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April 14, 2004 Technical Dinner Meeting

On Site Tubing Inspection
 ¤ B. T. Wagg, C-FER Technologies, Edmonton; Kirk Stewart, Lonkar Services Ltd., Red Deer

Biography: 

 Brian Wagg has worked in the Production Technology Department at C-FER for the past 13 years.  A graduate of the Geological Engineering program at the University of Waterloo, Brian has been involved in a variety of projects related to heavy oil operations including casing deformation analysis produced sand management, sucker rod and elastomer testing for progressing cavity pumping systems and assessments of heavy oil gathering systems.  Currently he is managing the development of software tools for analyzing multi-finger caliper data and temperature logs.

 Kirk Stewart has worked in the petroleum industry for the past thirty years, primarily in cased hole well servicing operations. He is a Certified Petroleum Engineering Technologist and has been involved in numerous completion and production logging developments. Currently he is managing the Production and Reservoir Evaluations group of Lonkar Services Ltd. 

Abstract:

Multi-finger caliper data can be used to characterize the wall loss due to wear and corrosion in production tubing.  A new program for processing multi-finger caliper data makes it possible to provide the rig crew with a tally sheet showing tubing wall loss for each joint within minutes of logging the well.  The data can then be used in more detailed analyses of wall loss to determine if rejected tubing is suitable for service in other applications.  One of the key criteria to be assessed is the burst pressure based on the remaining tubing wall.  Conventional burst calculations make extremely conservative estimates of the effect of isolated wall loss features so that the calculated remaining burst pressure can be significantly lower than the actual burst pressure.  A less conservative approach to the burst pressure calculation is presented based on data collected from a multi-finger caliper tool.