Did You Know?

When you have a stuck pipe incident on a long horizontal well, we are told to work the pipe in the opposite direction to which it was moving when it became stuck. However, if you don’t pick up the pipe enough distance to overcome the drill string stretch, then you might not get free ever.

What is happening: Normally the stuck pipe gets stuck at the BHA. When you put tension on the drill string, the amount of pipe movement at surface is not all transferred to the BHA due to friction.

If you pull the pipe a distance that is less of the pipe’s stretch, then you will never get the pipe free. You need to first estimate how much pipe stretches or compresses when stuck at the BHA. In this example you will need to pull at least 40 ft (for a 0.20FF) at surface before any movement gets transferred to the bit and BHA located at 23,000 ft measured depth on this horizontal well.