Acoustic Telemetry Network Provides Real-Time Downhole Data Transmission During Drilling, Cementing and Completion Installation for Use in Depleted Reservoirs and During Managed Pressure Operations

Abstract

Abstract The last several years has seen an increasing trend toward more depleted reservoirs and more challenging wells with tighter mudweight windows. Managed Pressure Drilling has been employed in these challenging well conditions, however industry take up has been slow for a number of reasons including technical, economic and deployment related. Those wells that have utilized Managed Pressure Drilling have tended to focus on the drilling related aspects of well construction. However, other areas of well construction such as casing and liner running and cementing and completion installation are equally and in some cases even more technically challenging. One area that has potentially hindered the uptake of Managed Pressure Drilling is that in general, and in particular in the well construction operations outside of on bottom drilling there has been no access to real-time downhole data. In particular this is related to real-time pressure data. Whilst cementing, displacing or completing then multiple fluid types and densities may be circulating both inside and outside the drillpipe, leading to significant challenges in simulations and models derived from surface data. To overcome this a new acoustic telemetry and measurement network is being deployed in depleted reservoir and managed pressure drilling operations to provide real-time downhole and along string measurements of pressures, temperatures and weights. Real-time data case histories will be shown from the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea illustrating how this is being used to drive real-time decisions during drilling, cementing and completion installation operations in tight margin windows, depleted reservoir conditions and under managed pressure drilling operations.