Patent Application
20250215788
None.
This invention relates to gathering data from wells, especially cased wells or wells with production tubing in place.
The most common method for gathering data about cased wells is wireline logging. A tool is lowered into the well on a wire. The tool may gather data e.g. about well restrictions, drift, well geometry, corrosion, possible perforation of the casing or the state of the cement around the casing. Gathering data about well conditions with wireline is expensive, especially in offshore platform wells, but even more so in subsea wells. Specialist wireline equipped vessels (e.g. riserless light well intervention, or RLWI vessels) or rigs need to be deployed.
Increasingly, there is a need to inspect cased wells regularly to check for damage and/or integrity issues, and there is a need to reduce the cost of this inspection process.
US2021027771A1 describes dropping a ball down coil tubing and detecting the ball as it descends using a DAS line that can detect the acoustic energy generated by the ball as it descends through the well fluid. The ball may also have an acoustic transmitter.
The invention more particularly includes a process and a ball or dart as described in the claims appended to this specification.
In an alternative embodiment, a modular dart system is provided, wherein a first dart module that includes a data sensor and/or transmitter and a second dart module having a drift diameter greater than that of the first module, the first and second modules being detachable, and wherein a plurality of second modules having different drift diameters are provided. In this system, the second modules may at least in part be constructed of dissolvable material that may dissolve over time in well fluid or that may be dissolved by chemicals, e.g. acid, that are passed into the well tubing when it is desired to remove the dart.
In another alternative embodiment, a dart is provided having a flex sensor within the dart by means of which curvature of the dart, and hence of the tubing, casing or liner, may be detected. In other words, bending of the dart and flex sensor may be detected as the dart passes along well tubing. In this way, bends in the well or tubing can be detected because the flex sensor will be flexed as the dart passes a bend in the well or tubing, and a signal generated.
For example, an optical fibre element may be provided within the dart. The fibre may be a substantially straight length of fibre arranged along the length of the dart or may be arranged in a coil, e.g. a helical coil with its axis extending along the length of the dart. The dart may include a device for transmitting light through the fibre and for detecting backscattered light, as with a DTS or DAS system. A bend in the fibre will alter the character of the back scattered light, as is well known in connection with DAS/DTS systems. Therefore, the extent and direction of bends in the tubing can be detected along the tubing as the dart descends.
Other types of flex sensor are known, such as conductive ink flex sensors, capacitative flex sensors and velostat flex sensors. Any of these, or other known flex sensors, may be used.
The body of the dart may be flexible so that the dart, including flex sensor within it, flexes as it passes deviations or bends in the well or tubing. The dart does not necessarily have to comprise a flexible solid body or shell with the flex sensor contained within it; alternative structures for the dart may be provided, such as a frame or cage that flexes and within which the sensor is mounted. Well known in the industry are centralisers, which may comprise a plurality of resilient elements, e.g. bow shaped elements that resiliently bear against the well or tubing walls. A flex element may be mounted within such a centralizer or between two or more such centralisers, possibly mounted to a relatively thin, flexible structural member mounted between the centralisers.
In both the embodiments described above, the dart may include an acoustic transmitter to transmit sensed data or a signature pulse to a DAS cable running down the outside of the tubing, thereby providing a continuous signal to the surface indicative of the location of the dart and/or of data indicative of drift and/or bending of the tubing.
In one embodiment the dart or ball may comprise one or more deformable wiper fins attached sequentially in a variety of diameters. A variety of wipers are known for cleaning cement from the well bore and these wipers are made of a variety of materials selected from rubber, nitrile, polymer, high-temperature polymers, and dissolvable polymers. Fit for purpose wipers may be constructed that comprise either flex or contact sensors to determine the roundness of the wiper, the amount of wiper deformation, and the eccentricity of the wiper. Because each wiper may be a different diameter, the eccentricity and diameter of the casing can be detected, because the wipers may be extended for a length, bending of the wiper can accurately determine the curvature of the casing. The ball or dart and wipers may be solid if the tool is to be pumped into the well bore. Alternatively, the dart or ball may have an opening to allow flow through the middle, or the wiper fins may have perforations to allow fluid to flow through the fins if the tool is to be dropped into the well bore.
