Halliburton Company

Otis Engineering Corporation

Christopher A Dines

Clark E Robison

Perry C Shy

William R Welch

Robert C Hammett

Howard R Mashaw, Jr

A longitudinally spaced series of tubular nipple structures are installed in a well flow conductor operatively extended through a subterranean well bore. Each nipple structure has a thinned-wall, increased interior diameter longitudinal section through which a plurality of fluid flow openings laterally extend, and an interior side surface annular tool locator recess, with each such recess having a profile different than those of all of the other tool locator recesses. The thinned-wall longitudinal sections of the nipples facilitate the formation of the flow openings therein. To seal off the flow openings in any selected one of these longitudinal nipple sections, a radially expandable tubular metal patch is supported on a setting tool which is lowered into the well flow conductor. A locator member complementarily and lockably receivable by the locator recess of the selected nipple is also supported on the tool. When the locator member snaps into releasably locked engagement with such locator recess, the patch member is automatically positioned in a predetermined longitudinal orientation coaxially with the longitudinal nipple section whose flow openings are to be sealed off. An expander portion of the setting tool is then pulled through the patch member to radially expand it into sealing engagement with the interior side surface of the selected longitudinal nipple section. Due to the increased interior diameter of the longitudinal nipple section, the tubular patch member installed therein does not decrease the drift diameter of the well flow conductor.

Internally sealable perforable nipple for downhole well applications

A production nipple is suspended within an uncased bore hole in a slimhole/monobore completion. A deposit of cement is conveyed through the nipple and is spotted in the annulus across the face of the uncased well bore, with the nipple and cement deposit thereafter being perforated by a small diameter perforating gun. The production nipple has a thin walled section which is characterized by reduced resistance to perforation by a shaped explosive charge. The perforating gun is accurately positioned in registration with the dedicated nipple section by an annular locator slot formed on a coupling sub, which is engagable by a resilient latch arm carried by the perforating gun.

Dedicated perforatable nipple with integral isolation sleeve

A sliding sleeve valve useful in a flow conduit to control and vary area of openings open for flow through the valve. The valve has a sleeve having a through flow passage and the sleeve is moveable between open, intermediate and closed positions. When the sleeve is in open position, the area open for flow through the valve is equal to area through the sleeve flow passage. As the sleeve is moved from open position to intermediate positions toward closed position, the area open for flow at each position is reduced to no area open for flow at closed position and conversely. Also disclosed is a pressure operated shifting tool which when lowered into the sleeve valve selectively locates in the valve, engages the sleeve, moves the sleeve upwardly or downwardly between positions and automatically disengages from the sleeve for retrieval. The invertible shifting module in the shifting tool is provided with a positioning sleeve which determines the distance the sleeve is moved when the shifting tool is operated. The shifting tool also includes structure for disengaging the sleeve valve if the shifting tool cannot move the sleeve or does not automatically disengage after operation and an emergency disconnect which may be operated to disconnect the flow conduit used to lower the shifting tool.

Growing community of inventors

Dallas, TX, United States of America

Christopher A Dines