Weatherford joins consortium to develop in-well distributed acoustic flowmeter

Weatherford International Ltd has announced its participation in a collaborative project formed by a consortium of Chevron North Sea Ltd, Silixa, University College London (UCL) and Weatherford. The project’s aim is to develop a fibre optics based in-well distributed acoustic flowmeter based on the revolutionary iDAS™ technology, developed by Silixa. The British government funded Technology Strategy Board is to invest over £750 000 over three years towards the total project budget of £1.5 million.

Capturing the true acoustic spectrum
The technology has been pioneered by Silixa with early stage support from Chevron, and uniquely allows the user to listen to the acoustic field at every point along many kilometres of fibre optic sensing cable. It uses a novel digital optical detection technique to precisely capture the ‘true’ full acoustic spectrum at every point. It has the potential for many in-well monitoring applications including distributed flow measurement, sand control system performance and sand detection, gas breakthrough, artificial lift optimisation, intelligent completions performance, leak detection and formation subsidence, and is therefore viewed as having significant potential benefits for optimising and maximising production in many types of oil and gas fields by facilitating informed decisions.

Trials and testing
The development project, which is now underway, will produce an iDAS system to meet extreme performance requirements, and includes the development of a novel neural network data acquisition and signal processing system making use of UCL’s expertise. The project will encompass laboratory and flow loop testing along with field trial installations.

Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/drilling-and-production/24032010/weatherford_joins_consortium_to_develop_acoustic_flowmeter/