Case History: Relief Well, Successful Kill of a Blowout
Successful kill of a surface blowout: After several attempts to kill the well from surface, a relief well intersection was determined to be the only viable kill method. There were several operational factors to consider.
-Bottom hole temperatures could exceed 320° F.
-Bottom hole pressure in excess of 15,000 psi.
Intersection depth was approximately 16,200 ft
-Target well inclination was approximately 28°.
Wellspot successfully guided drilling operations from 15,000 to 16,500 feet and to within 0.3 ft. of the target well. The relief well drillstring followed and paralleled the target wellbore for the final 150 feet. The Wellspot tool was run in non-magnetic drillstring on the final ranging run and provided orientation information for the perforating operation. After perforation, the relief well lost circulation and the blowout well was successfully killed and cemented Copyright 2005 -Vector Magnetics LLC