Five cement jobs failed on this interval. The sixth held.
A weak Brown Dolomite zone swallowed every foam cement job an operator ran at it — zero returns, no cement to surface, poor bond logs. Here's how a purpose-engineered MS Spacer system changed the outcome.
Zero returns
Zero returns
Poor bond log
Zero returns
Poor bond log
Full returns
A weak zone that beat conventional cementing five times
On an intermediate casing job in the Anadarko Basin, the operator hit severe lost circulation drilling through the Brown Dolomite — a known weak zone that caused complete losses with casing on bottom.
Five separate foam cement attempts followed the same pattern: zero returns, no cement reaching surface, and bond logs too poor to confirm isolation. Traditional cementing techniques couldn't isolate the zone or establish wellbore stability — and with more wells planned on the same pad, the risk was compounding with every well drilled.
Change what goes in ahead of the cement
Rather than adjust the cement again, the team engineered the fluid ahead of it. Fifty barrels of MS Spacer were blended with RadiLock 3 mm fiber and a lightweight bead lead, with polymer loading and contact time designed specifically for the weak interval.
The optimized blend delivered improved wellbore support, enhanced suspension, and effective loss mitigation before cement ever reached the zone.
Why it holds: seal the formation before cement arrives
The question ahead of any weak-zone job is whether the fluid seals against the formation or simply sits on top of it. A lab sandbed test makes the difference visible. Toggle below to compare cement behavior with and without a sealing spacer membrane.
Full returns, confirmed isolation, repeated pad-wide
The treatment restored full returns — an outcome that hadn't been achieved in any of the previous attempts. A USIT log confirmed the Brown Dolomite was effectively isolated. The cement wasn't designed to reach surface on this job, but zonal isolation was fully achieved, which was the metric that mattered.