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Improving performance with intelligent computing at the wellhead Production from US oilfields growing the drive to increase efficiency and boost production from the hundreds of thousand wells dotted across the country is gaining pace, and one of the most promising solutions is the digital wellhead.
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ake any flight from Texas to California, and you will fly over West Texas and New Mexico. With a quick glance out of the window, you will see the land pockmarked with a seemingly boundless patchwork of square sandy areas as far as the eye can see. What your eyes won’t be able to tell you from that height is that each one of those squares contains an oil wellhead. Welcome to the Permian Basin that supplies almost a third of the US domestic crude oil. The case for digital wellheads The oil fields in the basin contain tens of
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Oil & Gas Technology |
thousands of wells, growing every year. Over the past five years, more than 5,000 wells have been added to the inventory. What you will also notice is that aside from the wells there is very little else in the region as far as infrastructure goes. Each of these wells is unmanned and, more often than not, located in areas with poor access. Despite these challenges, the wells need to be inspected to check for gas leaks and any structural damage, which can be a costly and time-consuming operation. Aside from the need to avoid falling foul of compliance or health and safety issues, there is the matter of data. In modern oil
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production, data is vital for planning and assessment, and wellheads are a significant and abundant source of data that at present, is mostly untapped. Although some of the newer wellheads may have smart digital sensors with built-in wireless communications, the vast majority are legacy installations with analog gauges. Even the new smart sensors require a technician to be in close proximity to download the data to a handheld device. What is a digital wellhead? “Operators are trying to digitize these fields and wells so that they can detect all
