Reversing out excess cement after liner cementation

24 December 2012 Hi folks

(As Santa loads up his sleigh with those gifts, I thought I'd ask a question).

At a recent DWOP, we discussed the possibility of reverse-circulating out excess cement after a liner job. The liner is equipped with a liner top packer which will be set as soon as the cement job is finished.

The advantages of doing it this way, compared to normal circulation route, being that :

• it keeps a film of cement from the walls of the casing
• it keeps cement away from the BOP
• it is quicker
• fluid interfaces with cement contamination are less and in many places that helps due to not being able to discharge this interface due to environmental considerations.

We are proposing to conduct a pressure test of the packer once it has been set and then reverse circulate out the cement.

The primary disadvantages (that we could think of) are :

• if the packer has not set, then there's the potential to squeeze away the contents of the liner lap, and, depending where losses have occurred, the potential to cause issues with well integrity and/or zonal isolation .. so we would conduct the test in stages
• potential to induce flash-setting of the cement (or so it is claimed), cementing in the tools

I would be interested to hear members views on the above and in particular experiences of problems caused by :

• Cement in BOP
• Cement flash-setting

With kind regards and wishing, those of you who celebrate it, a Merry Christmas .. and everyone Happy Holidays !!

Dave

Dave and the SPREAD team

8 Answer(s)

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