Well Diagnostic Imager ©

Zero Emissions Retrofit Well Health Monitoring System

LinkedInTwitterFacebook

Well Diagnostic Imager © What is it?


CHALLENGE

  • Eliminate life cycle, well related emissions, effluent discharge and other risks of environmental damage.

  • Provide conventional sensors for WIMS assurance


SOLUTION

  • Retrofit, wellhead mounted Well Health Monitoring Package which identifies high emissions integrity threats using non- invasive real time well integrity monitoring sensors which interfaces with client servers.

  • Low risk development to include standard, emerging and development sensors, customisable to application

Well Diagnostic Imager © What does it do?

WHAT IT CAN TELL YOU

Prewarns of failure (well structure, near wellbore and in overburden)

    • Pressure monitoring for tubing and casing

    • Gas / liquid leaks

    • Well/wellhead condition indication

    • Abnormal internal or external events –well performance trends

Advises probable cause and potential remedial action

    • Well performance profile indication, ultra long wells

    • Integrity of abandoned wells


BENEFITS COMPARED TO CURRENT SENSOR APPLICATION

  • Retrofittable, incorporates existing sensors but adds more features

  • Sensor offerings to suit increased integrity / abandonment / CCS

  • Wireless Sensor Network / Battery / Energy harvesting design

  • Wellhead / flowline / separator mounted

  • Well-specific sensor combination

  • Real time with local processing – low bandwidth data requirements

  • Easily upgraded with non-intrusive sensors (e.g. clamp or bond to well)

  • Low cost, greater flexibility

Well Diagnostic Imager © Sensors and Data Sources Status


NO NEED TO RE-ENGINEER WHAT ALREADY EXISTS


Off the Shelf Sensors

  • Pressure -THP and CHP, SSSV control line, chemical injection pump and tank levels

  • Temperature

  • Sand production (erosion probe)

  • Incremental improvements to reduce power consumption / battery life


Novel sensors – commercially available from SME suppliers

Novel sensors are commercially available, but typically not offered or integrated by the larger companies: Difficult to justify as separate systems?

Non intrusive/bonded sensors

  • Vibration monitoring

  • Wellhead / flowline strain

  • Corrosion under insulation (CUI)

  • Wall thickness corrosion / erosion monitoring

Intrusive sensors

  • Annular and tubing liquid levels

  • Gas well water cut


SENSOR R&D – AT PROOF OF CONCEPT


Prove and develop new sensors with aim to meet specific client needs

  • Well integrity, emissions, security

  • Corrosion noise sensing DC potential and low frequency EM noise

  • Flowline fluid identification gas breakthrough

  • Separator monitoring sand deposition

  • Gas / Oil / Water leak detection (small area sensing)

  • Acoustic / Sound monitoring non fibre based point sensing security, unusual well events, leaks, sabotage, pump operation, etc

  • In well hydrophone flow phenomena, tubing integrity


VISUAL MONITORING – PACKAGING AND IMAGE PROCESSING


WellCam – provides affordable, dashcam-like monitoring for hazardous areas

  • Battery powered, Wireless data, Hazardous area enclosure

  • Image / video capture to schedule or in case of event

  • Image processing for activity or changes

  • Can be used to monitor valves or gauges in close up mode

  • FLIR sensor for gas leak detection

R&D Example Corrosion Management


R&D EXAMPLE


As an example, corrosion activity can be monitored using noise spectra as shown in the illustration below.

The output allows for diagnostic analysis and preventative maintenance to be undertaken before critical component failure.

DC and low frequency corrosion monitoring

  • Real time corrosion monitoring: ability to monitor whole system for corrosion activity including mixed metal systems.

  • Traditional DC monitoring with additional low frequency to enhance detection of galvanic corrosion between dissimilar metals.

  • Stainless and mild steel have clear spectral differences even when they have similar DC potentials and could be considered passivated.

  • More testing / field recording is required but indications are positive.

  • Implementation will be straightforward.

R&D Example Sand Detection in Vessels


R&D EXAMPLE


Sand deposits in separator vessels can displace significant liquid volumes. This consequently increases the total mass of the system.

By monitoring natural (and potentially imparting low energy forced vibrations) it is possible to estimate the change in mass of a large vessel and therefore give early warning of sand build-up - external equipment only, not required to drain or modify the vessel.

Timelapse shows scale model with 0 to 10kg of sand added


2nd trace: resonance in vertical direction reduces frequency as sand mass increases

Retrofittable vibration monitoring

  • Low power vibration sensors with AI capability available

  • Packaging for Ex zone 1 environment required

  • Next step to deploy test hardware to flow loop or real location to gather data

  • Could be applied to flow lines for wax / scale deposition and possibly gas breakthrough

R&D Example Camera Monitoring a Pressure Gauge


R&D EXAMPLE


An existing dial pressure gauge needs to be closely monitored for changes prior to a well intervention


A WellCam can be temporarily installed to monitor and upload data from the remote location

Automatic image recognition

  • Camera can be configured / trained to read the gauge and upload the result – lower and upper pressures and confidence level – lowest bandwidth/no human intervention

  • Image taken and processed every minute, update to server configurable or if a significant change is detected

  • Images stored locally and can be sent if bandwidth allows for human verification