APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR LANDING AND SETTING SLIP ASSEMBLY

Abstract

Slip assemblies that can be used for gripping pipes and running tools for installing such slip assemblies are provided. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a slip bowl assembly having a slip bowl and a plurality of slip segments movably affixed to the slip bowl for movement between a setting position and a running position. The apparatus also includes a running tool having an inner sleeve positioned within an outer sleeve. The outer sleeve holds the plurality of slip segments in the running position to facilitate installation of the slip bowl assembly and the inner sleeve is configured to move with respect to the outer sleeve so as to cause the plurality of slip segments to move from the running position to the setting position. Additional systems, devices, and methods are also disclosed.

Description

BACKGROUND

This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the presently described embodiments. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present embodiments. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.

In order to meet consumer and industrial demand for natural resources, companies often invest significant amounts of time and money in finding and extracting oil, natural gas, and other subterranean resources from the earth. Particularly, once a desired subterranean resource such as oil or natural gas is discovered, drilling and production systems are often employed to access and extract the resource. These systems may be located onshore or offshore depending on the location of a desired resource. Further, such systems generally include a wellhead assembly mounted on a well through which the resource is accessed or extracted.

Wellhead assemblies may include a wide variety of components, such as casing heads, tubing heads, and devices for hanging tubular strings (e.g., casing) within the well. For example, casing strings of different diameters in the well can be suspended from respective casing hangers installed in a wellhead. In some applications, it may be desirable to also hang a coiled tubing string in a well. Various clamping devices are used in many situations to engage a cylindrical body, such as a pipe or casing, within a circumscribing structure. Slips are examples of such clamping devices.

SUMMARY

Certain aspects of some embodiments disclosed herein are set forth below. It should be understood that these aspects are presented merely to provide the reader with a brief summary of certain forms the invention might take and that these aspects are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. Indeed, the invention may encompass a variety of aspects that may not be set forth below.

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to slip assemblies. In some embodiments, an apparatus includes a slip assembly having slip segments and a running tool to facilitate installation of the slip assembly in a bore of a housing. The slip segments are received in a slip bowl in a manner that allows movement of the slip segments between a running position and a setting position. The slip segments are held in the running position, such as with shear pins, during installation of the slip assembly. In some instances, this allows the slip segments to be moved along a casing string and over a protruding portion (e.g., a collar) of the casing string. Once positioned within the housing, the slip segments are moved to the setting position to grip the casing string or some other member to be held by the slip segments. In certain embodiments, the running tool causes the slip segments to shear the shear pins and move from the running position to the setting position.

Various refinements of the features noted above may exist in relation to various aspects of the present embodiments. Further features may also be incorporated in these various aspects as well. These refinements and additional features may exist individually or in any combination. For instance, various features discussed below in relation to one or more of the illustrated embodiments may be incorporated into any of the above-described aspects of the present disclosure alone or in any combination. Again, the brief summary presented above is intended only to familiarize the reader with certain aspects and contexts of some embodiments without limitation to the claimed subject matter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features, aspects, and advantages of certain embodiments will become better understood when the following detailed description is read with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like characters represent like parts throughout the drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 generally depicts various components, including one or more tubular strings and associated slips, that can be installed at a well in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 is an exploded section view of a slip bowl assembly and a running tool in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a cross-section of the slip bowl assembly and running tool of FIG. 2, with slip segments of the slip bowl assembly shown in a running position and the slip bowl assembly landed in a wellhead body in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a cross-section of the slip bowl assembly and running tool of FIG. 3, with the slip segments shown in a setting position in the wellhead body in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a cross-section of the slip bowl assembly within the wellhead body following removal of the running tool in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 6 is a flowchart representing a method of installing the slip bowl assembly in a wellhead in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF SPECIFIC EMBODIMENTS

Specific embodiments of the present disclosure are described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, all features of an actual implementation may not be described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time-consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

When introducing elements of various embodiments, the articles “a,” “an,” “the,” and “said” are intended to mean that there are one or more of the elements. The terms “comprising,” “including,” and “having” are intended to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements other than the listed elements. Moreover, any use of “top,” “bottom,” “above,” “below,” other directional terms, and variations of these terms is made for convenience, but does not require any particular orientation of the components.

