The recent development of dope-free solutions for tubing and casing premium connections provides a real and proved alternative to traditional thread compounds like the well known API Modified thread compound (1) , and the proprietary environmentally-friendly thread compounds. Among other advantages, the selected dope-free solution allows to solve the legal limitations to operate with standard compounds in very environmentally-sensitive areas as the Barents Sea, while providing a performance that fulfill nowadays requirements for tubing and casing applications, for different materials as C- steels, 13Cr and Corrosion Resistance Alloys. This paper describes the main concept and features of Dopeless?, a fully dry dope-free solution developed through extensive testing and laboratory evaluation, and the first 100% extensive field application of this solution in the Sn?vhit field of Statoil in the Barents Sea. In such field, all the tubing and casing strings were ran with dope-free proprietary premium connections, becoming the first field worldwide in adopting this technology for all the tubing and casing strings. The challenges of a new technology application in a very demanding initial experience were managed through a good communication and cooperation between the Dope-free connection manufacturer's development team and the operator technical team, which allowed to understand and to manage the features and challenges of not only a new product but a real new technology. As result of the experience, 40 tubing and casing strings of dope-free premium connections from 7" to 14" were run, using a floating rig equipped with automatic handling, with very acceptable results in terms of running performance, and without any particular event related to this. The results obtained, as well as the lessons-learnt and possible improvements are analyzed and discussed.
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