Leaks can undermine the production potential of a well and become a serious risk to health, safety and the environment. For well operators, it’s crucial to determine the location, size and scale of any leaks, as implementing the correct remediation technique can avoid costly well workover operations and rapidly restore production to its optimum level.
Leaks can be located across any of the barriers commonly found in wellbore construction, including packers, cement, plugs, completion components, and the tubing and casing itself.
The most common leaks occur between the production tubing and production casing annulus, having an immediate impact on the safe operation of a well, but often proving difficult to diagnose with conventional production logging and integrity evaluation services.
The accurate and real-time detection and location of barrier leaks within the well system is crucial to well integrity. In worst case scenarios, such leaks can lead to production shutdowns, completion workovers or even well abandonment. But it’s not only the location of the leak that’s important. Understanding the root cause as well as the shape, size, and extent of the flow path is essential in determining the correct solution.
EV’s visual diagnostics solutions provide detailed evaluation of potential leak sites, which, when combined with multi-sensor data acquisition technologies, can enhance the information acquired by traditional leak detection methods. High Frame Rate HD Colour video information can quickly identify the location and cause of a leak, and evaluate its severity, helping to determine the correct course of action to be taken – immediately at the well site. EV’s visual diagnostic solutions provides well operators with real-time decision-making capability, helping them to deliver effective, first-time remediation, and enabling significant reductions in intervention costs and production down-time.