Stuck Pipe and fishing operations
Why Attend
Course Objectives
Target Audience
Course Methodology
Why Attend
Why Attend:
The Stuck Pipe and Fishing Operations course provides practical knowledge to help drilling personnel prevent stuck-pipe incidents and effectively plan and execute fishing operations when equipment becomes stuck or lost in the well.
Participants will learn how to:
- Identify the causes and types of stuck pipe.
- Recognize early warning signs and implement preventive measures.
- Understand stuck-pipe freeing techniques and decision-making.
- Assess fishing situations and select the appropriate fishing tools and methods.
- Understand fishing-string design, tool selection, and operational procedures.
- Minimize non-productive time (NPT) and avoid unnecessary fishing risks.
- Improve coordination between drilling, directional, mud, and fishing teams.
- Apply safe and efficient fishing and recovery practices.
- Develop better contingency plans for stuck or lost-in-hole equipment.
Course Objectives
Learning Objective
- Wellbore designs, types and loading of submerged tubulars
- Understanding and preventing drillstring failures
- Stuck pipe mechanisms and consequences
- Predicting and preventing stuck pipe and lost circulation
- Fishing operations: Causes, prevention, tools, and operations
- Directional drilling and sidetracking in cased and open holes
Target Audience
Target Audience
- Drilling Engineers
- Drilling Supervisors / Company Men
- Drillers and Assistant Drillers
- Directional Drillers
- Fishing Engineers / Fishing Supervisors
- Well Intervention Personnel
- Wellsite Supervisors
- Completion Engineers
- Workover Engineers and Supervisors
- Rig Crew
- Mud Engineers
- Service Company Personnel involved in drilling and fishing operations
- HSE Personnel supporting drilling and well intervention activities
Course Methodology
Attendees will learn the causes of stuck pipe and twist-offs and the techniques employed to avoid such problems. The attendees will also learn the investigation techniques, operations, selection of fishing tools, and decision-making methods.
Discussions include techniques to prevent problems leading to fishing operations and operational techniques to recover the fish or to sidetrack the well.
Course Outline
Day - 1
Day 1
- What is stuck pipe?
- Primary cause of downtime
- See warning signs and respond
- Stuck pipe is usually preventable
- Definition
- Causes
- Mechanical
- Formation problems
- Human error — lack of communication
- What causes stuck pipe?
- Human factors
- Lack of teamwork
- Lack of communication
- Lack of planning
- Failure to read warning signs
- Failure to follow procedures
- Most stuck pipe situations happen at tour change
- Use tour change form to record conditions and identify trends
- Understanding the steel mechanics and drillstring design including API RP 7G
Day - 2
Day 2
- Types of sticking
- Formational sticking
- Differential sticking
- Cause for most stuck pipe situations
- Drilling overbalance most common cause
- Geo-pressurized formations
- Reactive formations
- Unconsolidated formations
- Mobile formations
- Fractured or faulted formations
- Mechanical sticking
- Key seating
- Wellbore geometry
- Under-gauge hole
- Inadequate hole cleaning
- Junk in the hole
- Cement problems
- Casing problems
- Solving case studies
Day - 3
Day 3
- Differential sticking
- Definition
- Most common in sandstone and high permeability formations
- Why circulate fluids in hole?
- Remove cuttings
- Seal the wellbore
- Control well pressure
- Mud formulation
- Drilled overbalanced defined
- Filter cake defined
- Drill string flexing defined
- Avoiding differential sticking
- Rotate
- Circulate
- Move drill string up and down
- Communicate
- Warning Signs
- Three mechanisms — definitions and causes
- Hole pack off or bridge mechanism
- Differential mechanism
- Geometry mechanism
- Torque changes
- String weight changes
- Circulation rate changes
- Pump pressure changes
- Mud properties
- Changes at the shakers
- Your records indicate changes
- Name the mechanism — simulation
- Talk to others around the rig
- Gather clues
- Come up with a diagnosis
- Solve case studies
Day - 4
Day 4
- Fishing Operations
- Twist Off Cases
- Fracture of the drill pipe
- Fracture of the threads joining the drill collars or the drill pipe
- Overshot
- Free point indicator
- Reserve twist
- Small explosive charge
- Addition of jars in the fishing string
- Washing over
- Plugging the hole
- Side tracked hole (dog-leg)
- Broken bit cases
- Break away of one of the conical cutters & leg down the hole with all the bearing
- Using magnet for fishing
- Using hollow basket
- Using explosive charge for too large pieces of metals
- Using another bit
- Differential freeing
- 50% chance of freeing stuck pipe in the first 4 hours — after that 10% or less
- Quick and proper action by the driller and his team will free pipe in first few minutes
- Analyze the warning signs
- Use freeing worksheet to help in decision making
- Review of sample scenario and steps for freeing
- Workshop in solving the stuck pipe
Day - 5
Day 5
- Fishing
- Causes and prevention
- Tool selection
- Economics
- Exercise