Development and prospect of downhole monitoring and data transmission technology for separated zone water injection

This article outlines the development of downhole monitoring and data transmission technology for separated zone water injection in China.According to the development stages,the principles,operation processes,adaptability and application status of traditional downhole data acquisition method,cable communications and testing technology,cable-controlled downhole parameter real-time monitoring communication method and downhole wireless communication technology are introduced in detail.Problems and challenges of existing technologies in downhole monitoring and data transmission technology are pointed out.According to the production requirement,the future development direction of the downhole monitoring and data transmission technology for separated zone water injection is proposed.For the large number of wells adopting cable measuring and adjustment technology,the key is to realize the digitalization of downhole plug.For the key monitoring wells,cable-controlled communication technology needs to be improved,and downhole monitoring and data transmission technology based on composite coiled tubing needs to be developed to make the operation more convenient and reliable.For large-scale application in oil fields,downhole wireless communication technology should be developed to realize automation of measurement and adjustment.In line with ground mobile communication network,a digital communication network covering the control center,water distribution station and oil reservoir should be built quickly to provide technical support for the digitization of reservoir development.

Response characteristics of drill-string guided wave in downhole acoustic telemetry

Modeling of a drill-string acoustic channel has been an important topic in downhole telemetry for a long time.The propagation of drill-string guided waves in the borehole contains excitation,attenuation,and mode conversion issues that have not been considered by existing modeling methods.In this article,we formulate a hybrid modeling method to investigate the response characteristics of a fundamental-mode drill-string wave in various borehole environments.This hybrid method provides channel functions,including transmitting and receiving deployments,periodicity of the structure,and formation property changes.The essential physics of the drill-string wave propagation is captured with a one-dimensional model.The analytical solutions of the wavefield in multilayered cylindrical structures are introduced into a propagation matrix to express drill-string-wave interactions with the borehole environments.The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed through comparison with the finite-difference method.In addition,by designing numerical models,we investigate the conversion effect of the drill-string wave at the tool joint.We demonstrate that the conversion intensity of the drill-string wave is positively correlated not only with the cross-sectional area of the tool joint but also with the wave impedance of the outer formation.Hard formation outside the borehole reduces the energy leakage while intensifying the conversion of drill-string waves to Stoneley waves,and the opposite is true for the drill string in an infinite fluid.The converted Stoneley waves interfere with the drill-string waves,resulting in variations of bandgap distribution,which challenges the reliability of the data transmission.

Numerical simulation of downhole temperature distribution in producing oil wells

An improved numerical simulation method is presented to calculate the downhole temperature distribution for multiple pay zones in producing oil wells. Based on hydrodynamics and heat transfer theory, a 2-D temperature field model in cylindrical coordinates is developed. In the model, we considered general heat conduction as well as the heat convection due to fluid flow from porous formation to the borehole. We also take into account the fluid velocity variation in the wellbore due to multiple pay zones. We present coupled boundary conditions at the interfaces between the wellbore and adjacent formation, the wellbore and pay zone, and the pay zone and adjacent formation. Finally, an alternating direction implicit difference method （ADI） is used to solve the temperature model for the downhole temperature distribution. The comparison of modeled temperature curve with actual temperature log indicates that simulation result is in general quite similar to the actual temperature log. We found that the total production rate, production time, porosity, thickness of pay zones, and geothermal gradient, all have effects on the downhole temperature distribution.

Numerical simulation of surface and downholedeformation induced by hydraulic fracturing

Tiltmeter mapping technology infers hydraulic fracture geometry by measuringfracture-induced rock deformation, which recorded by highly sensitive tiltmeters placed atthe surface and in nearby observation wells. By referencing Okada＇s linear elastic theory andGreen＇s function method, we simulate and analyze the surface and downhole deformationcaused by hydraulic fracturing using the homogeneous elastic half-space model and layeredelastic model. Simulation results suggest that there is not much difference in the surfacedeformation patterns between the two models, but there is a significant difference in thedownhole deformation patterns when hydraulic fracturing penetrates a stratum. In suchcases, it is not suitable to assume uniform elastic half-space when calculating the downholedeformation. This work may improve the accuracy and reliability of the inversion results oftiltmeter monitoring data.

