Calgary – Oh, the wonder of traffic lights. More than two years ago, Steven Winkler stopped at a light in Medicine Hat on his way home to Calgary when an idea how to run a pump on coiled tubing popped into his head. Eureka! Quantum Downhole Systems Inc. was born June 15, 2009 in partnership with CJS Coiled Tubing Supply Ltd. in Lloydminster and Source Rock Energy Partners Ltd. in Calgary. Job orders are steadily on the uptick as word spreads. The new technology allows gas and oil exploration and production companies to economically clean out wellbores without the damage often associated with swabbing, fluid circulation and gas cleanouts in low pressure reservoirs. The applications for Quantum range from Class 1 and Class 2 vertical and horizontal wellbore cleanouts to frac sand recovery, drilling fluid recovery, and production testing. “We are very cost competitive on class 2 oil wells because you don’t need nitrogen,” said Winkler. “Nitrogen can cost up to $25,000 per cleanout.” The system utilizes produced or fresh water to run the pump and virtually no gas is vented to the atmosphere. “There are a ton of customers interested,” said Winkler, who was pitching the technology at the Global Petroleum Show in Calgary June 8-10.

Winkler has a solid background in the development of downhole tools, well ptimization and wireline services. “I have never seen a response from the industry like this with any of the technology I have worked for in my 14 year career,” he said. “This is technology to not only cleanout wells, but to gather information about what’s coming in from various parts of these horizontals. This can help exploration and production companies optimize the well design such as horizontal length and determining the optimal number of fracs for a reservoir. There is no technology like this.” It’s touted as an excellent system to evaluate wells that are in a two-phase flow regime. Quantum’s first generation JetPak system was field tested last year by companies throughout Alberta, mostly for vertical, shallow gas well cleanouts. “Out of the 220 wells that we have done, 185 of them have been shallow gas wells. We were successful doing that last year through a seven-year low gas price,” said Winkler. A JetPak trial by Husky last November led to the launch of a similar JetVak system for horizontal oil wells earlier this year.

 “We tested the JetVak pump in late April on a test bench,” said Winkler. “Then, we sold some jobs and ran it for Conoco, Husky and Harvest. “We ran the JetVak in Lloydminster for Harvest in that new horizontal play south of Lloyd, and it was a huge success. “The main challenge with heavy oil is viscous fluid. With heavy oil, we are going to be using hot fluid and oil water dispersants. “We have been successful in the area both with the JetPak and the JetVak in eight to 12 API wells. I am confident.” Both Quantum systems incorporate Flatpak coil tubing from CJS and an engineered jet pump from Source Rock.

The well cleanout operation requires the use of a pressure truck and a flow back tank or pressure tank vessel. The cleanout jet pump assembly is run on the Flatpak string, using one side for power fluid injection and the other side for fluid returns. At the desired depth, water is pumped from the pressure truck through one of the coil conduits in the Flatpak with the task of liquefying the solids as well as creating a suction in the pump. The JetPak is configured to run in either in a jet mode or a pumping mode, while the JetVak system performs both functions simultaneously. “There is going to be a lot of work for both. When designing the job application, we will decide which process is going to be the best for the job,” said Winkler.

“We can run the JetPak and the JetVak on any length of coil, depending on the application.” Winkler notes the JetVak system overcomes the limitations of the JetPak system tested on sand clean outs on some of Husky’s vertical wells in the Lloydminster area. “If you ran the JetPak into a horizontal well, and jet it and vacuum it, and jet it and vacuum it; some of the solids you jet will settle on top of the coil as you move into the hole, and it will get stuck in the hole,” said Winkler. It’s is really a significant breakthrough in technology.” Since the well is in an underbalanced state during the cleanout, the wellbore fluid and fluid built up near the wellbore are removed in higher volumes than conventional techniques.

Quantum and its technology partners have signed a joint venture with Technicoil in Calgary to run coil into horizontal oil wells as deep as 3,500 metres. Local suppliers will be hired for flowback equipment or pressure services. “We plan on going to Waskada in Southwest Manitoba, Kindersley with the Viking, and some of the Shaunovan wells – Lloydminster – anywhere there are wells having difficulty getting cleaned out or to production test them,” said Winkler. Quantum will also target under pressured wells in the Glauconite, Manville Group, Cardium, Banff and Three Forks-Sanish formations. “This is a scalable business,” said Winkler who is currently the only employee. “With the problem we are solving, the company is going to get bigger and bigger. We need to make sure our field operations go as smooth as possible, and that will ensure growth for us. “I dream there will be 20 or 30 coil tubing units running this stuff.” As for gas applications, Quantum says they will continue to grow that business but their focus is on under pressured horizontal oil wells. “We’ve got a good position where a lot of companies know about us, and we’ve worked with a lot of companies,” said Winkler. “With gas, they like the technology. It works, but the cost is too much because we have technology on location and because of the commodity price. “We are going to do okay on gas this summer, but we are not going to be doing the 50 to 100 well programs there used to be back in 2004, ’05 and ’06. “Oil prices are very good. The upside on those wells we work on makes the payout very quick.” With Quantum’s systems, multiple wells can be cleaned out in one day without disassembly of the pump from the coil tubing between wells.

Pipeline News July 2010