Patent Application
20200131877
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the presently described embodiments. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present embodiments. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
In order to meet consumer and industrial demand for natural resources, companies often invest significant amounts of time and money in searching for and extracting oil, natural gas, and other subterranean resources from the earth. Particularly, once a desired subterranean resource is discovered, drilling and production systems are often employed to access and extract the resource. These systems may be located onshore or offshore depending on the location of a desired resource. Further, such systems generally include a wellhead assembly through which the resource is extracted. These wellhead assemblies may include a wide variety of components, such as various casings, valves, fluid conduits, and the like, that control drilling or extraction operations.
Additionally, such wellhead assemblies may use a fracturing tree and other components to facilitate a fracturing process and enhance production from a well. As will be appreciated, resources such as oil and natural gas are generally extracted from fissures or other cavities formed in various subterranean rock formations or strata. To facilitate extraction of such resources, a well may be subjected to a fracturing process that creates one or more man-made fractures in a rock formation. This facilitates, for example, coupling of pre-existing fissures and cavities, allowing oil, gas, or the like to flow into the wellbore. Such fracturing processes typically include injecting a fracturing fluid—which is often a mixture including sand and water—into the well to increase the well's pressure and form the man-made fractures. A fracturing manifold may provide fracturing fluid to one or more fracturing trees via fracturing lines (e.g., pipes).
Certain aspects of some embodiments disclosed herein are set forth below. It should be understood that these aspects are presented merely to provide the reader with a brief summary of certain forms the invention might take and that these aspects are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. Indeed, the invention may encompass a variety of aspects that may not be set forth below.
At least some embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to fracturing fluid delivery systems having fluid conduits with communication lines for routing both fluid and signals via the fluid conduits. In certain embodiments, a fracturing manifold is connected to a fracturing tree of a wellhead assembly with a fluid conduit having a communication line. The communication line may include a fiber optic line or an electrical line. Various signals may be routed through a communication line of the fluid conduit, such as data signals or command signals. The communication line can be attached to the exterior of a flexible hose or rigid pipe of the fluid conduit or embedded within the body of the flexible hose or rigid pipe.
Various refinements of the features noted above may exist in relation to various aspects of the present embodiments. Further features may also be incorporated in these various aspects as well. These refinements and additional features may exist individually or in any combination. For instance, various features discussed below in relation to one or more of the illustrated embodiments may be incorporated into any of the above-described aspects of the present disclosure alone or in any combination. Again, the brief summary presented above is intended only to familiarize the reader with certain aspects and contexts of some embodiments without limitation to the claimed subject matter.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of certain embodiments will become better understood when the following detailed description is read with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like characters represent like parts throughout the drawings, wherein:
Specific embodiments of the present disclosure are described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, all features of an actual implementation may not be described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time-consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.
When introducing elements of various embodiments, the articles “a,” “an,” “the,” and “said” are intended to mean that there are one or more of the elements. The terms “comprising,” “including,” and “having” are intended to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements other than the listed elements. Moreover, any use of “top,” “bottom,” “above,” “below,” other directional terms, and variations of these terms is made for convenience, but does not require any particular orientation of the components.
Turning now to the present figures, an example of a fracturing system 10 is provided in
The fracturing system 10 includes various components to control flow of a fracturing fluid into the well 12. For instance, the depicted fracturing system 10 includes a fracturing tree 20 and a fracturing manifold 22. The fracturing tree 20 includes at least one valve that controls flow of the fracturing fluid into the wellhead 16 and, subsequently, into the well 12. Similarly, the fracturing manifold 22 includes at least one valve that controls flow of the fracturing fluid to the fracturing tree 20 by a conduit or fluid connection 26, such as one or more pipes.