Using the curve moment and the PSO-SVM method to diagnose downhole conditions of a sucker rod pumping unit

Downhole working conditions of sucker rod pumping wells are automatically identified on a computer from the analysis of dynamometer cards. In this process, extraction of feature parameters and pattern classification are two key steps. The dynamometer card is firstly divided into four parts which include different production information according to the ＂four point method＂ used in actual oilfield production, and then the moment invariants for pattern recognition are extracted. An improved support vector machine （SVM） method is used for pattern classification whose error penalty parameter C and kernel function parameter g are optimally chosen by the particle swarm optimization （PSO） algorithm. The simulation results show the method proposed in this paper has good classification results.

Downhole Microseismic Source Location Based on a Multi-Dimensional DIRECT Algorithm for Unconventional Oil and Gas Reservoir Exploration

Downhole microseismic data has the significant advantages of high signal-to-noise ratio and well-developed P and S waves and the core component of microseismic monitoring is microseismic event location associated with hydraulic fracturing in a relatively high confidence level and accuracy.In this study,we present a multidimensional DIRECT inversion method for microseismic locations and applicability tests over modeling data based on a downhole microseismic monitoring system.Synthetic tests inidcate that the objective function of locations can be defined as a multi-dimensional matrix space by employing the global optimization DIRECT algorithm,because it can be run without the initial value and objective function derivation,and the discretely scattered objective points lead to an expeditious contraction of objective functions in each dimension.This study shows that the DIRECT algorithm can be extensively applied in real downhole microseismic monitoring data from hydraulic fracturing completions.Therefore,the methodology,based on a multidimensional DIRECT algorithm,can provide significant high accuracy and convergent efficiency as well as robust computation for interpretable spatiotemporal microseismic evolution,which is more suitable for real-time processing of a large amount of downhole microseismic monitoring data.

OFDM Wireless Downhole Transmission Systems and Proposed SLM Method for PAPR Reduction

At present, mud pulse transmission systems are widely used in downhole data transmission. But the systems are very low in transmission efficiency, only 5-10 bits/s, with very large anti-inter-symbol-interference (ISI). It cannot meet high requirements for high-speed transmission of modern logging system. The development of communication technology has laid some foundation for this requirement. For this purpose, the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) Wireless Downhole Transmission Systems are proposed for the first time because of their high transmission rate, anti-inter-symbol-interference (ISI), and high spectral efficiency, etc. Due to non-linear power amplifier (PA) of logging systems with limited dynamic range, the drawbacks of high peak-average power ratio (PAPR) may outweigh all the potential benefits of OFDM wireless downhole transmission systems. Selective mapping (SLM) method can reduce the PAPR of OFDM logging signals without distortion. But at the receiver, the conventional SLM method needs exact bits of side information (SI) to recover the data signal. The probability of erroneous SI detection has a significant influence on the error performance of the system. And individual transmissions of SI result in the reduction of bandwidth efficiency. To restore the exact data signal, our scheme codes the SI bits by linear block codes (LBC), and is easily decoded by syndrome decoding. And then the coding SI bits are superimposed onto the logging signals to omit SI bits transmission. The theory and simulation results show that the proposed method has better performance than the conventional one. Accordingly, the OFDM wireless downhole transmission systems can tackle the high PAPR problem, and highten the transmission rate of logging signals.

Study of Structural Parameters of the Inlet of Downhole Hydrocyclones

Three different inlets of hydrocyclone are studied in combination with the construction of a dowrahole system and hydrocyclone. By comparing the relationship between the inlet structure ＆ dimensional parameter of hydrocyclone and separation efficiency ＆ pressure loss, the highest efficiency is obtained from the inlet of an involute curve with increasing depth-width ratio from the three types, in which the separation efficiency and pressure loss all drops slowly, for the length of the channel decreases, while it drops rapidly in the other two. The flow guiding ability of the inlet affects the separation efficiency greatly, so the corresponding involute type of inlet of hydrocyclone fits for downhole oil-water separation is optimized, which serves as a basis for the structural design of downhole hydrocyclone.

