HWO Services / Long Stroke Rigs

The use of hydraulic long stroke work over rigs for light drilling and work over applications is a phenomenon made possible by the development of a number of enabling technologies. These include enhanced rig designs, pipe handling systems to aid in tripping efficiencies with hydraulic long stroke work over rigs, top drive systems with torques reaching 30,000 ft/lbs and tailor-made window cutting systems among others. In addition, there is an increasing business imperative to maximize recoveries from existing assets and to develop technologies that will make marginal fields economic.

This has challenged the service industry and operators to develop and utilize non-conventional drilling and completion techniques. The expansion of underbalanced thru-tubing interventions, work over’s and re-entry drilling has led to a need for multi-purpose rig specifically designed to perform traditional underbalanced rig-less well operations combined with standard work over rig work.



A hydraulic long stroke rig specifically designed to conduct traditional rig operations combined with the ability to switch to underbalanced thru-tubing applications is offered by Nortech. The concept of the hydraulic long stroke rig evolved from innovative engineers in conjunction with experiences drilling, work over and snubbing personnel from Nortech. By combining underbalanced horizontal drilling experience and mobile land-based rig design expertise with snubbing and well controlled know how, a specialized hydraulic long stroke rig has been developed.

With a unique modular concept, Nortech has bridged the gap between a drilling rig and a hydraulic well intervention unit. Up till now, the use of single joints (i.e., 30 ft or greater) for well intervention and/or snubbing operations has been restrictive due to design of standard units and the prohibitive cost effectiveness of handling larger diameter drill pipe sizes. The hydraulic long stroke rig design developed by Nortech, is allowing a rig up time of 10 to 12 hours and a tripping speed of 2000 ft per hour in live wells.

This document describes a modular rig that has been manufactured specifically for bridging the gap between a traditional drilling rig and a Hydraulic intervention unit. The unique design allows the Super Single rig to perform all aspects of a work over operation and snubbing/well intervention work.

The hydraulic long stroke rig will provide the following scope of work for re-entry drilling and side-tracking operations both overbalanced and underbalanced:

Further, the hydraulic long stroke rig can perform the following snubbing and well intervention operation without any modifications to the rig:

   
Snubbing Services

Nortech offers a proprietary designed snubbing units for its Clients. The snubbing package will move in 12 loads and rig up in 6 to 8 hours. Pipe handlings is done with a new and revolutionary dual pole handling system a capable of handling 30 to 40 double joints per hour and allow the rig to trip pipe at up to 2400 ft per hour making this snubbing units the most efficient snubbing unit on the market. The snubbing unit has a set back capacity of 14,000 ft

This snubbing unit design allows tubing deployment into wells under pressure and allows the wells to be safely serviced without having to use kill fluids. The process of tubing developments involve the insertion and removal of pipe into and out of a well with positive well head pressure.

An increasing number of oil and gas companies are using snubbing units as a routine procedure for completions and work-over. The main advantage is that the well does not need to be killed during well operations making it a safe and easy alternative. These are highly mobile and very easy to mobilize both offshore and onshore.



Some other advantages include: