CALGARY, Alberta – Beleaguered Gheytex Energy announced this morning that it plans to turn around its fortunes in 2014 as it plans to execute a new Rear-Entry well recovery program in its 2014 Capital plan. The Calgary-based intermediate oil producer, and its investors, have suffered over the past 24 months from vertical wellbore collapse in a large number of wells in its core Poupe Shutay field in central Alberta.
Standing outside of the company’s downtown headquarters, Gheytex’s President and CEO commented,
Louis P. Winkee, Gheytex head man
Our technical teams have come up with a revolutionary way to workover our prized wells and save the field. Since the collapsed sections cannot be salvaged, the idea is to drill a well to intersect the heel to get into horizontal sections from behind – yup, we just slide in nice and gently from what we call the ass-end of the well.
CanPack calls this a rear-entry workover, our Completions Superintendent Richard Rammit coined it “the Ghey-Way”, and we’re excited about its potential. Our board of directors, most of whom are currently at hind quarter meetings in San Fransisco discussing our strategy for Q1 2014, also fully support the program. – Louis P. Winkee, Gheytex President & CEO
According to the press release, the company expects to spend roughly $324M over the first three quarters of 2014 to recover just over 100 wells, and it expects to bring an estimated 7500 bopd of production back on-stream. This is a significant increase in production to 7700 bopd total for the company, which the company sees as being critical to its success.
Along the way, we expect some of the Rear-Entry workovers to go smoothly. But some of our wells are drilled in tight reservoir, and may prove difficult to complete. We anticipate that it might take a few pushes right at the heel to get into the hole and we have equipped the rig with oscillating top drive equipment to wiggle waggle the pipe until re-entry is complete. In even more stubborn cases with excessively tight, damaged holes, Squirm-X Chemicals has prepared a special workover lubricant to help slide in there and get the job done. – Dirk Sprinkles, Chief Production Engineer
Schematic showing how the damaged well is entered from the rear in the Rear-Entry well recovery system
Richard Rammit, working closely with Mr. Sprinkles, has also developed a low energy frac that will be used after a successful rear-entry workover to stimulate the well and jump start production. He describes the low energy frac process as “just a little tickle to get the fluids moving again“.
While this solution presents a new way to deal with lost capital in failed well bores, industry competition isn’t sure if there will be a net benefit for Gheytex.
Fred Jones
I see a $2 million dollar well being lost to hole damage. Then a another $750,000 to $1 million to save it through this rear-entry completion. And the chance of success with a rear-entry completion is very low. Everything has to go just right to effectively get that well to produce anything at all. More often than not it will probably end up costing you more than it’s worth. Forget this cockamamie idea and stay in your comfort zone Winkee. – Fred Jones, Completions Engineer at Wilder and Wilder Exploration
Aptly named Bendovus Energy has filed a complaint with the AEB claiming that Gheytex Energy’s Rear-Entry Well Recovery workover has infringed on one of its trademarked recompletion techniques, that interestingly enough, the company states does not have a name.
Oh, I get it, Gheytex Energy!