The field of the invention is well cleanup tools that allow a tubular top to be dressed, the mud conditioned or displaced in the liner, and above the liner through lateral ports, as well as setting a packer to test integrity of the cementing of the tubular.
In well completions a liner is typically inserted in the drilled wellbore and cemented. Thereafter the integrity of the cementing needs to be tested and that is accomplished with a pressure test using a packer set above the liner top. To avoid damage to tools that may be later set in the liner, the top of the liner needs to have a relatively burr free internal surface. Typically, a mill is used to dress the liner top. It is advantageous to condition the mud above the liner and to do it with relatively high circulation rates. To accomplish that a tool with a lateral port has been used that can open, when needed to allow conditioning.
Typically, these ported tools involve a ported mandrel in a ported housing where the ports can be selectively put into alignment for flow and misalignment to close off flow. In the past the required relative movement to go between the open and closed positions has been accomplished with j-slot mechanisms that involve relative movement between a pin on one part and a slot on the other. Progress of the pin in the slot could be obtained by cycling pressure on and off that forced relative movement between a j-slot sleeve and a lug to advance the lug in a j-slot track or by mechanical movement of the pin or slot with the other held supported. For example a mandrel with a pin extending into a slot on a surrounding housing that is supported in the well could allow the mandrel to take several positions with respect to the surrounding housing. That relative movement could result in aligning or misaligning of ports. The limitations of such j-slot mechanisms are that the pin continues to progress in the slot if there is reciprocating movement of the tool for other purposes. In that case if aligned ports were needed to stay aligned during reciprocating tool movement for another purpose such as conditioning the mud through a lateral port while reciprocating the tool the length of tubulars that can be assembled on a rig floor, for example about 90 feet, the j-slot mechanisms would not assure that the aligned ports would not go to a misaligned position and thus nullify the mud conditioning effort that was in progress. Thus, one advantage of the present invention allows the lateral port to remain open for conditioning by having a barrier to the progress of the lug out of a desired slot in the j-slot while mud is conditioned above a liner top.
Tools in the past have included bearings so that when weight was set down on the bearing the mandrel could rotate with ports in the mandrel selectively aligned with ports in the housing, as long as weight was set down. This rotation of the mandrel feature allowed better agitation of the mud as different outlets around the circumference of the outer housing saw flow in turn as the mandrel rotated. The problem was that if the tool was moved longitudinally back and forth from the position it took to align the ports such as if the span of the conditioning zone was 90 feet, for example, the j-slot device would cycle and the ports may no longer stay aligned.
What was needed in a cleanup and test tool of this type is an ability to open the lateral ports and hold them open while the tool is cycled up and down for a long distance and then later be able to close them. Another desirable feature was to be able to later still open the ports and circulate and swivel before pulling the tool out of the hole. These and other features of the present tool and associated method of the present invention will be more readily apparent to those skilled in the art from a review of the detailed description and the associated drawings and the claims below that define the full scope of the invention.
A tool and associated method allows a liner top to be dressed. Then while maintaining a lateral port closed the tool can be used to circulate while being rotated and reciprocated. The tool features discrete j-slot mechanisms. The upper j-slot allows the lateral port to initially open while the lower j-slot keeps the lateral port open despite movement of the tool in opposed directions in the hole due to a barrier to the pin in the lower j-slot. When enough weight is set or the barrier is otherwise removed, the lateral port can be closed and the test packer set by set down weight with the lateral port closed. After the packer is unset the lateral ports can be reopened and circulation and swiveling on a bearing can occur even if the packer is temporarily actuated from the setting down motion that reopened the lateral ports.
a-1c show the tool in the run in position;
a-2c shows the tool with the lateral port open position where the tool can be swiveled, reciprocated and circulated with the lateral ports remaining open;
a-3c show the tool with the lower j-slot disabled and the tool in position to swivel on the bearing to displace mud from above the packer;
Referring to
The outer assembly O begins with a top sub 46 that has a bushing 48 that rides on upper mandrel 14. Upper sleeve 54 is secured at thread 52 to top sub 46. Upper j-slot sleeve 56 is secured at thread 58 to top sub 46.
Lower sleeve 78 is connected to upper sleeve 54 at thread 80 and sealed at 82. Lower sleeve 78 traps retainer 84 between itself and sleeve 54. Retainer 84 supports part of a z-shaped shear ring 86 to sleeves 54 and 78 while a shoulder 88 on lower mandrel 32 rests on shear ring 86 for run in for reasons that will be explained below. Bottom sub 90 is secured to lower sleeve 78 at thread 92 and sealed by seal 94. Opposed surfaces 96 on bottom sub 90 and 98 on lower sleeve 78 contain bearing assembly B that will be described below.
The lower j-slot sleeve 100 has a track 102 that is shown in rolled out form in
The major parts of the tool now having been described, the operation will be reviewed in greater detail. While not shown, those skilled in the art will appreciate that supported at thread 118 on bottom sub 90 is a string that extends into the liner that has been hung off a higher casing that has been cemented. That string supports the mill by extending through it and goes to close to the liner bottom. That string also supports a packer above the mill that is used to dress the liner top so that it later can accept a packer connected to a production string. The packer that is used with this tool is set in the casing above the liner for a test to determine if there is fluid loss into the formation when pressure is applied against the set packer.
In operation, the tool shown in
Next the mandrel M is picked up and rotated right while being let down. This movement takes lug 44 along the slanted path shown at the top of
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the present invention encompasses other ways to retain the tool in the desired position during this step than using a j-slot with a feature to temporarily trap a lug in a j-slot. In fact, the use of a temporary block of a lug in a j-slot is not limited to circulation tools discussed above but rather has broad applications to other downhole tools. Additional features can be added to the above described tool to protect the shear pins 116 from breaking early. For example, another sleeve with a ball seat can be placed in a supporting position to the ring 114 so that pins 116 can't shear until a ball lands on a seat of a supporting sleeve to move it away from supporting ring 114 so that impact can then break pins 116 in the manner that will be described below. Yet other types of temporary retaining devices can be used instead of the ring 114 interfering with movement of lug 42 in j-slot sleeve 100 as will be described below. The procedure being described herein can be modified to even eliminate the lower j-slot sleeve 100 and the associated lug 42, if desired.
When the conditioning of the mud above the liner top is concluded, weight is set down on mandrel M to break shear pins 116 and doing so lets the shear ring 114 drop down onto the bearing 110, as shown in
However, before setting down weight to get lug 44 in position 122 displacing fluid can be pumped through the tool into the liner to displace the mud out of it and position the displaced mud at a location above where the packer (not shown) will be set to test the cement integrity of the liner. When the displacing is done then the mandrel is lowered without rotation to set the packer. Here lug 44 will be in position 122. After the test with the packer is completed, the packer is unset by picking up on mandrel M which engages surface 134 of upper mandrel 14 to top sub 46 of the outer assembly O pulling up the outer assembly O and stretching out the packer to release it. This engagement can be seen in the run in position in
Those skilled in the art can appreciate that the tool can save the operator rig time in that the mud conditioning can be done above the liner top in a shorter period of time if the drill string is rotated and reciprocated up and down during circulation while still retaining the flexibility to close the ports for mud displacement from the liner and open them again for displacement of mud from above the packer after the cement integrity test.
Referring now to
Referring now to
The above description is illustrative of the preferred embodiment and many modifications may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the invention whose scope is to be determined from the literal and equivalent scope of the claims below.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/809,378, filed on May 30, 2006.
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