bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Oil Rim Tool Measures Reservoir Fluids Continuously in Real Time, Below Pump
Authors: Shanks David 
Published: February 2015

Technology Update
Defining the reservoir by its porosity, permeability, fluid content, water saturation, and behavior is one of the predrilling goals of exploration and production teams, with the aim of optimizing reservoir production over the life of the field.
Advances in Reservoir Characterization
Very few 2D measurements of any kind are taken from inside a wellbore, except for temperature and reservoir microseismic activity. Distributed temperature sensing (DTS), which uses fiber-optic cables, can provide a full temperature profile. However, to obtain pressure, flow, or fluid information, results are extrapolated and mathematically calculated with an inferred answer. Thus, it does not measure the reservoir directly, continuously, and in real time.
Some oil companies are moving toward time-lapse, 4D, seismic techniques that can identify infill drilling opportunities, predict flood fronts, and help avoid early water breakthroughs, despite the cost and complexity of these techniques. Seismic surveys are mostly for the identification of rock formations and subsurface faults, and much of the fluid analysis is inferred from these rather than directly measured.
Knowledge of the position and thickness of the oil rim in particular is critical for effective reservoir observation. To achieve maximum production, it is important not only to be able to measure the effects of injection operations on a reservoir, but also to monitor long-term reservoir movement and behavior. The only alternative way to keep track of the position of an oil rim is with periodic logging surveys, which can be both inaccurate and expensive.
Advances in seismic survey techniques have enabled much greater analysis of fluid chamber and reservoir movement. The gradual development and deployment of this type of technology has taken more than 50 years from single-point seismic source methods using an electronic transponder to 4D methods, which can map the movements, fluids, and sensitivities in the reservoir.
A Clearer Vision
With dwindling hydrocarbon reserves and increasing oil and gas demand, innovation in characterizing reservoirs is crucial to sustaining supply. Reservoir geophysics incorporating the latest soft-ware and reservoir characterization techniques is bringing significant improvements to production in existing fields.
Production geoscientists are heavily involved in characterizing reservoirs, particularly describing how reservoirs have been affected by ongoing production processes. The combined use of time-lapse and multicomponent data, such as seismic, logging analysis, and DTS, has had a dramatic impact on reservoir understanding that has led to improved production over the life of the field.
Sensing System Provides Synchronized Acoustic Measurements
Authors: JPT staff _ 
Published: February 2015

Young Technology Showcase
Silixa’s iDAS (intelligent Distributed Acoustic Sensor) offers a solution for permanent and continuous downhole production monitoring and reservoir monitoring by overcoming the cost and technology challenges encountered with traditional point sensors. The iDAS enables wide-aperture acoustic array observation even in harsh environments, like high-pressure, high-temperature wells, and negates the need for irreversible pre-completion sensor placement.
The iDAS measures the full acoustic field along the unmodified optical fiber up to tens of kilometres in length with a spatial resolution down to 1 m, capturing the full amplitude and phase of the incident wave on the sensing optical fiber up to frequencies &gt;100 kHz with a wide dynamic range (&gt;120 dB). The system enables high-quality synchronized coherent digital recording of acoustic waves with no crosstalk at every location along the fiber. These unique attributes make the iDAS technology particularly well-suited to the demanding applications encountered in oil and gas exploration and production.
Principle of Measurement
The iDAS functions by using a method based on optical time-domain reflectometry. When light is emitted into a fiber, the signal is reflected throughout the fiber length. These reflections are the result of a variety of mechanisms, including Rayleigh, Brillouin, and Raman scattering. By monitoring this scatter as a function of time following the emission of each sensing pulse, it is possible to build a map of the time variance of light-scattering properties throughout the fiber. This information can be analyzed to give a measure of the acoustic signal at each sensing zone along the fiber. Silixa’s iDAS uses a new digital optoelectronics architecture to rapidly and accurately measure this backscattered signal with a precision and speed that allows acoustic measurements from very low frequencies (&lt;10 mHz) to high frequencies (&gt;100 kHz). This sensing system can be retrofitted on existing standard optical-fiber cable installations, although superior performance can be achieved by using Silixa’s proprietary cables for logging operations and new permanent installations.
Applications
Silixa’s iDAS technology provides benefits through every stage of the life of a well. Since iDAS makes it possible to map acoustic propagation along the entire length of a borehole, the system creates the opportunity to perform real-time, continuous production and well-integrity monitoring. Further, distributed acoustics can facilitate seismic profiling in harsh, high-temperature downhole environments.
Silixa has also developed a number of installation techniques for permanent as well as logging applications.
Techbits: Wellbore Collision Avoidance and Interceptions - State of the Art
Authors: de Wardt John P. , Mullin Steve , Thorogood John L. , Wright John , Bacon Robert 
Published: February 2015

