Abstract
Ever since man began drilling for oil, operators have continuously looked for ways to increase drilling efficiency and reduce the cost of hydrocarbons recovery. As part of this search, the openhole casing technique was developed to prevent drilled holes from collapsing. Then, liner strings were introduced to the industry as an alternative for the long casing strings in production intervals.
Eventually, liner hangers were introduced. As time passed, they became a well-defined segment in the oilfield services business. Service companies employed technology to develop advanced liner hangers, beginning with mechanical-set liner hangers, and evolving through hydraulic-set liner hangers and balanced cylinder hangers to expandable-type liner hangers. Each hanger-setting mechanism mentioned here had its strengths, advantages and limitations. This made each type of setting mechanism optimally fit for a certain application, but perhaps not the best fit for other applications.
In this paper each setting mechanism will be assessed to show its strengths, advantages and also limitations and disadvantages. Our goal is to make decisions on liner hanger setting-mechanism selection more accurate and to give drilling engineers a better understanding of liner hanging techniques.
We will also review liner running techniques such as floating liners, drilling/reaming liners and steerable drilling liners to show each technique’s advantages and limitations. Case histories will be used to illustrate the different applications and liner hanger technical solutions available in the industry.
