FLI Evaluates an Alternative Well Barrier Technology

FiberLine Intervention (FLI) has been used to evaluate an alternative barrier technology in a trial well abandonment application. The chemical barrier was planned to be pumped into the well and through the perforations in two sequential injection phases. Once in place it was designed to set and isolate the formation.

FLI was selected to evaluate the effectiveness of the trial due to its ability to deliver instant and real-time answers and for its agile deployment technique, which could be used after each injection phase without impacting the critical timing of the operations.

FLI used distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) to listen for fluid movement in the well and surrounding formation and, at the same time, used distributed temperature sensing (DTS) to monitor the placement of the injected chemical.

FLI’s data showed a clear indication that the chemical had not reached the target formation and had instead exited through a suspected hole in the casing over 700ft above the perforations. This supported wellbore pressure tests which showed little to no change post treatment. Without the FLI survey it would not have been possible to diagnose why the treatment had been unsuccessful and it may have been assumed that the chemical simply did not work.

This is another example demonstrating the extremely high value of monitoring downhole operations using distributed sensing, where the entirety of the well is surveyed real time. The data provided by FLI enabled a verification of treatment performance and informed subsequent decisions.

Find out more in our CASE STUDY.