Examples and various features and advantageous details thereof are explained more fully with reference to the exemplary, and therefore non-limiting, examples illustrated in the accompanying drawings and detailed in the following description. Descriptions of known starting materials and processes can be omitted so as not to unnecessarily obscure the disclosure in detail. It should be understood, however, that the detailed description and the specific examples, while indicating the preferred examples, are given by way of illustration only and not by way of limitation. Various substitutions, modifications, additions and/or rearrangements within the spirit and/or scope of the underlying inventive concept will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.
As used herein, the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,” “including,” “has,” “having” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, product, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is not necessarily limited only those elements but can include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, process, article, or apparatus. Further, unless expressly stated to the contrary, “or” refers to an inclusive or and not to an exclusive or. For example, a condition A or B is satisfied by any one of the following: A is true (or present) and B is false (or not present), A is false (or not present) and B is true (or present), and both A and B are true (or present).
The term substantially, as used herein, is defined to be essentially conforming to the particular dimension, shape or other word that substantially modifies, such that the component need not be exact. For example, substantially cylindrical means that the object resembles a cylinder, but can have one or more deviations from a true cylinder.
Additionally, any examples or illustrations given herein are not to be regarded in any way as restrictions on, limits to, or express definitions of, any term or terms with which they are utilized. Instead, these examples or illustrations are to be regarded as being described with respect to one particular example and as illustrative only. Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that any term or terms with which these examples or illustrations are utilized encompass other examples as well as implementations and adaptations thereof which can or cannot be given therewith or elsewhere in the specification and all such examples are intended to be included within the scope of that term or terms. Language designating such non-limiting examples and illustrations includes, but is not limited to: “for example,” “for instance,” “e.g.,” “In some examples,” and the like.
Although the terms first, second, etc. can be used herein to describe various elements, components, regions, layers and/or sections, these elements, components, regions, layers and/or sections should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element, component, region, layer or section from another. Thus, a first element, component, region, layer or section discussed below could be termed a second element, component, region, layer or section without departing from the teachings of the present inventive concept.
A variety of computer structures may be suitable for implementing one or more aspects of the present disclosure. Computer structures may include a central processing unit (CPU), interfaces, and a connection (e.g., a PCI bus). When acting under the control of appropriate software and/or firmware, the CPU is responsible for executing packet management, error detection, and/or routing functions. The CPU preferably accomplishes all these functions under the control of software including an operating system and any appropriate applications software. CPU may include one or more processors, such as a processor from the INTEL® CORE™ family of microprocessors or a quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex processor from RASPBERRY PI®. The processor used may depend upon the required function, memory, and speed required for a specific function. In some cases, processor can be specially designed hardware for controlling the operations of device. In some cases, a memory (e.g., non-volatile RAM, ROM, etc.) also forms part of CPU. However, there are many different ways in which memory could be coupled to the system.
The interfaces are typically provided as modular interface cards (sometimes referred to as “line cards”). Generally, they control the sending and receiving of data packets and sometimes support other peripherals used with the device 800. Among the interfaces that may be provided are Ethernet interfaces, frame relay interfaces, cable interfaces, DSL interfaces, token ring interfaces, and the like. In addition, various very high-speed interfaces may be provided such as fast token ring interfaces, wireless interfaces, Ethernet interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, ATM interfaces, HSSI interfaces, POS interfaces, FDDI interfaces, WIFI interfaces, 3G/4G/5G cellular interfaces, CAN BUS, LoRA, and the like. Generally, these interfaces may include ports appropriate for communication with the appropriate media. In some cases, they may also include an independent processor and, in some instances, volatile RAM. The independent processors may control such communications intensive tasks as packet switching, media control, signal processing, crypto processing, and management. By providing separate processors for the communications intensive tasks, these interfaces allow the master microprocessor (e.g. CPU) to efficiently perform routing computations, network diagnostics, security functions, etc.
A person of ordinary skill in the art would be able to select a processor and interface required. A variety of processors, ports, power sources, transmitters, and other components may be combined from a variety of sources to achieve unique or specific functions as required. Although a system described herein may provide one specific device according to some examples of the present technologies, it is by no means the only network device architecture on which the present technologies can be implemented. For example, an architecture having a single processor that handles communications as well as routing computations, etc., is often used. Further, other types of interfaces and media could also be used with the device.
