Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, UK -- Expro says it has had successful qualification and field trial of its FlowCAT retrofit wireless safety valve. The valve, which is on display this week at Offshore Europe, has recently completed a six-month trial in a gas well onshore southern Italy.
Expro says this marks the first use of the company’s Cableless Telemetry System (CaTS) in a flow control application.
CaTS is a development in the field of reservoir monitoring and control, allowing information to be transmitted in real time to and from downhole instruments without the use of cables. Its two-way transmission capability enables the remote control of downhole instrumentation, opening the path to the radical redesign of downhole completions, Expro says.
FlowCAT is a fail safe closed safety valve that can be installed in the well’s existing safety valve nipple profile, or by using an alternative suspension mechanism, and is controlled from surface using the system’s electromagnetic wireless telemetry technology.
Installed in December 2008, the 4 ½-in. FlowCAT valve was deployed into the well using standard slickline intervention methods and, over the course of the six months, was cycled and inflow tested regularly during periods of both production and injection.
Now that we have proven the reliability of the valve mechanical components and the robustness of the wireless telemetry scheme over an extended duration test in the onshore environment, we are working to finalize the necessary system enhancements to allow us to take the system to the offshore platform environment,” says Steve Hudson, Expro’s wireless well solutions technology manager. “We feel well placed to take it to offshore trial in the next three to six months.”
“The successful qualification and trial of the FlowCAT safety valve marks a milestone achievement en route to achieving our vision of delivering the Retrofit Intelligent Well, says Brian Champion, GM of Expro’s wireless business unit. “Our focus is now on the further development and integration of additional flow control, monitoring, and wireless telemetry components to enable the retrofit of instrumentation into complex well architectures, including multi-lateral wells.”
9/8/2009
