Weatherford International, a multinational oil and natural gas company, announced the launch of its AlphaST single-trip open-hole cementing sidetrack system, a market-first capability to initiate sidetrack operations without a cement plug
Designed to increase operator flexibility, eliminate multiple trips and avoid expensive cementing operations, AlphaST is said to be the only single trip openhole cementing and sidetrack system in the world.
Dean Bell, president, Well Construction for Weatherford, said, “For operators, AlphaST means you will never again need to sidetrack from a cement plug.”
“AlphaST enables operators to avoid the cost and time of setting a cement plug, waiting on cement and time drilling. The bottom line is OpEx savings equal to days of rig time.”
For an operator in the Permian Basin, previous sidetrack attempts with conventional cement plugs failed in the hard formation, requiring multiple trips in the hole and resulting in damaged directional bottomhole assemblies.
Weatherford re-entry experts reviewed the application and installed the AlphaST system. After landing at the required depth, the team set the Inflatable Production Packer (IPP) to anchor the whipstock and drilled off the formation in a single trip, saving the operator 29 hours of rig time and more than US$100,000 of operational expense.
“AlphaST is another example of how Weatherford develops technologies that others don’t, so our customers can do what others can’t. For more than four decades Weatherford has led the industry’s re-entry market. With AlphaST, that legacy continues,” Bell concluded.
