Iran: Iran's Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI) has announced that it has broken a US monopoly in the production of deepwell cement plugs.

Previously, only American companies manufactured the plugs used for solving numerous deepwell problems like lost-circulation, sidetracking or directional drilling, according to RIPI. "The technology is of great significance in oil and gas drilling projects," said Talat Khalkhali, Director of a project to develop the technology at RIPI. She said that the plugs are used to inject wellbore fluids and slurries during cementing operations in order to prevent them from mixing together. "Sidetracking incurs serious costs on cementing operations and the new plugs help reduce the cost to a considerable proportion," said Khalkhali, while adding that properly placing the designed cement plug helps reduce non-productive rig time, minimises wasted material and mitigates the need for additional cementing services.

National Iranian South Oil Company tasked RIPI with carrying out studies for developing and formulating the plugs by employing domestic experts in 2010. RIPI reverse-engineered cement plugs produced by top producers in the US and could manufacture them after six years of consecutive work. The high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) plugs can be used for wells up to 4500m deep. According to Khalkhali, their American rivals can only be used for up to 2500m deep wells.

The Iranian plugs have been tested several times at numerous wells across the country at various depths and have proven successful.