Regardless of the device's configuration, it may employ one or more memories or memory modules (including memory) configured to store program instructions for the general-purpose operations and mechanisms for roaming, route optimization and routing functions described herein. The program instructions may control the operation of an operating system and/or one or more applications, for example. The memory or memories may also be configured to store tables such as mobility binding, registration, and association tables, etc. Memory 806 could also hold various software containers and virtualized execution environments and data.
The device can also include an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), which can be configured to perform routing and/or switching operations. The ASIC can communicate with other components in the device via the connection, to exchange data and signals and coordinate various types of operations by the device, such as routing, switching, and/or data storage operations, for example.
A computing system architecture wherein the components of the system are in electrical communication with each other using a connection, such as a bus. Exemplary system may include a processing unit (CPU or processor) and a system connection that couples various system components including the system memory, such as read only memory (ROM) and random access memory (RAM), to the processor. The system can include a cache of high-speed memory connected directly with, in close proximity to, or integrated as part of the processor. The system can copy data from the memory and/or the storage device to the cache for quick access by the processor. In this way, the cache can provide a performance boost that avoids processor delays while waiting for data. These and other modules can control or be configured to control the processor to perform various actions. Other system memory may be available for use as well. The memory can include multiple different types of memory with different performance characteristics. The processor can include any general purpose processor and a hardware or software service, such as service 1, service 2, and service 3 stored in storage device, configured to control the processor as well as a special-purpose processor where software instructions are incorporated into the actual processor design. The processor may be a completely self-contained computing system, containing multiple cores or processors, a bus, memory controller, cache, etc. A multi-core processor may be symmetric or asymmetric.
To enable user interaction with the computing system architecture, an input device can represent any number of input mechanisms, such as a microphone for speech, a touch-sensitive screen for gesture or graphical input, keyboard, mouse, motion input, speech and so forth. An output device can also be one or more of a number of output mechanisms known to those of skill in the art. In some instances, multimodal systems can enable a user to provide multiple types of input to communicate with the computing system architecture. The communications interface can generally govern and manage the user input and system output. There is no restriction on operating on any particular hardware arrangement and therefore the basic features here may easily be substituted for improved hardware or firmware arrangements as they are developed.
Storage device is a non-volatile memory and can be a hard disk or other types of computer readable media which can store data that are accessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, solid state memory devices, digital versatile disks, cartridges, random access memories (RAMs), read only memory (ROM) 920, and hybrids thereof.
The storage device can include services for controlling the processor. Other hardware or software modules are contemplated. The storage device can be connected to the system connection. In one aspect, a hardware module that performs a particular function can include the software component stored in a computer-readable medium in connection with the necessary hardware components, such as the processor, connection, output device, and so forth, to carry out the function.
While preferred examples of the present inventive concept have been shown and described herein, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that such examples are provided by way of example only. Numerous variations, changes, and substitutions will now occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the disclosure. It should be understood that various alternatives to the examples of the disclosure described herein can be employed in practicing the disclosure. It is intended that the following claims define the scope of the disclosure and that methods and structures within the scope of these claims and their equivalents be covered thereby.
A more complete understanding of the present invention and benefits thereof may be acquired by referring to the follow description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
Turning now to the detailed description of the preferred arrangement or arrangements of the present invention, it should be understood that the inventive features and concepts may be manifested in other arrangements and that the scope of the invention is not limited to the embodiments described or illustrated. The scope of the invention is intended only to be limited by the scope of the claims that follow.
As shown in
Some or all of the dart is dissolvable. In particular the distal part 6 would normally be dissolvable. The distal part 6 is a component designed to have a certain drift diameter so that the fact that the dart has reached a certain point in the tubing indicates that there is at least that drift diameter of tubing above the dart. For clarity, “drift” or “drift diameter” refers to the largest diameter part; for example, the profile may include slots running along the length of the dart to allow bypass. The term “drift” thus includes “fluted drift”. Different drift diameters for testing can be selected by selecting from a range of different distal parts 6 that can be fitted interchangeably to the proximal part 4. The distal part plays no part in the generation or transmission of acoustic signals and so can be made entirely or at least mostly of a material that will dissolve in a well after time, or can be dissolved intentionally, e.g. by passing acid down the well. In the latter case, the distal part 6 may be made, e.g., of aluminium or some other material that will be attacked by acid. The proximal part 4 may also be dissolvable or it may have a dissolvable housing, e.g. of aluminium.
