Squeeze job, or squeeze cementing is a term often used in the

oilfield A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...

to describe the process of injecting

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mix ...

slurry A slurry is a mixture of denser solids suspended in liquid, usually water. The most common use of slurry is as a means of transporting solids or separating minerals, the liquid being a carrier that is pumped on a device such as a centrifugal pu ...

into a zone, generally for pressure-isolation purposes.

Background

The term probably originated from the concept that enough water is "squeezed" out of the slurry to render it unflowable, so the portion that has actually entered the zone will stay in place when the squeeze pressure is released. After surface indications (e.g., pressure reaching a predetermined maximum) that a squeeze has been attained, any still-pumpable cement slurry remaining in the

drill pipe Drill pipe, is hollow, thin-walled, steel or aluminium alloy piping that is used on drilling rigs. It is hollow to allow drilling fluid to be pumped down the hole through the bit and back up the annulus. It comes in a variety of sizes, strengths, ...

or tubing ideally can be reverse circulated out before it sets. Usually the zone to be squeezed is isolated from above with a packer (and possibly from below with a bridge plug), but sometimes the squeezing pressure is applied to the entire casing string in what is known as a bradenhead squeeze, (named for an old manufacturer of

casing head In oil drilling, a casing head is a simple metal flange welded or screwed onto the top of the conductor pipe (also known as ''drive-pipe'') or the casing and forms part of the wellhead system for the well. This is the primary interface for the ...

s). Even if a drilling rig is on location, pumping operations usually are done by a service company's cementing unit that can easily mix small batches of cement slurry, measure displacement volume accurately to spot the slurry on bottom, then pump at very low rates and high pressures during the squeeze itself, and finally measure volumes accurately again when reversing out any excess slurry. A squeeze manifold is a compact arrangement of valves and pressure gauges that allows monitoring of the drill pipe and casing pressures throughout the job, and facilitates quick switching of the pumping pressure to either side while the fluid returning from the other side of well is directed to the mud pit or a disposal pit or tank. The generic term "squeeze" also can apply to injection of generally small volumes of other liquids (e.g., treating fluids) into a zone under pressure. Bullhead squeeze (or just plain

bullheading A well kill is the operation of placing a column of heavy fluid into a well bore in order to prevent the flow of reservoir fluids without the need for pressure control equipment at the surface. It works on the principle that the hydrostatic head ...

) refers to pumping kill-weight

mud A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...

down the casing beneath closed

blowout preventer A blowout preventer (BOP) (pronounced B-O-P, not "bop") is a specialized valve or similar mechanical device, used to seal, control and monitor oil and gas wells to prevent blowouts, the uncontrolled release of crude oil or natural gas from a w ...

s in a kick-control situation when it isn't feasible to circulate in such from bottom.

References

Oilfield terminology Drilling technology Petroleum engineering {{engineering-stub

Background

See also

References