Study on the Source Characteristics of Downhole Airgun with Different Excitation Environments

The measurement of underground medium variation using a repeated artificial source has gradually become an important goal to pursue. In recent years,we have developed and improved a technology system with large capacity airguns excited in land reservoirs by transplanting marine seismic exploration technology. The excitation effect has a close relationship to airgun capacity,water environment,and excitation conditions. In view that large capacity airgun must be excited without a water environment,we expand the system to use in downhole. Based on the BHS-2200 LL downhole airgun with a capacity of250in3,this paper carries out a comparative analysis on the characteristics of an airgun source excited in 0. 2m- and 5. 0m-diameter wells,and the results show that:( 1) The dominant frequency of the airgun signal excited in a 5. 0m well is mainly from 10 Hz to40Hz,lower than that in a 0. 2m well,and the larger body of water is good for bubble oscillation.( 2) In terms of exciting energy,the signal excited in a 5. 0m well has stronger energy than in a 0. 2m well,with a difference of 1 order in magnitude,and the signal can be detected up to 9km excited in a 5. 0m well with a single shot.( 3) The airgun signal has good repeatability in both excitation wells. The downhole airgun excitation technology system has potential application in dynamic monitoring near a fault zone with a small scale range, exploration of oil and mineral resources, and modern urban geophysical environment.

An analysis of the uniformity of multi-fracture initiation based on downhole video imaging technology: A case study of Mahu tight conglomerate in Junggar Basin, NW China

To solve the problem that the production of Mahu conglomerate reservoir is not up to expectation after the multi-cluster plus temporary plugging fracturing technology is applied in horizontal wells, stages 2–6 in the test well MaHW6285 are selected to carry out erosion tests with different pumping parameters. The downhole video imaging technology is used to monitor the degree of perforations erosion, and then the fracture initiation and proppant distribution of each cluster are analyzed. The results showed that proppant entered 76.7% of the perforations. The proppant was mainly distributed in a few perforation clusters, and the amount of proppant entered in most of the clusters was limited. The proppant distribution in Stage 4 was relatively uniform, and the fracture initiation of each cluster in the stage is more uniform. The proppant distribution in stages 2, 3, 5, and 6 was significantly uneven, and the uniform degree of fracture initiation in each cluster is low. More than 70% of the proppant dose in the stage entered clusters near the heel end, so the addition of diverters did not promote the uniform initiation of hydraulic fractures. There was a positive correlation between the amount of proppant added and the degree of perforations erosion, and the degree of perforations erosion ranged from 15% to 352%, with an average value of 74.5%, which was far higher than the statistical results of shale reservoir tests in North America. The use of 180° phase perforation(horizontal direction) can reduce the “Phase Bias” of perforations erosion, promote uniform perforations erosion and fluid inflow. The research results provide the basis for optimizing the pumping procedure, reducing the perforation erosion and improving the success rate of diversion.

Design and Analysis of an Active Helical Drive Downhole Tractor

During oil-gas well drilling and completion, downhole tools and apparatus should be conveyed to the destination to complete a series of downhole works. Downhole tractors have been used to convey tools in complex wellbores, however a very large tractive force is needed to carry more downhole tools to accomplish works with high efficiency. A novel serial active helical drive downhole tractor which has significantly improved performance compared with previous work is proposed. All previously reported helical drive downhole tractors need stators to balance the torque generated by the rotator. By contrast, the proposed serial downhole tractor does not need a stator; several rotator-driven units should only be connected to one another to achieve a tractive force multifold higher than that was previously reported. As a result, the length of a single unit is shortened, and the motion flexibility of the downhole tractor is increased. The major performance indicators, namely, gear ratio, velocity, and tractive force, are analyzed. Experimental results show that the maximum tractive force of a single-unit prototype with a length of 900 mm is 165.3 kg or 1620 N. The analysis and experimental results show that the proposed design has considerable potential for downhole works.

Introduction to the theory and technology on downhole control engineering and its research progress

On the basis of reviewing the development history of drilling engineering technology over a century, this paper describes the technical and scientific background of downhole control engineering, discusses its basic issues, discipline frame and main study contents, introduces the research progress of downhole control engineering in China over the past 30 years, and envisions the development direction of downhole control engineering in the future. The author proposed the study subject of well trajectory control theory and technology in 1988, and further proposed the concept of downhole control engineering in 1993. Downhole control engineering is a discipline branch, which applies the perspectives and methods of engineering control theory to solve downhole engineering control issues in oil and gas wells; meanwhile, it is an application technology field with interdisciplinarity. Downhole control engineering consists of four main aspects; primarily, investigations about dynamics of downhole system and analysis methods of control signals; secondly, designs of downhole control mechanisms and systems, research of downhole parameters collections and transmission techniques; thirdly, development of downhole control engineering products; fourthly, development of experimental methods and the laboratories. Over the past 30 years, the author and his research group have achieved a number of progress and accomplishments in the four aspects mentioned above. As a research field and a disciplinary branch of oil and gas engineering, downhole control engineering is stepping into a broader and deeper horizon.