As the dart passes along the tubing 20, it emits a distinctive acoustic signal. The acoustic signal interacts with the DAS cable as the dart descends, causing microstrain in the cable. Light transmitted from the surface down the DAS cable is subjected to scattering and returned/backscattered light will be modulated in some way that is representative of the acoustic signal and also at what location along the acoustic signal has interacted with the cable. Using known techniques, the returning light can be analysed to indicate the position of the dart in the tubing.
In this way, a dart with selected drift diameter can be dropped or pumped down tubing and the progress of the dart monitored via DAS cabling. When the dart has served its purpose, it can either be allowed to dissolve in well fluid or a liquid, such as acid, passed down the tubing to dissolve the dart. Any small, undissolved parts can simply be allowed to be lost downhole or produced back to surface.
Obtaining information in this way is considerably less expensive than the normal method of wireline logging, and allows for more frequent, regular logging of wells, in particular to gain early information about deformation of tubing.
The drift information can be important to be able to confirm the integrity of the well (whether it is a production well or an injector well) potentially planning plug and abandonment in a better timed and more prudent way, keeping well in production for a longer time, ensuring no “Out Of Zone” injection, etc. Gaining early knowledge of evolving tubing deformations might trigger rush intervention jobs while there is still access through the restriction(s), e.g. to secure/improve production, plug the well deep, etc.
Having a DAS (Distributed Acoustic Sensing) line clamped along the tubing is becoming increasingly common when installing production tubing, so the DAS cable and associated surface equipment is likely already to be present, thus limiting the equipment cost to just the dart.
In an alternative arrangement, the acoustic signal emitting system (power source, signal generator and loudspeaker) or one or more parts of it can also be integrated to the drift part, i.e. the distal part 6. The drift part 6 can also be manufactured on location using a 3D printer for quick and flexible adjustments. Although the terms “proximal part” and “distal part” have been used to refer to the two components of the dart in this embodiment, the drift part 6 may equally be at the proximal end of the dart and the acoustic signal emitting part at the distal end. It may be preferable in some cases to provide the dart as a single integrated structure rather than as a modular system. In this event, a range of darts having different drift diameters may be provided.
In another embodiment, the dart may be equipped with one or more sensors to detect restrictions in the tubing, casing or liner in the well, or to detect geometry of the tubing, casing or liner in the well, or to detect leaks in the tubing, casing or liner in the well. In this event, the dart also includes some means to store and process the data and to transmit it to a DAS line or alternatively a TEC line in order to get the information to the surface.
In this embodiment, the signal emitting system of the proximal part 34 (which may alternatively be distally located, as discussed above) comprises a pulse transmitter 32, signal generator 37 and power source (e.g. battery) 33. In addition, it comprises a receiver and processor 38 for receiving and processing signals from an optical fibre bend detector, which will be described further below.
Within the distal part 36 of the dart (which may also be proximally located), is an optical fibre 41. An emitter of light such as a laser, together with transceiver, shown at 40, are located at one end of the fibre. The laser and transceiver transmit pulses of light through the fibre and received returned light signals and transform them to electrical signals that are passed through a pair of contacts 39 and line 42 to the receiver and processor 38.
The distal part 36 is relatively long and somewhat flexible, such that when passed down tubing that has a bend it is distorted, as shown in
A signal indicative of the degree of bending of the tubing and/or the direction of bending is thereby created and transmitted to the components in the proximal part of the dart. The signal is encoded and the loudspeaker 32 energized to transmit encoded pulses through the fluid in the tubing and up to the surface. Alternatively, the encoded signal may be acoustically transmitted to a DAS cable running along the tubing, as with the embodiment described in relation to
In this way, a continuous reading of the shape of the wellbore may be transmitted to the surface.
Other known types of sensor may be used in the dart in addition to or alternatively to the optical fibre bend detector described above. These include, for example, a high frequency gyro that is able to gather information about shape of the wellbore. Since the distal-proximal orientation of the dart in the wellbore is defined, information about angle/azimuth of the dart at any given time may be obtained from the gyro. Other examples include multi-finger calipers to determine the drift/interior profile of the tubing, acoustic calipers to sense the same thing, multi-beam sensor(s) or (impulse) radar sensors. Casing collar locators could also be included in the dart; these known devices detect when a casing collar or other features are passed by sensing, e.g., the increased mass of metal. Acoustic sensors may be included to detect leaks in tubing, behind tubing or casing throughout the wellbore.
