Wireline supported perforating gun enabling oriented perforations

Abstract

A perforating gun assembly is set forth. It incorporates a swivel connected with a cable head assembly and a navigation system for determining the instantaneous angle of the tool with respect to a vertical reference. There are first and second spaced cages formed of sleeves supported on bearing assemblies. The sleeves support free wheeling rollers which engage the casing when the tool is in the slant hole region of the well. There is an eccentric which falls downwardly, i.e., pointing toward gravity, and thereby defines a vertical reference and hence a horizontal reference. This eccentric mounts an elongate tubular housing for the shaped charges. Initially, the angle of firing of the shaped charges is adjusted at the time of installation with respect to the horizon and that in turn is correlated to the formation of interest in the well borehole which is then perforated with perforations which are parallel to the formation bedding plane.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.