Clad through Clad: A Mechanical Water Shut Off Solution for Commingled Production from Multilayered Reservoirs

A casing or tubing clad is a metal sleeve that can be run by several intervention means into a well to isolate an area of interest, be it to provide a permanent seal over splits, holes, or perforations in tubing and casing or for water shut off. Once it is on depth, the clad or metal sleeve is expanded out against the tubing or casing wall to form a seal. Taking the example of water shut-off isolation, conventional clad technology only permits a ‘bottom up isolation’, the current technology does not have the ability to pass through an expanded clad of the same size thus it is not possible at a later date to install a second clad below an existing clad. To resolve this issue, in 2006 TOTAL instigated the development of a “Clad thru Clad” technology through a JIP (Joint Industrial Program) Water Management RD well C, a gas well producing from a multilayered reservoir. The field trial was SUCCESSFUL although a number of improvements for future operations were identified.