The fracturing manifold 22 is mounted on at least one skid 24 (e.g., a platform mounted on rails) to facilitate movement of the fracturing manifold 22 with respect to the ground 18. As depicted in
Fracturing fluid from a supply 28 is provided to the fracturing manifold 22. In
In at least some embodiments, fracturing fluid is routed to wellhead assemblies through fluid connections 26 having flexible hoses. One such example is generally depicted in
Valves 46 enable individual control of the flow of fracturing fluid from the trunk line to each fracturing tree 20 through the fluid conduits 48. The valves 46 are depicted here as mounted on the skid 24 as part of the assembly 40 of the fracturing manifold 22. In other instances, valves 46 could be positioned elsewhere (e.g., at the other end of the fluid conduits 48) or omitted (in which case valves of the fracturing trees could be used to control flow of fracturing fluid from the manifold into the wells).
The fluid conduits 48 are each depicted in
The communication lines 54 of the fluid conduits 48 can be used to transmit various signals, such as measurement data or control signals. For example, as generally depicted in
The wellhead assembly 60 of
In
The monitoring and control station 62 can take any suitable form, such as a computer with a processor that executes instructions stored in a memory device to process received data (e.g., data from the one or more sensors 64) and to control operation of the system. In some embodiments, the monitoring and control station 62 is programmed to control operation of the system based at least in part on measurements received from one or more sensors 64. For instance, in one embodiment the monitoring and control station 62 could issue a command signal to close a valve (such as valve 46 or 68) in response to a measured temperature or pressure above a desired threshold. The monitoring and control station 62 may also be provided as a distributed system with elements provided at different places near or remote from a wellhead assembly 60.
In some embodiments, the communication line 54 of the fluid conduit 48 is used as at least part of the communications pathway 72. That is, the communication line 54 is used to transmit signals between the wellhead assembly 60 and the monitoring and control station 62 or other equipment apart from the wellhead assembly 60. While the communication line 54 may be provided on the exterior of a fluid-conveying pipe or hose of the fluid conduit 48, in at least some embodiments the communication line 54 instead extends through the body of such a pipe or hose.
By way of example, the communication line 54 may be embedded within the flexible hose 50, such as shown in
Fracturing fluid typically contains sand or other abrasive particulates that can erode conduits through which the fracturing fluid flows. In at least some embodiments, the hose 50 includes an inner liner 80 within the body 78 along its bore 82 to reduce erosive effects from flow of fracturing fluid or other abrasive fluids through the hose 50. This inner liner 80 may be provided as a rubber layer provided on the interior surface of the body 78 defining the bore 82 but could take various other forms, such as a layer of some other polymeric or composite material. Further embodiments may include a wire mesh liner or a corrugated sleeve liner, such as those described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2017/0314379 (published on Nov. 2, 2017, with the title “Fracturing System with Flexible Conduit”), which is incorporated herein by reference.
During fluid flow through the hose 50, the liner 80 reduces impingement of abrasive particulates on the inner surface of the body 78 and, consequently, reduces erosive wear of the body 78. The liner 80, however, may itself erode in the presence of abrasive flow. Accordingly, in some embodiments the liner 80 is a removable liner. In other instances, the liner 80 could be patched or otherwise repaired. In at least some embodiments, a polymeric or composite inner liner 80 has a different color than a polymeric or composite material of the body 78 such that, when a portion of the inner liner 80 is worn through to the body 78, exposed portions of the inner surface of the body 78 may be more readily observed during inspection due to the contrasting colors. For example, the inner liner 80 may be formed of a black polymeric or composite material and the body 78 may be formed of a contrasting color, such as red, orange, or yellow. Although the hose 50 is depicted with a liner 80 in
As noted above, the conduit 48 can include rigid pipe connectors 52 on the ends of the hose 50 to facilitate installation. These rigid pipe connectors 52 can take any suitable form, but in the example depicted in
In at least some embodiments, the communication line 54 includes a fiber optic line or an electrical line for carrying signals. More specifically, the communication line 54 can include a fiber optic cable with one or more optical fibers for transmitting light to enable fiber-optic communication via the fluid conduit 48. In other instances, the communication line 54 includes an electrical cable with one or more conductive wires for carrying electric current. The communication line 54 (or elements thereof, such as the optical fibers or conductive wires) can be enclosed within one or more insulating or other protective layers, such as insulation, cladding, coatings, or other protective covers.