Techbits
This article highlights key knowledge that was shared at the SPE’s “Collision Avoidance and Well Interceptions Applied Technology Workshop” held in Inverness, United Kingdom, in September. It raised awareness of issues concerning wellbore collisions and interceptions.
Planning to ensure that well collisions do not occur during drilling is a complex and demanding task that is often not given the high priority that it requires in drilling programs. Assumptions are made of the validity and accuracy of historical data that is unfounded. Conversely, planning well interceptions when required in operations such as relief wells/drainage intercept wells requires a sound working knowledge of wellbore-positioning technologies and techniques.
Wellbore interceptions and proximity placement are becoming critical applications for the development of some reservoirs, specifically tar sands and coalbed methane. Wellbore collision avoidance is entering the daily skills requirement of drilling engineers as they plan more infill wells and more cluster (pad) drilling. Ultimately, demonstrating the knowledge of the borehole position during the drilling process is becoming a regulatory requirement that demands greater understanding by the drilling engineering community and drilling/asset managers. Are drilling engineers trained, competent, and adhering to procedures designed to manage the intricacies of wellbore surveying requirements as applied to collision avoidance and well interceptions?
The workshop covered the topic under the headings:
Survey-database integrity
Collision-avoidance management
Practical directional drilling
Relief-well design
Interception techniques
The workshop emphasized that wellbore collisions must be treated as high-risk events that must be managed by systematic survey-management procedures. Borehole-position errors are a critical input to subsurface modeling and have a major effect on field economics. Several workshop committee members are also members of the SPE Wellbore Positioning Technical Section (SPE WPTS) that has published two SPE papers on the ellipse of uncertainty error models commonly referred to as the Industry Steering Committee on Wellbore Survey Accuracy (ISCWSA) models.
Summary of the Workshop Workshop attendees shared and learned about current good practices of the complete management cycle of well-positioning activities. Planning, policies, data management, practical application, and technology were all addressed. This was accomplished during presentations, discussions, and breakout sessions with industry experts. Some in-depth presentations and insightful results were produced, including
good practice in designing a survey program
requirements for survey-database management
managing anticollision risk
practical insights into relief-well planning and drilling
Exploring Deep Earth and Deep Space: What Role Does the Petroleum Industry Play?
Authors: Beckwith Robin 
Published: February 2015

Hydrocarbons
Exciting hydrocarbon discoveries of mind-bending quantities are being made in the far reaches of our solar system and our own Milky Way galaxy. A new paper (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-010) by scientists on NASA’s Cassini-Huygens mission finds that blocks of hydrocarbon ice might float upon the surface of existing lakes and seas of liquid methane and ethane on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Findings from a recent study (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.8178v1) of the Horsehead Nebula, part of the Orion Constellation, propose the discovery of a new interstellar molecule, the cation C3H+ (propynylidyne). C3H+ was one of 30 molecules identified in the region, including several small hydrocarbons.
Titan is about a billion miles away from Earth (1.5 light-hours) and the Horsehead Nebula is 1,300 light-years away (7.6 quadrillion miles). Why should the petroleum industry pay attention to the existence of hydrocarbons at impracticable distances from Earth?
Perhaps instead it would make more sense to focus on deep Earth.
However, there is a sense in which attempting to look below the surface of our own planet is a far more difficult task than exploring outer space: We can send a human 238,900 miles away to the surface of our moon, and humans routinely spend months on-board the International Space Station, which is maintained at an orbital altitude of between 205 and 255 miles above Earth.
But only three humans have been to the Challenger Deep, first sounded during the HMS Challenger expedition (December 1872 to May 1876) at the southern end of the 1,580-mile-long, crescent-shaped Mariana Trench some 210 miles southwest of Guam, which at 36,069±131 ft (a little less than 7 miles) below sea level is the deepest point in Earth’s oceans. Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh spent only 20 minutes at a depth of 35,814 ft on 20 January 1960, in the bathyscaphe Trieste. Filmmaker James Cameron spent a little over 3 hours there on 25 March 2012, in his specialized sub-marine called the Deepsea Challenger.
A few deep-sea remotely operated vehicles have also plumbed the depths of the Challenger Deep.
Of course, for humans to actually enter the Earth’s crust is impossible without clearing and bolstering a mine-shaft. The deepest humans have ever traveled into the Earth is at the Tau-Tona gold mine, near Carletonville, South Africa, which extends some 2.4 miles underground.
Q&A with Ali Vezvaei, Siemens Middle East
Authors: Vezvaei Ali 
Published: February 2015