Turning now to the present figures, a system 10 is illustrated in FIG. 1 in accordance with one embodiment. Notably, the system 10 can be a production system that facilitates extraction of a resource, such as oil, from a reservoir 12 through a well 14. Wellhead equipment 16 is installed on the well 14. As depicted, the wellhead equipment 16 includes at least one casing head 18 and tubing head 20 (which may also be referred to as wellhead housings or spools), as well as slips 22. But the components of the wellhead equipment 16 can differ between applications, and could include a variety of casing heads, tubing heads, spools, hangers, sealing assemblies, stuffing boxes, pumping tees, and pressure gauges, to name only a few possibilities. As depicted, the system 10 also includes a blowout preventer (BOP) 11 mounted above the wellhead equipment 16. Though a single BOP 11 could be used, it will be appreciated that a BOP stack having multiple BOPs 11 will be mounted above the wellhead equipment 16 in some instances.

The slips 22 can be positioned on landing shoulders 24 within hollow wellhead bodies (e.g., within the tubing head 20 and casing head 18). These landing shoulders 24 can be integral parts of tubing head 20 and casing head 18 or can be provided by other components, such as sealing assemblies or landing rings disposed in the tubing and casing heads. Slips 22 can grip a tubular string, such as a tubing string 26 or a casing string 28, to suspend the string within the well 14. The well 14 can include a single casing string 28 or include multiple casing strings 28 of different diameters.

Slips 22 may be provided in any suitable form, an example of which is depicted in FIG. 2. This depicted embodiment includes a running tool 100 and a slip bowl assembly 102. The running tool 100 includes a running tool pipe 104 having at its lower end an inner sleeve 106 positioned within an outer sleeve 110. As presently shown, the inner sleeve 106 is threaded to the running tool pipe 104, while the outer sleeve 110 of the running tool 100 hangs from retention pins 108 (e.g., dowel pins) carried by the inner sleeve 106. More particularly, the retention pins 108 extend radially outward from the inner sleeve 106 into travel slots or grooves 109 on the interior surface of the outer sleeve 110. The pins 108 and grooves 109 cooperate to allow the inner sleeve 106 to move axially with respect to the outer sleeve 110 while retaining the outer sleeve 110 to the inner sleeve 106. The outer sleeve 110 also includes shear pins 112 for fastening slip segments 120 of the slip bowl assembly 102 to the outer sleeve 110, and retainer screws or other fasteners 114 for coupling the running tool 100 to the slip bowl assembly 102. As discussed further below, the outer sleeve 110 holds (via the shear pins 112) the slip segments 120 in a running position to facilitate running of the slip bowl assembly 102 into a wellhead housing (or other body), and relative movement of the inner sleeve 106 with respect to the outer sleeve 110 facilitates shearing of the shear pins 112 and setting of the slip segments 120.

The slip bowl assembly 102 depicted in FIG. 2 includes a slip bowl 116, which has a landing shoulder 119 configured to land the slip bowl assembly 102 against a mating landing shoulder (e.g., shoulder 24) of a wellhead housing (e.g., casing head 18). In the presently depicted embodiment, the slip bowl 116 is annular in nature and has a substantially conical inner surface 117.

A plurality of slip segments 120 are positioned circumferentially about the slip bowl 116 with some clearance between adjacent slip segments 120. Any number of slip segments 120 is contemplated, though in certain embodiments the number of slip segments 120 ranges from four to eight. Each slip segment 120 is movably affixed to, and retained in, the slip bowl 116 by a holding pin 122 extending from the slip segment 120 through an elongated slot 124 in the slip bowl 116. The slip segments 120 are carried in the interior of the slip bowl 116 and move (e.g., by downward force or by gravity) along the conical inner surface 117, guided by the holding pins 122 in the elongated slots 124, from an upper retracted running position to a lower setting position. The slip segments 120 include outer surfaces 115 that slide on the conical inner surface 117 of the slip bowl 116 (which biases the sliding slip segments 120 inward into the setting position) and slip teeth 123 on interior surfaces of the slip segments 120 for gripping a pipe, a casing string, some other tubular string, or some other member to be held.

Retaining slots 118, such as keyhole slots, are provided in the top surface of the slip bowl 116 for receiving the retainer screws 114 to couple the running tool 100 to the slip bowl assembly 102. In one embodiment, retaining slots 118 are configured such that coupling and uncoupling from retainer screws 114 extending axially from the outer sleeve 110 can be accomplished by rotating the running tool 100 with respect to the slip bowl assembly 102. More specifically, with retaining slots 118 provided as keyhole slots, the running tool 100 can be coupled to the slip bowl assembly 102 by inserting heads of the retainer screws 114 through wider portions of the keyhole slots and then rotating the running tool 100 and the slip bowl assembly 102 with respect to one another to move the retainer screws 114 into narrower portions of the keyhole slots. In such an embodiment, the running tool 100 and the slip bowl assembly 102 could be uncoupled in the reverse manner—that is, by rotating the components to align the heads of the retainer screws 114 with the wider portions of the keyhole slots and then pulling the running tool 100 and the slip bowl assembly 102 apart.

