PathFinder – A success story from New Zealand

Petromac Pathfinder is a hole finder device that can be attached to the bottom of any wireline logging toolstring. It has been successfully deployed on HAL, Baker and SLB tools. The Pathfinder mandrel is made from strong, ultra-light carbon fiber composite. The integral bow-spring centralizer ensures the Pathfinder nose is at the centre of the wellbore regardless of the hole size, thereby avoiding ledges. The Pathfinder is suitable for wellbores from 6 to 26in, regardless of deviation. The Imager toolstring was held up above target depth. The same toolstring, fitted with Pathfinder, ran seamlessly to TD on the remedial run. Pathfinder was mobilized as a contingency for a four well (S-shape and J-shape) drilling campaign in New Zealand. Borehole breakouts with associated ledges were anticipated. In the third well, the Oil Based Mud Imager toolstring, ran with conventional bottom nose, was held up 350m above TD. The toolstring was pulled out of hole and fitted with the Pathfinder. The toolstring, guided by Pathfinder, ran seamlessly to TD. Pathfinder was used preventively on all logging runs of the remaining well of the campaign, and all Wireline logging operations ran smoothly. 10” washout holding up the toolstring PATHFINDER ELIMINATES THE RISK OF TOOLSTRING HOLDUP . IT IS A STAND-ALONE HOLEFINDER SUITABLE FOR A WIDE RANGE OF WELLBORE SIZES AND DEVIATIONS. Fig.1. Pathfinder Fig.2. Pathfinder guided the toolstring past a 10” ledge smoothly.