Q&A
What was Siemens’ involvement in the Habshan-Fujairah oil pipeline project?
Siemens was involved in this strategically important project from the very beginning, working in harmony with a series of other contractors on a tight timescale to deliver an alternative option to shipping crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
Siemens’ contribution to the project was to supply the entire control and automation system of the pipeline—its “brain,” if you like. For this, we had to develop a relatively complex system, enlisting the assistance of a team from Europe to work with our local experts in order to design, finalize, and implement a suitably comprehensive solution.
Essentially, the Siemens control and automation system at the Habshan-Fujairah facility is designed to ensure that the pipeline, under normal operation, can be accurately managed from a central location, including measuring and controlling the flow of oil, shifting the lines, monitoring and controlling different stations and streams, and supervising other variables fundamental to the reliable day-to-day operation of the pipeline.
Within the system there is also a series of different modules and platforms that allow for operation under alternative conditions, for instance, in the case of an emergency. Any solution for the automation and control of critical infrastructure like this needs to be robust, and in a four-station pipeline that’s almost 400-km long, you cannot compromise on safety and reliability, especially when there’s a workforce involved.
What are the main benefits of an automated control system like this?
Firstly, it enables the pipeline to run safely and reliably. Safety is paramount, and our automation and control system is designed to protect the pipeline and its operation in a comprehensive range of scenarios. It also reduces the requirement to have a workforce stationed in the field—with obvious safety implications—in addition to lowering the potential for unreliable and sometimes time-intensive communications.
Secondly, a system like this introduces enhanced efficiency. With accurate, real-time monitoring comes the ability to swiftly react to requirement changes for various aspects of the pipeline, allowing operators to maintain the facility at optimum efficiency under any conditions.
The pipeline is intended to be customer operated. What level of training is involved?
The automation system for the Habshan-Fujairah oil pipeline has been designed to allow the end-user to take over the operation and control of the pipeline. It’s important that the team is familiar with both the day-to-day running of the system and also its operation in a wide range of other scenarios. Naturally this requires extensive training of the customer’s workforce.
Survey Identifies Industry Skill Gaps
Authors: JPT staff _ 
Published: February 2015

