The perforating deployment system significantly reduces rig time while maximizing the perforation length per run as compared with traditional systems, both on land and offshore, for rig or rigless interventions with very limited rig-up height.

In limited rig-up height interventions, such as installations with short rig-up height or small cranes, to perforate long intervals it is necessary to use multiple short gun runs. To reduce the number of runs, short gun subassemblies are connected using a sealed ballistic transfer connector. The sealed ballistic transfer connector provides surface wellhead pressure containment sealing capability within the gunstring while also ensuring downhole ballistic transfer between guns subassemblies and the added value of optimizing perforating underbalance conditions. There is no limit on the number of sealed ballistic transfer connectors that can be used in one string. The sealed ballistic transfer connector allows deployment and reverse deployment under pressure in wells up to 103 MPa, and it is qualified for H2S environments.

The application of this technology allows significant rig-time savings and reduces personnel exposure via a remote operational console that enables personnel to connect and disconnect the guns under pressure from a safer distance. To date, many jobs have been completed with this proven technology. One example presented in this paper is a horizontal well perforated from an offshore installation with an extremely short rig-up height, where there was only 16 m available to deploy wireline toolstrings. The limited height meant that a conventional wireline with tractor would allow deploying only a single 6-m-long gun carrier per trip. Using sealed ballistic transfer connectors enabled a 53-m gunstring (seven 6-m and one 3-m carrier plus adaptations) to be deployed in a single run using eight sealed ballistic transfer connectors. This was a record for the deployment conditions. More than 100 deployment and reverse deployment insertions were successfully conducted during this perforating job, reducing the required number of wireline runs from 59 to 10, and saving 51 days of operation and rig time.

This paper demonstrates how the integrated application of the perforating sealed ballistic transfer connector technology, tractors, and polymer-encapsulated cables can reduce time in long perforating jobs with short rig-up heights both on land and offshore. In another presented example, the operator saved days of rig time, in addition to large economic and production time savings, and also reduced the exposure of personnel to lengthy, riskier tasks.