Abstract
Presence of undesired and unplanned fluid movement in the wellbore is a major concern for operators through-out a well's life cycle. This happens when the barrier system of the well fails to provide the required isolation. Cemented sections are important barrier systems where failure of isolation can cause numerous issues such as emission to surface, undesired water production, depletion of gas drive mechanism, loss of production to the neighboring zones, contamination of freshwater sands and reservoir damage. Priorities are often given to ensure cement integrity during the plug and abandonment (P&A) phase to eliminate uncontrolled emission to surface post P&A.
Deployment of two new generation acoustics technologies will enable operators to comprehensively identify these undesired/unplanned fluid movement in the wellbore and also indicate cement quality in annulus by running in tubing prior to P&A campaign in rig-less mode. The technology responsible to determine hydraulic seal consists of full-spectrum acoustics sensors that accurately identifies downhole leak or flow behind pipe through industry leading sensitivity & broadest frequency bandwidth sensors. The cement sheath quality meanwhile can be determined through deployment of multi-string isolation logging technology that provides multi-layer cement bond quality measurement. Unlike conventional cement bond logs and ultrasonic imaging logs which requires prior removal of production tubing from the wells, the multi string isolation logging technology diagnoses the cement sheath quality without the need to pull the tubing. Both of this technology can be deployed in the same run.
The accurate assessment of cement bond and isolation conditions in multi-layered configurations not only reduces unnecessary costs, but significantly simplifies the traditional P&A process altogether. While many P&A operations can run as high as $500,000 per day, new generations acoustics based downhole leak and flow detection technology coupled with multi-layer cement bond quality measurement technology drastically reduces overall expenditure and ensures the most efficient operation process. It also paves the way in innovation for a wider range of rigless P&A solutions.
The proposed technology are unique products of Archer and Probe. The combination run also indicate the value that can be generated from collaboration within technology providers in the industry.
