The combination of a newly developed extreme-tensile-strength steel wireline cable armor and polymer encapsulation technologies has recently created a second generation of low-torque, extreme-strength wireline cables. The high-pull system is complemented with high-capacity winch units for surface data acquisition, tensionrelief capstans, and downhole well accessories. The resulting surface pull capacity of wireline conveyance reaches 26,000 lbf, a 25% increase over the strongest system available previously.

When the 21,000-lbf system was introduced in 2010, deepwater fishing incidents dropped to less than 1% of total descents. However, with 3 days per fishing operation, associated deepwater fishing time remains high. The new high-pull system has been deployed in the Gulf of Mexico since October 2014. Pulls exceeding 21,000 lbf made it possible to prevent four instances of otherwise unavoidable fishing incidents, saving more than 12 deepwater fishing days and USD 9 million of rig time. In 2015 Gulf of Mexico fishing incidents have dropped to a record low 0.4% of total descents.