In unconventional resource plays across the United States, lateral well sections are being extended beyond 10,000-ft. The increased application of larger coiled tubing (CT) in 2.375-in and 2.625-in diameter for operations in wells with mid-to-high pressure has pushed the reliability envelope for conventional CT strings. Lower expected life, while the tubing remained within safe working limits, restricted the Operator's completion and clean out options, which acted as a potential barrier to longer lateral intervention. The performance of CT Interventions in complex extended reach wells with 10,000-ft+ laterals is presented in field case studies detailing extended lateral reach, average service life with statistics at retirement, and common failure modes. The manufacturing of CT strings with improved reliability, life, and reach capabilities has been paramount to extending the limits of CT applications. Well Operators and Service Companies have embraced newer CT technologies and highly engineered string designs that can perform safely in challenging well conditions. The latest technological innovation in the CT manufacturing industry is the implementation of an in-line quench and temper (Q&T) process. The Q&T process enhances the overall CT life and predictability by producing tubing with more uniform microstructure throughout its entire length, increased material strength, and improved bend fatigue performance. When the Q&T product is combined with rapid-taper strip technology and iterative CT design methodology, unique CT string configurations can be produced that achieve unprecedented well lateral reach with improved service life. The combination of these factors enables the safe application of CT with greater diameter to wall thickness ratios (D/t) and increased wall thicknesses. Heavy CT walls including0.276-in which is the thickest used historically in CT interventions, are being deployed, all while satisfying weight constraints, pressure ratings, tensional load limits, and fatigue performance requirements. Actual field operations using this Q&T CT technology have experienced overall increased average running footages of 40%-60% compared to conventional grade strings. This performance has resulted in lower CT replacement rates, creating a cost- effective and time-saving solution for well intervention and drilling operations. As new horizontal drilling and completion technologies are developed and utilized in the industry, CT manufacturers and Service Companies will continue to innovate and provide engineered solutions that enable coiled tubing to be a robust, safe and reliable technology in the toughest environments and on the most critical projects.

The performance of coiled tubing pipe in real-world conditions is a topic of interest and frequent discussion within the industry. With pipe cost routinely exceeding $250,000 per string, service companies want to know if they are achieving the maximum return on their investment, and how their utilization compares with their competitors. However, industry-wide information is not readily available, especially for newer pipe grades, while published data tends to be specific to a particular company, region, or type of operation. As a result, policies regarding pipe life and criteria for retirement are largely set by each company, and industry practices can be slow to adapt as new products and procedures emerge. An online system has been in place since 2010 where service companies upload, track and evaluate pipe and job data for the purposes of their own string management and operation planning. With records for over 5,200 strings and 146,550 jobs at the time of writing, this database has the potential to generate in-depth analysis of pipe performance. However, the data entered by each participant is confidential to that company, and is not usually available for general analysis. An initiative has therefore been developed whereby companies can choose to make certain data available, appropriately anonymized to protect commercial interests, which can be used to generate statistics of interest to the industry at large. To illustrate the potential benefits, this paper will present a sample analysis of string performance based on cumulative running feet (or meters) at the time of pipe retirement. Since most coiled tubing operations are billed at least in part on running feet, this can be considered as a proxy for revenue. Total running feet will be compared with modeled pipe fatigue to see which metric better anticipates working life in real-world conditions. The paper will show how, when a large quantity of data is available, a statistically meaningful distribution of outcomes can be determined for each pipe diameter and grade, thus making it possible to compare grades, and quantify whether a given string has exceeded or fallen short of expectation, relative to the industry as a whole and not just the company concerned. The importance of taking into account all relevant factors, including the operating pressures and environment that the string has been exposed to during its working life, will be discussed. In conclusion, an approach to increase the amount of available data, taking into account legitimate confidentiality concerns, will be proposed.