Houston-based oilfield technology company Baker Hughes' Prime Compact Puncher is one of the finalists for the 2025 ICoTA Global Intervention Technology Award, the winners for which will be declared towards March end during the SPE/ICoTA Well Intervention Conference and Exhibition.
The other nominations include TorcCollector by E Plug AS, riserless coiled tubing in a live subsea well from RLWI vessel by TechnipFMC, high resolution dual caliper and slim multielement cement and corrosion tool combination by SLB, and Wellgrab by Welltec.
The Prime Compact Puncher is an advanced electro-mechanical puncher technology that gives way through spaces between two strings of downhole tubing. The puncher comes with an orientation module that directs it to the high side of a pipe where flow is optimal. There it can punch multiple circulation holes at the same depth level, boosting fluid consistency during circulation.
While it's an autonomous process operating on the basis of inputted parameters, an engineer can still maintain manual supervision if and when required. When it comes to well security, the puncher's anchor system goes on alert mode in cases of power loss, shutting down automatically and tools safely pulled out of the holes.
The punch head and anchor kits can be customised on the basis of the pipe size, and the drilling-bit comes in either 25 mm or 12 mm in OD, creating up to 0.792 inches of flow per punch.
The model's feedthrough wiring supports the deployment of additional technology below enabling single-run, multi-function solutions e.g. punch and cut in a single run.
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