Paragon 8 - Paragon Acoustic Technology
Wireless Telemetry for single or multi-zone production / injection completions on manned and unmanned platforms or subsea wells.
The Paragon system has been developed to transmit data all the way to the surface from sensors at any location in the well or to transmit commands from the surface to operate down hole tools such as bottom hole samplers or Metrol’s sliding sleeve.
The success rate of traditional permanent installations depends on a number of factors and failure rates only increase with the complexity of a platform or subsea completion.
Causes of failure centre around cable damage, length of cable and splicing, packer feed-throughs, subsea/wellhead cable connectors and the mean-time failure of electronic components. Hence, the average life of these systems falls well short of the expected maximum and often disappoints. Paragon acoustics addresses all of the above shortcomings and offers real advantages. Each component in the Paragon system is autonomous in that it is powered by its own battery pack. This lends itself perfectly to multiple redundancies. In fact, today, it is possible to put a number of the acoustic relays into a ‘deep sleep’ inactive mode only to be re-awakened sometime in the future if required. The acoustic signal does not need to pass through every active relay, but will travel to the most distant relay that hears the signal. Some relays will remain inactive and battery power in these will be conserved for future use. As the batteries in the regularly used relays expire, the seldom used relays will automatically take over. Even if one tool suffers an electronic failure, another tool will take its place. Multiple memory gauges can be run for each zone of the wells for the same reason. At any time a signal may be sent to any individual gauge to alter the sampling rate.
Each production/injection completion can have a number of memory gauges that are continuously recording pressure & temperature data. Requests for data, from any of these gauges, are made remotely from Metrol’s International data centres, via the telephone (land line and/or satellite) and transmitted acoustically down the tubing by way of a series of acoustic relays to the target gauge. The data is, transmitted up the tubing by the acoustic relays and then by telephone link back to Metrol, where it is posted on a secure website for Client’s review. By sending an email instruction, the Client can request a gauge sample rate change, or, if necessary, retrieve the detailed historical data stored in the memory on a particular gauge for closer analysis. The relays themselves already have built in temperature detection that allow an array of point readings with options for distributed temperature surveys over extended periods and its inherent flexibility also allows us to integrate other multiple devices into the system, such as fluid ID tools, along with flow control with our sliding sleeves, sand detection, corrosion monitoring, PH, salinity, H2S detection etc.
All the devices have discrete controlling messages that use the same acoustic pathway to surface. Importantly, for increased redundancy, extra gauges, acoustic relays and/or any of the above devices can be retrofitted into the completion using w/line at a later date and these will automatically tie in to the existing Paragon acoustic system.
Another consideration for the Client to select the Paragon acoustic system is that no additional rig time is required to install it. All equipment is pre-assembled and tested prior to running the completion. After finishing the completion, transducers are attached to flange bolts of the production tree/subsea tree. The production/subsea tree can be completely standard with no potential leak paths or modifications required to accommodate the Paragon surface kit. In a subsea situation a sonar underwater modem or umbilical can also be used to transfer the requested data and/or commands to and from surface.
In summary, one Metrol Paragon acoustic system can handle hundreds of tools both now and in the future!
Specifications
MWP:
10,000psi, 16,000psi or 20,000 psi
MTQ (Quartz) Temperature range:
-20 to 150°C (302°F)
MTX (Strain) Temperature range:
-20 to 150°C (302°F)
Memory capacity:
210k, 1,640k, 1.8 or 3.2 million data sets
Accuracy:
± 0.025% of full scale (± 2.5psi on 10,000psi gauge), +1°C
Resolution:
pressure 0.00025% of reading +0.01psi (e.g. 0.02psi @ 4,000psi) – temperature: 0.05°C