Running of the slip bowl assembly 102 over a casing string 126 and into a wellhead housing 130 (e.g., casing head 18) is generally depicted in FIG. 3. The casing string 126 includes casing joints connected together with casing collars 128. The increased diameter of the casing string 126 at a casing collar 128 can interfere with installation of certain slip assemblies within a wellhead. With the running tool 100 and slip bowl assembly 102 coupled together as shown in FIG. 3, however, the shear pins 112 fasten the slip segments 120 to the outer sleeve 110 so as to hold the slip segments 120 in a retracted running position, in which the diameter of the region generally circumscribed by the retracted slip segments 120 is greater than the outer diameter of the casing collar 128. This allows the slip segments 120 to pass about a casing collar 128 of the casing string 126 as the slip bowl assembly 102 is run into the wellhead housing 130 via the running tool 100. With the slip segments 120 held by the outer sleeve 110 in this manner, the slip bowl assembly 102 can be run into the wellhead housing 130 over the collar 128 and landed on a landing shoulder 132 of the housing 130. Consequently, the slip bowl assembly 102 can be run into the wellhead housing 130 over the collar 128 and be used to suspend the casing 126 without first cutting the casing 126 below the collar 128. While the shear pins 112 are shown in FIG. 3 holding the slip segments 120 to the outer sleeve 110, it will be appreciated that shear pins 112 could also or instead be used to hold the slip segments 120 to some other component, such as to the slip bowl 116, during installation. Further, in at least some embodiments, rather than removing the BOP 11, the slip bowl assembly 102 can be run into the wellhead housing 130 with the running tool 100 through the BOP 11.

Once landed within the wellhead housing 130, the slip segments 120 can be moved to a setting position so as to engage and grip the casing 126, as generally shown in FIG. 4. More specifically, after landing the slip bowl assembly 102 on the landing shoulder 132, a downward force is applied to the slip segments 120 by the running tool 100 (via pipe 104 and inner sleeve 106) such that the inner sleeve 106 moves downward with respect to the outer sleeve 110, pushes the slip segments 120, and shears each of the shear pins 112 into two pieces—namely, a shear pin portion 112A that remains with the outer sleeve 110 and a shear pin portion 112B that remains with the slip segment 120. Once the shear pins 112 are sheared and the slip segments 120 are released from the outer sleeve 110, the slip segments 120 (which remain affixed to the slip bowl 116 via holding pins 122) move into the setting position with slip teeth 123 against the casing 126.

The holding pins 122 and elongated slots 124 cooperate to maintain circumferential alignment of the slip segments 120 while allowing the slip segments 120 to slide downward and radially inward until they contact the casing 126. The slip segments 120 may slide downward into contact with the casing 126 under the force of gravity. Further, the pins 108 and grooves 109 enable relative axial movement of the inner sleeve 106 with respect to the outer sleeve 110, and in at least some embodiments the inner sleeve 106 is pushed downward with respect to the outer sleeve 110 to drive the slip segments 120 into the setting position. It will be appreciated that in this setting position the area generally circumscribed by the slip segments 120 (i.e., the outer diameter of the casing 126) is smaller than the outer diameter of the casing collar 128.

Once the slip segments 120 move into the setting position against the casing 126, the casing 126 can be pulled upward to tension the casing to a desired hanging weight. This upward force may then be reduced to cause the slip segments 120 to tightly grip the casing 126 so that the casing 126 is held in tension and suspended within the well 14 via the slip segments 120. Following setting of the slip segments 120, the running tool 100 can be removed, as shown in FIG. 5 and described above.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart representing a method of installing the slip bowl assembly 102 in a wellhead housing 130 in accordance with one embodiment. The method represented in FIG. 6 starts at 136 with connecting the slip bowl assembly 102 to the running tool 100. In at least some embodiments, this includes inserting the retainer screws 114 of the running tool 100 into retaining slots 118 of the slip bowl assembly 102, as described above. Connecting the running tool 100 and the slip bowl assembly 102 together also includes retaining the slip segments 120 in a retracted running position, such as by fastening the slip segments 120 to the outer sleeve 110 with shear pins 112 to hold the slip segments 120 away from the center of the slip bowl assembly 102.

