Backreaming is the practice of pumping and rotating the drillstring while simultaneously pulling out of the hole. When reliable top drive drilling systems (TDS) on conventional drilling rigs were introduced over 25 years ago, the practice of backreaming became a popular technique in the driller’s toolbox for tripping out of hole initially in deviated wells.

In general, backreaming operations have become a popular solution to poor hole conditions while pulling out of hole, but they are also notorious for causing the very same problems they are supposed to prevent, such as stuck pipe. If backreaming is not done properly, it may complicate the operations, cause wellbore stability issues, higher ECDs, and it may also cause stuck pipe incidents due to packoffs.

This presentation, based on SPE 116555, focuses on one of the industry’s most controversial subjects, reviews the implications of backreaming by using real-time data and case histories, and suggests proven procedures to trouble-free backreaming. It recommends the conditions that require backreaming and also suggests wellbore conditions that are not recommended for backreaming. More importantly, it proposes key drilling parameters that need to be monitored when backreaming. These include pump pressure, torque, hookload, cuttings rate and downhole measurements (if available) to detect and prevent backreaming induced operational problems.