Losing tools, tong dies, couplings, bolts, and clamp pins downhole from accidental drops or breakage and wear of a tool costs oil companies a great deal of time and money when ESP equipment gets stuck. Work stops. Calls are made. Decisions have to be made on what to do next. This is happens daily around the world.

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Some companies mandate using a hole cover while doing work on a rig over an open borehole.  Some do not. But, all should. When they do require it, the rig hands will take anything they can find on location, cutting out an improvised mat from an old mud flap or a discarded piece of plastic, using a knife or blade. This is dangerous. Every time they use the improvised mat, they have to remove it and put it back on over and over, which adds time to operations. When they take it off, they throw it on the rig floor, which creates a trip hazard. Because the mat was made by hand, it has a huge gap around the equipment which means it really serves no purpose. The improvised mat may fail or break in the middle of operations. Some field service companies will use a cloth bag and shove it downhole inside the slips and around the equipment. This is a safety concern because the bag, or hands, can get caught up in the slips and accidentally actuate them to close. Either of these options poses a hazard to the people working on the rig floor and adds time during the installation or retrieval of the downhole equipment, which costs money.

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Another complaint from the rig operators when using these improvised mats is they can’t see the actuation of the slips opening and closing because it isn’t rigid and drapes around the slips. They have to ask one of the floor hands if the slips are opened or closed because they cannot see the equipment, cable, or tubing going in and out of the hole. If the equipment is moved while the slips are closed or the slips are closed on the MLE cable, there can be irreparable damage done to the equipment and MLE. This forces work to stop, the dreaded phones calls have to be made, and new equipment or cable shipped out to location.

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When the improvised mat is over the bowl of the slips, the field service technician can no longer see exactly where he’s putting his work stand. If the stand is misaligned slightly, when the equipment load is set on the stand and the weight released, it could shift, causing equipment damage, or far worse, serious bodily harm to those on the rig floor.

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The Vigilant Downhole Cover can help to prevent those losses and save time during the equipment installation or retrieval process.  While nothing is 100% avoidable, having an additional layer of protection between the work area and the borehole can prove invaluable from accidental drops.

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The Vigilant Downhole Cover is designed to lock into the bowl of the slips, preventing lateral and vertical movement of the entire device after assembly (which takes about 1 minute to assemble or disassemble).  It is a 4-piece design comprised of a slide-on cover, two base pieces, and a rubber insert. The slide-on cover and base pieces are fabricated from durable and strong 1/4” plate steel. The Vigilant Downhole Cover rubber insert is made from 4 plies of flexible and resilient mat material. The rubber insert is placed inside the slide-on cover, which has a slot designed to keep the rubber insert in place and provide support.  Then two locking pins are inserted through the assembly to keep all pieces locked in place.

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After assembling the cover prior to starting work, there is no need to remove it until your ready to hang the equipment. If needed, it can be assembled or removed at anytime, even with equipment or tubing in the hole.

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Each cover is custom made to fit the slips on the workover rig.  Each slip manufacturer has their own dimensions for the inner diameter (ID) of the bowl, the gate, and the depth of the bowl.  Rig companies usually use the same model and manufacturer across their fleets for easy change outs from rig to rig. The base plates and slide-on cover IDs are fabricated To match the ID of the slip bowl. 

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There are two types of rubber inserts for the Vigilant Downhole Cover. The equipment rubber insert is specifically designed to fit the ESP equipment and smoothly transition from larger OD pieces to smaller OD pieces.  When the equipment installation is complete, the equipment rubber insert is removed and the run-in-hole (RIH) rubber insert is installed.  The equipment rubber insert and RIH rubber insert can be fabricated to fit any size of equipment, from slimline to 500 series, or tubing, using any style of cable clamp or bands.

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For a time, I was an ESP field service technician. As well as helping to provide drop protection, I wanted to design the Vigilant Downhole Cover to provide a large, flat, and stable platform for the for ESP field service technician to place the work stand while putting together or taking apart the ESP pieces. Not having to perfectly align the base of the stand on the narrow bowl edges might not seem like much, but it saves time. With the Vigilant Downhole Cover on the bowl of the slips, there is nothing draping over the body of the slips, giving the rig operator a full field of view of the slips operating.

 

The Vigilant Downhole Cover provides an unprecedented option in protection for any oil company, well service company, or field service company working over an open borehole installing or retrieving ESP equipment or tripping tubing.