Halliburton and Technip announce subsea fiber optic sensing solution

15 Jul 2020

Distributed acoustic sensing technology is designed to reduce oil reservoir knowledge uncertainty and cut cost of ownership.

“First distributed acoustic sensing solution for subsea wells."

Oil industry giant Halliburton and Technip FMC, which delivers subsea onshore and offshore oil and gas-related engineering projects, have jointly developed a system called Odassea, which they describe as “the first distributed acoustic sensing solution for subsea wells.”

The technology platform is specified to enable rig operators to execute intervention-free seismic imaging and reservoir diagnostics to improve knowledge of oil and gas reservoirs while reducing operational costs. “The Odassea service integrates hardware and digital systems to strengthen digital capabilities in subsea reservoir monitoring and production optimization,” states the launch press release.

Halliburton is providing the fiber optic sensing technology, completions and analysis for reservoir diagnostics; completion is the process of making an oil or gas well ready for production (or injection) after drilling operations are finished. TechnipFMC provides the optical connectivity from the topside to the completions. Through the collaboration, operators can accelerate full field subsea fiber optic sensing, design and execution.

Odassea - how it works

In the field, Halliburton and TechnipFMC are delivering solutions with the technology to multiple subsea projects at all stages from conceptual design to execution and installation. The Odassea provides topside distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) of subsea wells for time-lapse (4D) seismic imaging using downhole fibers deployed to the production packer and reservoir diagnostics using downhole fibers deployed across reservoir.

Topside DAS of subsea wells requires advanced optical engineering solutions to compensate for the reduced acoustic bandwidth, optical losses, and back reflections accumulated through umbilicals, multiple wet- and dry-mate optical connectors, splices, optical feedthrough systems, and downhole fibers.

Odassea provides topside distributed acoustic sensing of subsea wells.

To address these issues, Odassea consists of a subsea fiber network that limits the sensing fiber only to the downhole fiber to enable dry-tree equivalent acoustic sampling frequencies of 10+ kHz, while eliminating all back reflections from the multiple subsea connectors.

The Odassea is capable of providing dry-tree equivalent acoustic sensing performance over the entire length of the subsea well regardless of the subsea tie-back distance.

Collaboration

“We are excited to introduce a new technology platform which allows our customers to monitor reservoir performance in real-time,” commented Trey Clark, Vice President of Halliburton Wireline and Perforating. “By collaborating with TechnipFMC, we can harness our combined subsurface and subsea expertise to provide value for our customers.”

Christina Johansen, Vice President of TechnipFMC Subsea Product Management Control & Automation, said, “This project enables an enhanced level of reservoir understanding for our customers and expands our integrated subsea solution. We are proving that we can leverage the competencies and know-how to drive the change our industry needs for a higher level of sustainability.”