Proven Technology – Driving Success All Over the Globe
Stage Completions technology has been tested in diverse formations and is gaining rapid global adoption across the industry prominent geographies, including Canada, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and regions in the United States, including Eagle Ford, Permian, Bakken, STACK and SCOOP.
Today, we offer three main products. The Bowhead system has been tested in diverse formations and experienced rapid global adoption across the most prominent geographies, including Canada, China, Russia, the Middle East, and regions in the United States, including Eagle Ford, Permian, and Bakken. The leaf spring technology has evolved in over 10,500 installed tools and now supports the Orca limited entry system and the SandShark sand inflow prevention tools.
Bowhead
The Bowhead completion system is a sleeve based downhole tool technology. It relies on a series of unique profiles to enable a specific ball/collet pair to land in a corresponding piston/housing set. The valve opens with the mechanical shifting of the inner piston.
Installation of the valve in a wellbore occurs in two phases:
- A series of housings with inner sliding pistons are installed with the production casing. Each piston is pinned in the closed position to cover ports in the housing. Each piston has an internal diameter (ID) profile that is unique.
- A ball/collet combination is pumped during hydraulic fracturing operations into the well bore. The collet outer diameter (OD) has a profile section that is matched to the unique ID profile in a particular piston.
The profile designs of piston ID and collet OD are known and engineered to ensure that each ball/collet lands in the corresponding piston/housing and together operate as a valve. The piston and collet lengths, allow for many profiles to be created and have a theoretical capacity of over 300 unique profiles. To date the Bowhead technology has been installed and successfully activated (pistons shifted) in wells with up to 220 valves.
The ball/collet and housing/piston technology configuration, with the unique leaf spring profile length, is used in the core Bowhead valve, and has been evolved to cover other applications.
Orca
The Orca multi-valve system was created to address multi-cluster stimulation with similar operational efficiencies to the Bowhead in terms of mechanical parameters. The Orca system is designed to allow a single collet to open multiple valves to create multiple entry points in each stage. This provides a direct alternative to legacy Plug and Perf operations with multiple entry points in a stage, equivalent to a series of perforation clusters.
The Orca system consists of a series of piston/housings with a common piston ID profile. The pistons have a release mechanism that allows the ball/collet to seat and shift the valve open, then once shifted, the piston releases the collet/ball to continue downhole.
A single ball/collet is launched during continuous pumping, then lands and shifts the upper piston open. Once the upper piston opens, the ball/collet is released and continues downhole to the next piston/housing. The same ball/collet will land in the next Orca piston/housing and shift open the piston exposing the housing ports. This process repeats until the lowest valve provides a permanent landing ring, and the ball/collet is retained.
The ports in the Orca valves are fitted with a perforated burst disc that limits any leakage of proppant slurry during the short time while the ball/collet progresses through and activates the multiple valves. Once the final valve is open, the pressure increases and opens all discs so that the string of Orca valve ports will simultaneously allow access for fluid to be able to commence frac operations.
SandShark
The SandShark conveys a sand retention screen with the collet and relies on the fundamental technology of the Bowhead tool. The screen is shielded from the proppant slurry during treatment and extends to cover the ports after the proppant is cleared from the stage.
The SandShark relies on the Bowhead technology specifically for the housing, piston, and unique profile designs. The valve has a protected spring-loaded wire wrapped screen positioned above the collet and below the dissolvable ball. The ball/screen/collet has a unique OD profile that matches only one housing/piston profile. This Bowhead technology has been described elsewhere but will allow selective opening of each valve.
Once the correct collet has landed in the piston and caused the piston to slide open the ports, hydraulic fracture pressure continues to rise. This pressure pushes against the ball on the top of the screen section, holding the screen against the spring. The proppant slurry enters the reservoir. As frac pressures are reduced, the spring pushes the screen upwards and across the open ports. Any fluid flowing back into the well will pass through this wire wrapped screen. The screen can be manufactured following conventional screen mesh and material specifications to match the specific reservoir requirements. The ball will dissolve, and the wellbore is now open for production. The position of the screen will limit sand flow back and so reduce the need for well bore flowback clean out.
The SandShark drastically reduces latent sand, and so minimizes sand bridging in the wellbore. The reduction in flow back sand, can extend surface equipment life and minimize damage to downhole equipment such as ESPs or rod pumps.