The method continues at 138 with running the slip bowl assembly 102 with the running tool 100 through one or more BOPs 11 and landing the slip bowl assembly 102 on a landing shoulder 24 (e.g., shoulder 132) in a wellhead housing (at 140). While BOPs 11 remain installed on the wellhead during running of the slip bowl assembly 102 in some instances, in other embodiments the BOPs 11 are removed and the slip bowl assembly 102 is run into the wellhead without passing through the BOPs 11. At 142, the method continues with applying force on the running tool 100 from above, which forces the inner sleeve 106 downward with respect to the outer sleeve 110 (e.g., with pins 108 moving downward within the grooves 109), thereby shearing the shear pins 112. At 144, downward movement of the inner sleeve 106 or gravity causes the slip segments 120 to slide down from the running position to the setting position in contact with the casing 126. In at least some instances, the method continues (at 146) with putting tension on the casing 126 to a desired hanging weight to facilitate gripping of the casing with the slip segments 120. At 148, the method concludes with removing the running tool 100, such as by rotating the running tool 100 to disengage the retainer screws 114 from the retaining slots 118 and then lifting the running tool 100 out of the wellhead through the one or more BOPs 11.

While the aspects of the present disclosure may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and have been described in detail herein. But it should be understood that the invention is not intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed. Rather, the invention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the following appended claims.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a slip bowl assembly comprising a slip bowl and a plurality of slip segments, wherein each of the plurality of slip segments is movably affixed to the slip bowl for movement between a setting position and a running position; and

a running tool comprising an inner sleeve positioned within an outer sleeve, wherein the outer sleeve is configured to hold the plurality of slip segments in the running position to facilitate installation of the slip bowl assembly and the inner sleeve is configured to move with respect to the outer sleeve so as to cause the plurality of slip segments to move from the running position to the setting position.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the outer sleeve holds the plurality of slip segments in the running position with shear pins.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein the inner and outer sleeves are arranged such that the shear pins can be sheared via movement of the inner sleeve with respect to the outer sleeve to allow the plurality of slip segments to move from the running position to the setting position.

4. The system according to claim 1, comprising a retention pin that retains the outer sleeve to the inner sleeve.

5. The system according to claim 4, wherein the retention pin is positioned in the inner sleeve and extends radially outward into an interior groove of the outer sleeve.

6. The system according to claim 5, wherein the outer sleeve hangs from the retention pin and the interior groove and the retention pin cooperate to allow relative axial movement of the inner sleeve with respect to the outer sleeve.

7. The system according to claim 1, wherein the slip bowl comprises a plurality of elongated slots and the plurality of slip segments are movably affixed to the slip bowl via holding pins extending into the plurality of elongated slots.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein the outer sleeve is coupled to the slip bowl assembly by a retainer fastener extending axially from the outer sleeve and received in a slot of the slip bowl.

9. The system according to claim 1, wherein the slip bowl includes a conical inner surface that biases the slip segments into the setting position.

10. A system comprising:

a slip bowl;

a running tool coupled to the slip bowl; and

slip segments fastened in a running position to the running tool, wherein the running tool is configured to release the slip segments from the running position and cause the slip segments to move with respect to the slip bowl into a setting position against a pipe.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the slip segments are fastened to the running tool with shear pins.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the running tool includes an inner sleeve and an outer sleeve, the slip segments are fastened to the outer sleeve with the shear pins, and the inner sleeve is moveable with respect to the outer sleeve to allow the inner sleeve to cause the shear pins to shear and the slip segments to move from the running position to the setting position.

13. The system according to claim 10, wherein the slip segments are movably fastened to the slip bowl.

14. A method comprising:

providing a slip bowl assembly comprising: slip segments movably affixed to a slip bowl; a running tool including an inner sleeve and an outer sleeve; and shear pins holding the slip segments in a first position;

running the slip bowl assembly, via the running tool, along a casing string with the slip segments in the first position; and

shearing the shear pins after running the slip bowl assembly along the casing string such that the slip segments move with respect to the slip bowl from the first position to a second position in which the slip segments contact the casing string.

15. The method according to claim 14, comprising inserting retainer fasteners extending axially from the outer sleeve into mating slots of the slip bowl assembly to couple the slip bowl assembly to the running tool.

16. The method according to claim 14, wherein running the slip bowl assembly along the casing string includes running the slip bowl assembly past a casing collar of the casing string.

17. The method according to claim 14, wherein running the slip bowl assembly along the casing string includes running the slip bowl assembly through a blowout preventer.

18. The method according to claim 14, wherein running the slip bowl assembly along the casing string includes running the slip bowl into a wellhead housing and landing the slip bowl assembly on a shoulder within the wellhead housing.

19. The method according to claim 18, further comprising disconnecting the running tool from the slip bowl assembly and removing the running tool from the wellhead housing.

20. The method according to claim 14, wherein the shear pins fasten the slip segments to the outer sleeve and shearing the shear pins includes axially moving the inner sleeve with respect to the outer sleeve to push the slip segments and shear the shear pins fastening the slip segments to the outer sleeve.