The supervisor of studies: the senior lecturer, professor Yushkov A. S.

Theme of the masters work: Development of device and technology of the liner plugging

Swell Packer enables water control in open hole. Reliable and permanent annular isolation is normally required to enable water control in open hole completed wells. The Swell Packer, supplied by Easy Well Solutions is an annular isolation packer expanding and sealing in contact with hydrocarbons. Installation does not require any operations or manipulation. This saves rig time and increases reliability. The Swell Packer is installed across a formation barrier and left in place. It can be used for open hole and cased hole and is available for non-standard casing sizes.

In a mature North Sea field, North Cormorant, operated by Shell UK a through tubing drilling campaign was ongoing. The operations required zonal isolation from along the reservoir due to multiple intermittent layers with water and oil. Cementing these reservoirs was a challenge because of the small pipe diameters, ambitious drilling targets and high pressure contrasts. The operator performed a detailed analysis and found that Swell Packer would enhance the operations. No problems were associated with the installation. The packers provided better zonal isolation properties than cement. Perforating was avoided. By simplifications of the well design, the system has saved close to 50 percent of the total well cost.

In a shallow, viscous oil development in Alaska, U.S., an operator drilled multilateral wells to drain four zones. The bottom lateral was drilled undulating between two zones with five penetrations of the mudstone separating the zones. Previous wells have been plugged within a month after onset of production. To avoid this mudstone to mobilize and spread to plug adjacent slotted liner, a Swell Packer was positioned just above and just below each of these mudstone intervals. No plugging related production impairment has been seen in these wells.

To date, more than 250 Swell Packers have been installed in a multitude of downhole environments in different areas of the world. The installations has been with water control, open hole fracturing, sand control and many different applications. All installed packers have performed to expectation and no sealing failure has been detected.