Understanding the Role of a Wireline Services Provider in Well Intervention

Well intervention is repairing and maintaining oil wells to increase their production capacity. It is usually done using wireline services. These services include pipe recovery, reservoir evaluation, and others.

Considerable investments in the Middle East and Africa are boosting the well-intervention market. It will lead to growth in the wireline services market.

Wireline Equipment

The wireline equipment market consists of cabling systems designed to lower measuring devices and other tools into oil wells for reservoir evaluation and well intervention. The equipment helps analyze downhole formations and obtain valuable real-time data that enhances the efficiency of operations.

The key players in the global wireline services market are concentrating on forming strategic alliances to improve their standing in the sector. 

The COVID-19 pandemic also poses a significant challenge to the wireline services market by locking down transportation and industrial operations, halting upcoming exploration projects, and reducing the workforce. It has led to reduced rig uptime, which has impacted the market significantly.

Wireline Services

Well-intervention services include repairing or replacing equipment in oil and gas wells. They can also have other operations, such as removing obstructions in a well and gathering downhole data. The global market for well-intervention services is multiplying, mainly due to the increase in energy demand.

Well interventions are generally classified as light or heavy. In soft interventions, well service personnel use coiled tubing, electric line (e-line), and slackline to lower equipment into a flowing well. It allows them to remove blockages, change equipment such as valves and pumps, and gather downhole pressure, temperature, and flow information.

Renegade WLS Levalland is used to support basin oil production and conduct formation evaluations. They include using coiled tubing, slackline, and wireline to perform maintenance on a well, such as cleaning wax, scaling, and sand build-ups, terminating flows with sealing plugs, gauge cutting, deploying or deploying or removing plugs, retrievable valves, memory logging, and down-hole vision.

Wireline Installation

Well, interventions are generally divided into two categories – light and heavy. During soft interventions, well-service personnel performs repairs inside a flowing oil or gas production line while pressure is contained at the surface. They use coiled tubing, electric tube (e-line), or slackline to lower tools into the well and retrieve data on downhole pressure, temperature, and flow rate.

Slickline and e-lines deliver various tools into the well, collect real-time logging data, and conduct pigging, fishing, plugging, perforating, and cleaning operations. This information depends on the ability to diagnose subsurface formations and provide various services that enable reservoir hydrocarbons to flow freely into a wellbore.

The COVID-19 pandemic halted commercial and industrial activities worldwide, decreasing the demand for oil & gas products. It slowed down the growth of the well-intervention market. However, the global well-intervention market is anticipated to revive as the pandemic-related lockdown is rapidly ending.

Wireline Maintenance

Performing routine maintenance on a wireline tool string can be time-consuming and tedious. However, a more capable system can improve resource efficiency and issue resolution.

A wireline is a substantial cable or braided line that carries equipment into oil wells and natural gas reservoirs. Various industry-specific methods, processes, and cabling technologies are used to lower tools into the wellbore to perform diagnostics or gather data.

Slickline operations use single-strand non-electric cables lowered into a well from the surface to winch equipment, such as plugs and gauges, into and out of a good bore. Wrapped around a drum, the line is reeled on and off a hydraulically driven reel.

Coiled tubing (CT) services involve inserting continuous flexible steel or composite pipes into a well to convey various tools and materials. They offer many benefits, such as the ability to reach wellheads and Christmas trees with greater ease than traditional wireline and the flexibility to handle increased downhole pressure loading.

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