TGT Oilfield Services, the market leader in through-barrier diagnostic systems, has announced the successful validation of its electromagnetic EmPulse® well inspection system in high chromium tubulars.
In three Middle East deployments – one an operator witnessed ‘yard test’ and the other in two live wells – TGT engineers demonstrated that the EmPulse system can quantitatively determine the individual tubular thickness of up to four concentric barriers, even when there are high amounts of chrome in the tubulars.
Ken Feather, TGT’s chief marketing officer commented, “This achievement marks an important industry breakthrough as operators endeavour to protect well integrity in ever more challenging production environments. Increasing chromium content helps to protect well completions from highly-corrosive fluids, such as carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and chloride—but high-chrome can cause serious problems for ordinary electromagnetic pipe inspection systems.”
He continues, “It’s essential that operators can access integrity inspection systems that work reliably and accurately throughout the well system in all environments and materials, especially where corrosive and toxic fluids are involved. This is why we created the EmPulse diagnostic platform.”
The increase in chrome and the resulting decrease in ferrous content causes electromagnetic [EM] signals to decay too quickly for ordinary EM inspection systems. Designed and manufactured completely in-house by TGT scientists and engineers, the EmPulse system combines ultra-fast sensor technology with ‘time-domain’ measurement techniques to capture EM signals rapidly and accurately in a wide range of pipe materials, including those with high-chrome content. This enables operators to evaluate pipe thickness and metal loss in multiple casing strings simultaneously, ensuring long-term well performance even in the most challenging production environments.