Enhanced Time Domain EM Technology for Multiple Casing Corrosion Monitoring
Authors: Larbi Zeghlache Mohamed , Noui-Mehidi Mohamed , Rourke Marvin , Ismail Moustafa 
Published: November 2020

Well integrity management is a prime global focus area for all oil and gas operators. Any field-wide corrosion challenge requires a substantial investment to manage the integrity of assets and, consequently, to maximize life expectancy and efficiency. Over decades, the industry has concentrated its efforts toward containing fluids from any unintentional release at the surface occurring as a result of corrosion. This paper highlights the most recent electromagnetic (EM) logging technology developments to address well integrity challenges.

Three primary corrosion mechanisms occur in oil and gas wells: chemical, mechanical, and electrochemical. Electrochemical corrosion is the mechanism responsible for most of the failures in which the outermost casing is exposed to corrosive fluids and is consequently penetrated first. As the corrosion process continues, subsequent well barriers are progressively corroded until the inner casing or tubing is in direct contact with a corrosive environment and at direct risk of a major well integrity failure. As a result of this outside-to-inside corrosion mechanism, the early diagnosis of the outermost casing status is especially important as a proactive measure to identify any potential weak zones in the completion string. This early diagnosis is a major step to optimize well integrity intervention and to optimize workover operations costs. Cathodic protection and coated casing are used to extend the life of the well by controlling corrosion; however, these are only mitigation measures that slow down but do not eliminate corrosion. EM logging technology provides an effective method for monitoring and identifying the effectiveness of these corrosion mitigation measures.

Time domain EM pulse eddy current (PEC) technology has facilitated corrosion evaluation by logging through tubing, thereby avoiding the cost of pulling completions solely for surveillance purposes. The latest EM PEC technology, the enhanced pipe detection tool (ePDT), provides individual barrier thickness measurements for four concentric pipe strings. The innovative features of ePDT include: (1) A fractal transmitter (Tx) coiled array that improves the performance of the tool with enhanced signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) covering a wide signal dynamic range, and adaptability for various logging speeds and spatial resolutions for varying pipes; (2) a synthetic aperture of the receiver (Rx) coil array for noise compensation from extraneous tool motion; and (3) a wide-spatial aperture Rx coil array which, when combined with (1) and (2), enables the compression of the inner pipe remnant magnetization interferences without sacrificing spatial resolution. This paper demonstrates ePDT benefits by benchmarking to other technologies and control environments. The results are discussed in detail to provide an overview of EM technology, as well as the advantages and limitations. Ultimately, the answer product from this technology is integrated with other current and historical information related to the well or field being evaluated as part of the well integrity management system (WIMS).

Finally, it is important to expand the technology operating envelope beyond the standard applications to address larger completions challenges, such as gas wells and landing base inspection, by extending the tool capabilities while optimizing data acquisition and processing methodologies.