Snubbing can maintain the integrity of an oil and gas well and increase its productive time, reducing costs and downtime of the well for our clients.

Ventia's newest rigs, the Advantage Light Rig Extra (ALRx) have built-in push-pull capability for shallower underbalanced well intervention operations, enabling operations to move more quickly with less downtime.

For deeper wells with higher pressures, a Rig Assist Snubbing unit comes into play.

Through an agreement with Momentum Well Services, Ventia can provide both integrated push-pull and rig assist snubbing options for customers.

Snubbing is a technique to install or remove tubular (pipe) from a well, while the well remains under pressure or a live well. The advantage of snubbing is that work can be performed without stopping the well, thereby eliminating possible reservoir formation impairment and costly stimulation operations to get the well flowing again. By maintaining the integrity of the well and increasing its productive time, our customers benefit from reduced costs and downtime of the well.

Together with our experienced teams, Ventia (previously Easternwell) can provide customers with Rig Assist snubbing options for deeper wells with higher pressure. The Rig Assist snubbing unit is a standalone piece of equipment that attaches to the workover rig during well servicing operations.

Ventia's Rig & Well Services General Manager, Kyle Koziol said it is a significant benefit for our customers that we can provide both these services.

The main benefit of snubbing options for our customers is that we can reduce the risk of impairment to the reservoir without impact to initial gas production or other production impacts.

"Snubbing operations do not require large volumes of water or the trucking required to deliver the water, so the environmental impact of the operation is also reduced."

Momentum Well Services Chief Executive Officer, Warren Willmington said their Rig Assist snubbing team look forward to working with Ventia using the latest snubbing technology.

"Our innovative Snub Smart technology is a significant step up on other snubbing units because of the use of integrated sensors and automated safety interlocks. The technology alerts the operator to potential dangers and doesn't allow the snubbing unit to perform a task that may endanger personnel or damage the equipment, or that could lead to a well blow out or other significant well site incident."

The Snubbing Process

During the snubbing/stripping procedure, all the normal equipment associated with the workover or drilling rig is still used, with the rig's drawworks supplying the lifting force when in the stripping mode. The rig's BOP stack provides the primary well control whilst the snubbing unit's BOP becomes the stripping stack.

The process of snubbing involves the tripping of pipe into and out of a well with surface pressure. When the surface pressure and the work string is such that the force pushing up on the pipe is greater than the gravity pulling the pipe down, moving the pipe is termed 'snubbing'. When the weight of the pipe becomes greater than the force of pressure acting on the cross-sectional areas of the pipe, the pipe will fall into the well bore by gravity. The procedure is termed 'stripping'. The common terms used in the field to describe these two situations are 'pipe light and 'pipe heavy'.

During snubbing or stripping operations, a combination of the surface BOPs, wireline plugs or string floats, and hydrostatic pressure may be used to control the well. The surface BOPs are in constant use and are the primary form of well control.