Workover

The term workover is used to refer to any kind of oil well intervention involving invasive techniques, such as wireline, coiled tubing or snubbing.

More specifically, a workover refers to the expensive process of pulling and replacing completion or production hardware in order to extend the life of the well.

The production tubing may have become damaged due to operational factors like corrosion to the point where well integrity is threatened.

commonly known as a blowout preventer, then lifting the tubing hanger from the casing head, thus beginning to pull the completion out of the well.

If in some instances the casing string cannot be removed from the well, it may be necessary to sidetrack the offending area and recomplete, which is also an expensive process.