Churchill Drilling Tools, a leading oilfield service company specializing in drilling innovation, has revealed that one of its specialist tools, the Mud Shear Sub™, significantly improved the mud conditioning process for a major North Sea operator during a recent P&A campaign; so much so the operator began subsequent retrieval operations ahead of schedule.

Saving an average of 1 hour for every 1,000bbls of mud sheared, the operator using the Mud Shear Sub™ introduced an additional shearing point to the circulating system across three separate wells. This sped up fluid conditioning, displacing sea water to jetting fluid, before conditioning mud through the tool.

Historically, the operator had spent significant time displacing the wells to jetting fluids and so were looking for a simple and reliable solution to speed up the process. The Senior Drilling Engineer was delighted with the Mud Shear Sub™’s performance and said it allowed them to get the mud up to spec much quicker.

Lynne Lyon, UK Account Manager at Churchill Drilling Tools, recommended the tool to her client: “Operators can spend hours conditioning mud, especially for milling operations. The Mud Shear Sub™ is an ingeniously simple solution that delivers significant time savings.”

Lynne continued: “I’m pleased that my client was able to speed up the mud conditioning process by around 50%, using the Mud Shear Sub™, saving time, cutting costs and driving efficiency. This latest success in the North Sea adds to the Mud Shear Sub™’s growing track record of performance.”