Communication signals (e.g., optical or electrical signals) can be conveyed along the fluid conduit 48 via the communication line 54. As noted above, such signals can include data communication to or from the wellhead assembly 60 (such as data acquired with a sensor 64) and command signals to the wellhead assembly 60 to control operation (such as by controlling an actuator 66). And as discussed in greater detail below, the communication line 54 could also or instead carry signals indicating erosive or other wear of the fluid conduit 48. Further, in at least one embodiment, the communication line 54 could be used to transmit electrical power for operating one or more components of the wellhead assembly 60 (e.g., a sensor 64 or actuator 66).
As depicted in
The fluid conduit 48 can include the signal connector 90, which can be mounted on the neck 86 or on some other suitable portion of the fluid conduit 48. By way of example, in
Although a single communication line 54 is depicted in
While a communication line 54 can be used to communicate commands, data, or other information between the wellhead assembly 60 and other equipment via the fluid conduit 48, in some embodiments the communication line 54 is also or instead used to sense wear of the fluid conduit 48, such as erosive wear within the hose 50. In some cases, for example, the communication line 54 can be used to sense gas or another fluid indicative of erosive wear of the interior surface of the body 78 or the inner liner 80. More specifically, as erosion wears the interior of the hose 50, a communication line 54 embedded in the hose 50 may be exposed to fluid within the bore 82. The communication line 54 may be monitored in any suitable manner to detect such exposure or other wear, such as by detecting a change in temperature, a change in a transmission property of the communication line 54, or a loss of continuity. In one embodiment, for instance, the communication line 54 is a fiber optic line and distributed temperature sensing may be used to detect temperature variation along the length of the communication line 54, or changes in temperature at a given position along the communication line 54, indicative of wear.
The location of a communication line 54 embedded in the hose 50 may vary between embodiments. In
In
Although
In certain embodiments, the fluid conduit 48 includes a reinforced hose 50. One example of such a reinforced hose 50 is generally depicted in
In some embodiments having a reinforced hose 50, one or more communication lines 54 are incorporated into a layer of reinforcing material. In
The rigid pipe connectors 52 can be attached to the hose 50 in any suitable manner. In one embodiment generally depicted in
The conduits 48 and the fracturing fluid delivery systems described above can be constructed for various operating pressures and with different bore sizes depending on the intended application. In some embodiments, the fluid conduits 48 are constructed for rated maximum operating pressures of 10-15 ksi (approximately 69-103 MPa). Further, the conduits 48 of some embodiments have bores between four and eight inches (approx. 10 and 20 cm) in diameter, such as a five-and-one-eighth-inch (approx. 13 cm) diameter or a seven-inch (approx. 18 cm) diameter. Additionally, while certain examples are described above regarding the use of conduits 48 for transmitting fluid and signals to a wellhead assembly, the conduits 48 having communication lines 54 could also be used in other instances to convey fluids and signals between other components.
Further still, while certain examples of fluid conduits 48 are described above as having flexible hoses 50 and communication lines 54, it will be appreciated that the communication lines 54 could also or instead be used with rigid fluid conduits 48. In some embodiments, for instance, communication lines 54 can be positioned along the exterior of rigid pipe segments or can be positioned in holes extending through the bodies of rigid pipe segments of a fluid conduit 48. In one embodiment, a fluid conduit 48 may include a combination of rigid and flexible pipes (such as described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2017/0314379 noted above), with one or more communication lines 54 provided on the exterior of one or more rigid pipes and embedded within the one or more flexible pipes.
While the aspects of the present disclosure may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and have been described in detail herein. But it should be understood that the invention is not intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed. Rather, the invention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the following appended claims.