Talent & Technology
Employees place great emphasis on training and development opportunities when choosing employers, and lack of training and skills development could hamper the oil and gas industry’s short-term potential for production growth. Those were two of the key findings in a survey of industry professionals designed to build a current picture of the level of skills in the global engineering community and determine the importance that the oil and gas industry places on learning and skills development. The survey was conducted by SPE and sponsored by BP. Of the respondents, 47% were engineers and 25% were managers.
The survey confirmed that a wide range of skills are important for a successful career in the oil and gas industry, and that employees place great emphasis on training and development opportunities when choosing employers. The ability to learn, teamwork, communication skills, work ethic, and technical skills are some of the most important skills required for a career in the industry. Universities play an important role in equipping graduates for the start of their career and are seen to be particularly good at providing computer skills, knowledge, technical skills, and analytical skills. Upon starting a career, the majority (86.8%) of employees require training, even if only a little. Most survey respondents (82.4%) said they expect their employer to provide them with some of this training, which tends to be a combination of formal and informal. Only about a tenth (11.1%) expect the employer to provide all of their training.
Two-thirds (65.7%) of respondents said they have received formal training, which consists of technical training (76.5%), soft skills training (57.8%), and management and finance training (44.3%). Outside companies deliver the greatest share of this formal training. Formal technical training is mostly delivered by a mix of outside companies, workshops, on-the-job training, and internal training programs. Soft skills training often is provided by out-side companies (28%) or internal training programs (24%). Of the formal training received, technical training was rated the most important in helping to meet the daily responsibilities of their job role. A majority of respondents (76.8%) said they are satisfied with the formal training they received, particularly the quality and content. However, improvements could be made to increase training budgets and the amount of training and time made available, as a tenth of survey respondents said they are dissatisfied with these aspects of training programs and opportunities.
Identification and Prediction of Wells Susceptible to Sulfide Stress Cracking
Authors: Wilson Adam 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Editorial Manager Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper SPE 160489, ’Identification of SSC (Sulfide-Stress-Cracking) -Susceptible Wells and Risk Prediction,’ by Tapan Chakrabarty and Richard J. Smith, Imperial Oil Resources, prepared for the 2012 SPE Heavy Oil Conference Canada, Calgary, 12-14 June. The paper has not been peer reviewed.
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) generated by aquathermolysis—a high-temperature reaction of condensed steam (water) with sulfur-bearing bitumen in the reservoir rock—may increase the risk of sulfide stress cracking (SSC) in cyclic-steam-stimulation (CSS) wells. Identifying the SSC-susceptible wells is important in terms of reducing SSC risk by allocating resources to and implementing proactive intervention measures at the SSC-susceptible wells. A comprehensive research program, with a dedicated instrumented CSS well as the centerpiece, has been undertaken with the objectives of characterizing H2S evolution in the wellbore and developing a tool for identifying the SSC-susceptible wells.
Introduction
Imperial Oil is using CSS commercially to recover bitumen from the Clearwater formation at the Cold Lake field in Alberta, Canada. In this process, the reservoir is stimulated by injecting high-pressure/high-temperature steam to reduce the bitumen viscosity and produce the thinned bitumen through the same well in a cyclical manner. In a given well, steam injection is through the casing, liquid (bitumen and condensed steam) production is through the tubing, and gas production is mainly through the casing annulus. It is the casing that is susceptible to SSC, as shown in a small casing section retrieved from a Cold Lake CSS well (Fig. 1). SSC in a CSS well is induced by H2S that is generated by the reaction, termed aquathermolysis, between condensed steam and sulfur-bearing bitumen.
SSC increases with an increase in H2S partial pressure (pH2S) and with a decrease in well temperature. The inverse temperature effect is attributed to the diffusion of hydrogen atoms—a product of the reaction between H2S and iron—through the casing metal matrix. At a lower temperature, the hydro-gen diffusion is slower and the hydrogen accumulation inside the casing wall is higher, leading to a higher stress build-up and an increased SSC susceptibility.
To reduce the risk of SSC in CSS wells at Cold Lake, Imperial Oil has implemented an extensive casing-integrity-assurance program that includes
Measuring the H2S during production in all the wells as they cool down to lower than 70°C
Shutting in an SSC-susceptible well
Purging the casing annulus of a shut-in well with nitrogen to lower the H2S level in the wellbore
Enhanced RSS Technology Pushes Drilling Envelope
Authors: Figueredo Cesar 
Published: February 2015

Technology Update
Increasing technical demands are pushing the envelope of rotary steerable system (RSS) drilling technology. The growing challenges of directional drilling in hard formations, borehole stability issues, difficult hole trajectories, and harsh downhole environments all are placing increasing demands on drilling and adding costs and risks to operations.
RSS advancements have played a key role in pushing drilling into new frontiers such as deepwater and unconventional basins. As wells have become more complex and difficult, the industry seeks continuing advancements to enable the economic development of previously inaccessible resources in a variety of environments.
The Schlumberger PowerDrive Orbit enhanced RSS (Fig. 1) expands the ability to complete multiple functions in one run, tolerating higher revolutions per minute while maintaining good trajectory control, minimizing tortuosity, and accommodating challenging hydraulic designs and muds formulated for more aggressive drilling.
Addressing Challenges
The technology was engineered to address the most challenging drilling conditions and provide the reliability and efficiency needed to plan one run per section from shoe to total depth. The tool reduces the number of trips in and out of the hole, decreases the risk of differential and mechanical sticking, and improves hole cleaning and conditioning capabilities.
The enhanced RSS system includes a newly designed pad actuator, thus increasing reliability and enhancing trajectory control by use of self-steering automation on any type of rig worldwide. The system also offers an optional, or on-demand, stronger pad design to provide greater durability in highly abrasive formations.
In wells that typically would require two or three runs to drill one section, the new design enables operators to drill a section in a single run with improved performance. It also expands the revolution rate limits, tolerating up to 350 RPM, from the current limit of 220 RPM, while maintaining directional control and consistent steerability.
Enhancing Existing Technology
The new RSS system was designed to boost the effectiveness of existing technology. With an improved pad force, push-the-bit system for consistent dogleg severity at higher revolutions per minute, the new technology pushes the operating envelope of PowerDrive pushthe- bit systems. When combined with the PowerDrive vorteX powered RSS, it offers a wider tolerance for higher revolutions per minute and torque downhole.