The above techniques/sensors/tools can be combined into a multi-functional dart. The dart/ball can have internal memory to store, at least temporarily, gathered data. This would allow data to be condensed and transmitted as a summary signal. This would reduce the amount of data required to be transferred. The dart could convert raw data into simple, functional messages, e.g. “dart landed”, “max deflection: 2 degrees”, “minimum ID: 3.75 inches”, etc.
Another embodiment is shown in
The docking station includes a radio receiver unit 69 connected to the TEC line and able to receive radio signals transmitted from the docked dart 51 and convert them to electrical signals and pass them into the TEC line 66. The receiver may be powered by a battery 70, but would normally be powered via the TEC line.
The dart 51 includes a short range radio transmitter 53, a data storage unit 54 and power supply (battery) 55. Data gathered by the dart as it travels down the tubing 60 is stored in the data storage unit 54. When the dart is docked, this can trigger a signal to the docking station that the dart has arrived, which is transmitted through the TEC line. Data stored in the dart is then transmitted by the transmitter 53 though the tubing 60 and received by the docking station receiver 69. The data transfer can be accomplished through well-known wireless technologies. The transmitter and data storage unit are powered by battery 55. The acquired data may be processed prior to transmission by a processing unit 56. Processing may include condensing the data into a simpler form, as discussed above.
The dart 51 may gather data by means of any of the different systems described above, including optical fibre bend detector, calipers, etc. These are not shown in
In an alternative arrangement, when docked, the dart can be powered by electromagnetic induction from the TEC line such that it gets the required power to compute, transmit, etc.
As an alternative to the recess 68, the docking station can include a variety of profiles that the dart lands/engages in, which are common in the oil industry, especially within well intervention. The profile can be an ID restriction (e.g. dissolvable, or easy-millable cast iron), a recessed profile (which mates e.g. with a selective, spring loaded profile on the dart) which doesn't create an ID restriction, etc.
In some scenarios it is important to confirm that the dart passes the injection/production packer 64 (e.g. to avoid compression above packer if pressurized above a sealing dart, or just to confirm drift related to well plugging depths). However, it is more challenging/expensive to have the TEC line protrude the packer (requires “feedthrough packer”). For such a scenario it can be placed an engagement profile right below the packer and a TEC line docking station right above the packer. The drift will need to be long enough to land in the engagement profile and at the same time communicate with the docking station-achieved by having a slimmer, possibly flexible tail which includes the internal communication device.
In an alternative arrangement the docking station and dart may be equipped with electrical contacts that make contact when the dart is docked and via which data and power may be transferred from dart to docking station.
For all these ideas the ball/dart can be dissolvable. There might be electronics etc. inside the ball/dart that will not dissolve, but might cause no harm due to the small size.
In closing, it should be noted that the discussion of any reference is not an admission that it is prior art to the present invention, especially any reference that may have a publication date after the priority date of this application. At the same time, each and every claim below is hereby incorporated into this detailed description or specification as a additional embodiments of the present invention.
Although the systems and processes described herein have been described in detail, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions, and alterations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the following claims. Those skilled in the art may be able to study the preferred embodiments and identify other ways to practice the invention that are not exactly as described herein. It is the intent of the inventors that variations and equivalents of the invention are within the scope of the claims while the description, abstract and drawings are not to be used to limit the scope of the invention. The invention is specifically intended to be as broad as the claims below and their equivalents.
All of the references cited herein are expressly incorporated by reference. The discussion of any reference is not an admission that it is prior art to the present invention, especially any reference that may have a publication date after the priority date of this application. Incorporated references are listed again here for convenience:
This application is a non-provisional application which claims benefit under 35 USC § 119 (e) to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 63/616,955 filed Jan. 2, 2024 entitled “OBTAINING DATA FROM A WELL,” and U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 63/616,972 filed Jan. 2, 2024 entitled “DROP & RETRIEVE TOOL CARRIER,” which are incorporated herein in their entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63616955 | Jan 2024 | US | |
| 63616972 | Jan 2024 | US |
