Petrobras Approves Delivery of READ’s New Permanent Reservoir Monitoring System (Brazil)

The Brazilian National Oil Company, Petrobras has approved delivery of READ’s new and innovative Permanent Reservoir Monitoring (PRM) System, the PerForM™. An audit and Final Acceptance Test (FAT) of the system was completed by Petrobras representatives at READ’s facilities in Houston, Texas, in April 2011. The PerForM™ system will now be shipped to Brazil for final offshore installation preparations at Petrobras facilities outside Rio de Janeiro. After which the system is planned installed downhole in a reservoir located off the coast of Brazil in the Namorado oil Field during H2, 2011. After installation, READ will conduct a 4D seismic survey and the system will provide 24/7 real-time continuous Micro-Seismic monitoring of the reservoir.

The industry need for improved oil recovery (IOR) from producing fields is expected to provide for a strong growth in 4D seismic surveys and PRM Systems. The benefit of PRM Systems such as the PerForM™ is highly attractive when compared to traditional marine streamer surveys. PRM Systems have far lower survey costs and greatly improved ability to detect oil & gas movements, optimising reservoir drainage and flow assurance.

The growth of PRM will also be driven by the increasing number of subsea developments. Subsea well intervention today is expensive, leading to insufficient reservoir information for accurately understanding the reservoir dynamics such as connectivity, drainage, and flow assurance. To increase today’s oil recovery from subsea installations, from typically 20-30% up towards 40-60% for platform and “dry wells”, real time seismic data from sensors located downhole on the sand face is required. And this is exactly what the PerForM™ system offers to the industry.

The PerForM™ system promises marine seismic reservoir imaging quality at less than half the cost of traditional streamer operations. The system can have up to 120 levels of seismic sensor nodes downhole and can include pressure, temperature and other measurements on a high speed data link to the surface. The placement of the sensors in the annulus allows for real-time data acquisition without interruption of well production. When the micro-seismic monitoring capabilities are combined with real time multiple migrations, the PerForM™ system offers a powerful combination providing for the imaging of large reservoir areas. The PerForM™ also enhances well safety by providing early indication of reservoir leakages, dangerous gas accumulations and seabed subsidence.

“READ’s vision is to become a leading reservoir evaluation and monitoring company, and the acceptance of PerForM™ system by Petrobras is a major milestone in realizing our strategy. Petrobras is one of the industry leaders in pioneering new technologies and solutions for improved oil recovery and I would like to express our appreciation of having Petrobras as a partner in this endeavour”, commented Tor Hilton, CEO of READ ASA.

“The R&D (Research and Development) of several new technologies required for the PerForM™ system over the last five years have been made possible by READs strong capabilities within Geophysics, Geology, Engineering, and 25 years of operational experience conducting seismic surveys internationally. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the project team for their efforts and high performance standards, and Petrobras for their strong support and belief in our ability to develop and deliver an innovative PRM solution for their producing fields”, stated Cedric Mallinckrodt, CTO of READ ASA and PerForM™ Project Champion.

READs PerForM™ technology has been developed in partnership with Petrobras, and with financial support from the Norwegian Research Council.

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Source:  readgroup, June 20 , 2011;