoned as shown below.
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