A Mathematical Model and a Method for the Calculation of the Downhole Pressure in Composite-Perforation Technological Processes

Using the conservation equations for mass,momentum and energy,a model is elaborated to describe the dynamics of high-energy gases in composite-perforation technological processes.The model includes a precise representation of the gunpowder combustion and related killing fluid displacement.Through numerical solution of such equations,the pressure distribution of the high-energy gas in fractures is obtained,and used to determine crack propagation.The accuracy of the model is verified by comparing the simulation results with actual measurements.

Downhole microseismic data reconstruction and imaging based on combination of spline interpolation and curveletsparse constrained interpolation

When cause of the aliasing lack probl using borehole sensors and microseimic events to image, spatial aliasing often occurred be- of sensors underground and the distance between the sensors which were too large. To solve em, data reconstruction is often needed. Curvelet transform sparsity constrained inversion was widely used in the seismic data reconstruction field for its anisotropic, muhiscale and local basis. However, for the downhole ease, because the number of sampling point is mueh larger than the number of the sensors, the advantage of the cnrvelet basis can＇t perform very well. To mitigate the problem, the method that joints spline and curvlet-based compressive sensing was proposed. First, we applied the spline interpolation to the first arri- vals that to be interpolated. And the events are moved to a certain direction, such as horizontal, which can be represented by the curvelet basis sparsely. Under the spasity condition, curvelet-based compressive sensing was applied for the data, and directional filter was also used to mute the near vertical noises. After that, the events were shifted to the spline line to finish the interpolation workflow. The method was applied to a synthetic mod- el, and better result was presented than using curvelet transform interpolation directly. We applied the method to a real dataset, a mieroseismic downhole observation field data in Nanyang, using Kirchhoff migration method to image the microseimic event. Compared with the origin data, artifacts were suppressed on a certain degree.

Optimizing sampling frequency of surface and downhole measurements for efficient stick-slip vibration detection

Drilling vibrations significantly impact drilling operations with high costs due to early downhole equipment failure and loss of productive time.Stick-slip vibrations,a severe form of torsional vibrations,is known to be present up to 50%of total drilling time,making it a topic of immense concern and research.An ongoing discussion in the industry is regarding the reliability of surface measurements for early detection of severe downhole bit sticking.Moreover,most surface measurements are sampled at lower frequency rates closer to 1 Hz.Recently,the implementation of advanced data acquisition modules in downhole subs has greatly improved our understanding of drilling vibrations through high resolution data,sampled up to 10 kHz.However,with a wide range of sampling frequency to choose from different available tools,a critical question remains unanswered.What is an optimal and adequate sampling frequency for early detection of downhole vibrations using both surface and downhole measurements?The paper addresses the question with a focus on stick-slip vibrations through an experimental investigation.Stick slip tests are repeated for different sampling frequencies of surface and downhole measurements and the stick slip index for each case is calculated.The stick-slip index varies for different sampling frequency even though the vibration tests remain completely identical.It was inferred that sampling frequency of measurements greatly impact the detection of downhole vibrations.Even though stick-slip vibrations are characteristically low frequency vibrations(2Hz),a minimum of 10Hz sampling frequency is recommended for detection of stick-slip vibrations.Moreover,all characteristics of stick-slip vibrations including bit sticking,bit RPM peaks and negative bit RPMs are clearly observed at a minimum of 100Hz sampling rate.

