Run A Junk Basket And Save Yourself A Headache

I've run a lot of retrievable bridge plugs in wells and I've learned that if you run them enough you will eventually find yourself in a situation where you can't latch onto the plug. In case you're not familiar with retrievable plugs, they are retrieved by running back into the well and latching onto a "fish neck" which is basically a metal rod that can be latched on to. This is a straight-forward process most of the time, until something falls on top of it (debris, trash, flange bolts, gloves, etc.). When this happens, a very simple process of latching onto a plug can become long and drawn-out, and sometimes requires much more robust and expensive equipment. However, there is a very simple preventative measure - run a junk basket.

A junk basket is a simple tool that sits on top of a plug and catches all of the "junk" so that it doesn't land on your plug. It requires an extra wireline run which will add slightly to the cost. But do you know what's way more expensive than a junk basket run? Getting a stuck plug unstuck because of a silly piece of trash downhole.

As I said, I've run a lot of retrievable plugs and I've never had an issue getting the plug out when a junk basket was run. I have however had issues on occasion when someone wanted to save a buck and not run a junk basket. The moral of the story here is to spend a tiny bit of extra money and run a junk basket. Your future self will thank you for not cutting corners.

You Can't Turn A Bad Well Into A Good Well

Oil and gas is a wild and fun industry. Some wells are awesome, and some make you want to cry. It's tempting to think that with really spectacular engineering, that we can save the day and turn a bad well into a good well. Unfortunately, geology is the ultimate determining factor as to whether or not a well turns out good, not us. The truth is that some wells are bad because the geology just isn't on our side, and there not a lot we can do to change that. Don't kill yourself trying to turn a bad well into a good well. Trying to overcome bad geology is like trying to paddle upstream. Our job is to turn good wells into great wells, and to make bad wells not quite so bad. Try to make every well 10% better and in the long run you'll have a lot more success.

Take Care of Your Master Valves

Master valves are your last line of defense on a well. Without a reliable master valve, your well control is compromised, and that is never a good place to be. I have had the opportunity to work on a lot of old, mature wells, some which still have a lot of pressure, and it amazes me how many of them have master valves that are either leaky or extremely difficult to turn. If you were in trouble and had to close that valve quickly, you'd be out of luck.

Why does this happen? The answer is pretty straight-forward. Valves need regular maintenance just like any other mechanical device. It costs money to change the oil in your car, but you do it anyway because your car valuable and the cost of failure is large. Master valves are also extremely valuable. Take care of them. Keep your valves greased up and when they need repaired or replaced, spend the time and money to do it the right way. In the grand scheme of things, this is a small expense to keep your wells safely under control.

Be Skeptical of Models

Engineering Tip: Be Skeptical of Models​
Models. We deal with them all the time. Frac models, reservoir models, fluid models, models of models. Lots and lots of models. But models have two major limitations:

1. Inputs - Models are only as good as the data you put into them. If you have inaccurate or misinformed data, then your model is going to be inaccurate and misinformed. Every reservoir model requires porosity as an input. But porosity can change a lot across the reservoir. Often times we are using porosity from a core sample and extrapolating across the reservoir. It's better than nothing, but we need to be realistic about the potential inaccuracy this causes.

2. Understanding of the physics - The universe is a very complex machine. We like to take natural mechanisms and boil them down to one or two variables so that it is understandable. However, most things in nature are an interconnected web of many, many variables. Let's take fracture modeling. People love to reduce fracture growth down to a simple model of pressure and injection rates. In reality, there are a gazillion things that impact fracture growth. We love simple models that show nice, parallel, predictable frac wings, when in reality, we often get a spider web of fractures that grow in many different directions.

Models will always give you an answer. Whether or not that answer is accurate is a different question entirely.

And don't get me started on climate change models...

Please don't read this and think that I am anti-modeling. Models are a useful tool, but they are a tool and not an exact science. When you use a model, be a little skeptical of the results. Ask questions and compare it to other information and intuition that you have. If the model gives you something that seems unreasonable, dig deeper and ask more questions.

At the end of the day, human intuition and historical data can be just as powerful a tool as modeling. Let's not get too carried away with models.