During a typical completion, operational inconsistencies can arise from variable downhole conditions, surface equipment, and even personnel competency. Since overall pumping efficiency relies on perforating runs being as efficient as possible, eliminating these inconsistencies reduces non-productive time. Preventing wireline from becoming a limiting factor in hours or stages pumped per day is critical in modern operations.
Maximizing perforating run efficiency requires a balance between winch speed, pump rate, and down hole tension on the cable head. If any of the three variables are out of sync, results can include unintentionally pumping off the gun string down hole, wasting operations time, and increasing the environmental impact of wireline through unnecessary water and diesel use.
There is no one-size-fits-all procedure that optimizes wireline pump-down speed and fluid use for every situation. The Pump Down Advisor (PDA) service integrates real-time data from wireline speed, down hole tension, and pump rate to advise on optimal conditions to make perforating runs as efficient as possible. Given a set of constraints based on customer and user preferences, Pump Down Advisor will display optimal variables alongside actual, real-time values, and can alert the winchman when speeds, tensions, or rates fall outside of a prescribed range. By using real-time speed and down hole tension rather than surface data, PDA is more responsive and precise when providing feedback since the data used is not muffled by line stretch or friction between the wireline cable and casing.
Data from Pump Down Advisor was compared to traditional pump down methods on two independent field tests. Results included:
Winch speed increase compared to standard procedures
Decrease in overall perforating stage time
Fluid usage decrease per stage
