Completions and Workovers

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For current articles such as "Workover Strategies in CHOPS Wells" click on Science Principles

The Heavy Oil Industry supports an active service industry.  It's sometimes said locally that every oil well generates a full time job in our community.   The problems of heavy oil present some unique challenges but the technological innovations developed locally to deal with these problems have spread to the rest of the world's oil fields.
For example, enhanced recovery techniques developed for heavy oil are now assisting oil production from Mexico to the North Sea.

"Completing" a well can be very expensive. After drilling a well, someone must decide if the well is worth the expenses of completion. This is known to the investor as the casing point. Did the well encounter petroleum bearing reservoirs? If so, at what depth and how thick were the reservoirs? What is the oil saturation? Is there enough petroleum to make the well commercial?  If the answer is, "Yes" then all the technology to operate the well needs to be installed.   This area of expertise is known as "completions".    ... more

Once a well is in production, it may encounter problems.  The well may "sand in", equipment may break, or new efforts may be attempted to increase the well's production.  This area of expertise is known as "workovers".  ... more 

First Commercial Oil Well
1937 - Dina Field

Ruined Parts
Producing heavy oil is filled with constant challenges

Hamish Garland
More than 40 years working in oil production

From Enemy to Friend

Sand.  In the old days, even a few grains caused problems, and around heavy oil there was always lots of sand.  In those times, the emphasis was on sand prevention - trying to keep it out of the wellbore.  Gradually, technology and ideas changed and now sand is "produced", i.e. pumped out of the well along with the oil, resulting in increased oil production.

Over the years, sand has been a major challenge and our people have responded with a vast array of techniques and technologies.  If sand fouled a pump, the workover crew had to pull all the tubing to reach the pump and then replace it.   Chances were it would plug again in a few days or even hours.  Sometimes the wellbore itself would become partially filled with sand and a bailer, run on a sandline was used to bite into the sand and remove it one bailer full at a time - a long laborious process.

Techniques developed to flush the sand out of the well bore initially just used the produced salt water as the flushing fluid.  Later, a product called heavy gas oil (HGO) became popular.  Today a stable foam is being used in one technique.