Response analyses on the drill-string channel for logging while drilling telemetry

Downhole acoustic telemetry(DAT),using a long drill string with periodical structures as the channel,is a prospective technology for improving the transmission rate of logging while drilling(LWD)data.Previous studies only focused on the acoustic property of a free drill string and neglected the coupling between pipes and fluid-filled boreholes.In addition to the drill-string waves,a series of fluid waves are recorded in the DAT channel,which has not been investigated yet.Unpredictable channel characteristics result in lower transmission rates and stability than expected.Therefore,a more realistic channel model is needed considering the fluid-filled borehole.In this paper,we propose a hybrid modeling method to investigate the response characteristics of the DAT channel.By combining the axial wavenumbers and excitation functions of mode waves in radially layered LWD structures,the channel model is approximated to the 1-D propagation,which considers transmission,reflection,and interconversion of the drillstring and fluid waves.The proposed 1-D approximation has been well validated by comparing the 2-D finite-difference modeling.It is revealed that the transmitted and converted fluid waves interfere with the drill-string wave,which characterizes the DAT channel as a particular coherent multi-path channel.When a fluid-filled borehole surrounds the drill string,the channel responses exhibit considerable delay as well as strong frequency selectivity in amplitude and phase.These new findings suggest that the complexity of the channel response has been underestimated in the past,and therefore channel measurements on the ground are unreliable.To address these channel characteristics,we apply a noncoherent demodulation strategy.The transmission rate for synthetic data reaches 15 bps in a 94.5 m long channel,indicating that the acoustic telemetry is promising to break the low-speed limitation of mud-pulse telemetry.

Borehole deformation based in situ stress estimation using televiewer data

The knowledge of in situ stress is critical in safe and optimised extraction of minerals and energy resources.In situ stresses are either measured directly(e.g.overcoring)or estimated indirectly(e.g.borehole breakouts).Borehole breakout analysis for in situ stress estimation is considered a relatively simple and cost-efficient technique.This technique,however,poses certain limitations such as complexities with progressive formation of breakouts and it requires inputs such as rock failure parameters that are not often available.As a result,significant effort has been made to develop new indirect methods for in situ stress estimation.Borehole deformation analysis using four-arm caliper has been recently proposed for in situ stress estimation and has shown promising results.In this study,we demonstrate a new methodology that analyses the borehole televiewer data with the technique of borehole deformation analysis to estimate the in situ stresses through a field case study.The advantages and challenges of using borehole televiewer data for stress estimation based on borehole deformation analysis are discussed and the best practice to obtain the reliable results is explained.The limitations of using fourarm caliper and borehole deformation analysis for in situ stress estimation are also discussed and it is shown how televiewer data can overcome such limitations.Finally,the in situ stress results obtained from televiewer data and borehole deformation analysis are compared with independent in situ stress measurements to show the robustness and reliability of the proposed methodology.

海床CPT和井下CPT在砂土中贯入机理差异研究

海洋石油建设中的一个关键环节是对有关海域的工程地质条件作出准确评价。海上原位静力触探(CPT)是主要的原位勘察手段,与陆地CPT不同,其贯入方式主要有Seabed和Downhole两种形式。这两种CPT由于贯入方式不同,所得到的锥端阻力存在一定的差异。采用有限元方法对这两种形式的CPT锥端阻力和贯入模式进行计算分析。研究显示,CPT入土过程中,周围土体存在两种不同位移状态,即滑动状态和排挤状态。在入土初期,土体以滑动状态为主,土体中竖向应力随贯入深度的增加而递增。在入土一定深度以后,土体的排挤状态占主导地位,竖向应力变化趋于平稳。这两种位移状态的相互转化解释了Seabed CPT和Downhole CPT实测数据之间的差异。在贯入深度较大时,Seabed CPT受排挤状态控制,而Downhole CPT仍然受滑动状态的影响。

Limit analysis of extended reach drilling in South China Sea

Extended reach wells （ERWs）, especially horizontal extended reach well with a high HD （horizontal displacement） to TVD （true vertical depth） ratio, represent a frontier technology and challenge the drilling limitations. Oil and gas reservoir in beaches or lakes and offshore can be effectively exploited by using extended reach drilling （ERD） technology. This paper focuses on the difficult technological problems encountered during exploiting the Liuhua 11-1 oil field in the South China Sea, China. Emphasis is on investigating the key subjects including prediction and control of open hole limit extension in offshore ERD, prediction of casing wear and its prevention and torque reduction, φ244.5mm casing running with floating collars to control drag force, and steerable drilling modes. The basic concept of limit extension in ERD is presented and the prediction method for open hole limit extension is given in this paper. A set of advanced drilling mechanics and control technology has been established and its practical results are verified by field cases. All those efforts may be significant for further investigating and practicing ERD limit theory and control technology in the future.