Fishing Frustration

Background

An operator had an ESP fail and become stuck at the bottom of their well. They wanted to remove the ESP and run a new one to resume production but hit an unknown obstruction significantly above the ESP depth. They called in DarkVision to image the hold-up depth with HADES-F and R in combination. HADES-F scanned the obstruction directly, and HADES-R was used to evaluate the casing above the obstruction.

Findings

The scan results revealed that the operator had milled out of the side of the casing at the hold-up depth. The parted casing formed an obstruction, but there was no casing offset, which would have made restoring well access extremely difficult. The casing above the hold up depth was in good condition.

Using measurements from the scans, the operator designed a custom BHA incorporating a tapered mill, standoff, and string mill to ream and clean out the area. A follow-up HADES-R scan confirmed the success of the custom milling BHA and measured the resulting pass-through diameter.

Outcome

The operator was now able to pass through the hold-up depth to the stuck ESP. When the operator reached the ESP, the fish top was blocked by debris. Next steps would require repairing and cementing the damaged casing at the hold-up depth to restore circulation, with no guarantee further fishing attempts would succeed. After assessing the scope of work remaining, the operator determined the return would not justify the investment and chose to P&A the well.

A P&A is not an ideal outcome, but the scan data from DarkVision gave the operator a complete picture of the wellbore early enough to stop unproductive spend before committing further resources.