World Record: 20kft+ of tractoring with a 9-5/8” cement evaluation tool in KSA

Acquiring cement evaluation logs in extended reach wells, can become very expensive, due to difficulties in logging tool conveyance. Pipe conveyed logging is operationally complex, time consuming and risky, whereas tractor conveyance can sometimes be limited by the force required in long laterals. Wireline tractors expend energy by pushing the toolstring as well as pulling the cable trailing behind. With light production logging tools this is normally not a concern, but with heavier toolstrings using a heptacable, tractor conveyance is limited to depths of ~17k-18kft. Tool taxis, when appropriately placed, can reduce the toolstring drag coefficient from ~0.3 to ~0.08. Firstly, this enables the toolstring to descend on gravity to >85° deviation, thereby reducing the tractoring distance and rig time. Secondly, this reduced drag ensures that the tractor force spent pushing the tools is negligible. The result is that more power is available to pull the cable to depths that were previously unachievable by tractors, and less drives can be used in order to achieve this. On a world record job, a 9 5/8” cement evaluation logging toolstring was tractored down to >25kft measured depth and >20kft horizontal. The tool was consistently maintained in the center of the borehole with eccentricity less than 0.15” , ensuring excellent data quality. Tool Taxis enable wireline tractor logging in very long horizontal sections