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sembly is mated with its lower counterpart. offshore Clair Ridge ? eld West of Shetland. This was the

The modular system includes ? ve channels that can be world’s ? rst multi-trip completion installation with full- customized based on how the completion engineer wants bore ? ber-optic capability. During the deployment, six to complete the well. Each channel supports two hydrau- optical ? bers were mated between the upper and lower lic lines, one electric line or one six-? ber line. The elec- completions. BP will use the data gathered in parallel with tric connectors make traditional monitoring devices like conventional well surveillance data to provide a better un- pressure and temperature gauges and electric choking derstanding of fracture performance in real time.

valves possible in the lower connection while hydraulic Clair Ridge is the second phase of development of the actuations can help mitigate scale or asphaltene buildup Clair ? eld, which was discovered in 1977 and holds more through chemical injection. than 7 billion barrels of oil in place. Clair Ridge features “This gives extra ? exibility to put monitoring and con- a highly fractured reservoir with some areas that pro- trol tools in the lower completion that haven’t been pos- duce quite a lot and other that don’t. Clair Ridge, which sible before. It gives more segmentation and control of the achieved ? rst oil in late 2018, targets 640 million barrels completion,” Scott says. of recoverable oil reserves.

The data available through SureCONNECT enables op- “The wells there are complex. They’re very deviated, with erators to make more remote decisions, which minimizes the tortuous paths,” Scott says. “To ef? ciently produce this res- need for transporting experts offshore. Because the system is ervoir, they need to know what’s happening in the reservoir.” compatible with other down- He says the use of SureCONNECT in the Clair Ridge hole technologies used to shut ? eld has made it possible to “see value almost instanta- off zones and optimize produc- neously” by making it possible to “detect where water is tion, it creates standardization coming from and take appropriate actions to handle that

Source: Baker Hughes across intelligent completion water. They are producing from a highly fractured reser- designs, the company says. voir in a way that wouldn’t have been possible without the

The gathered data is pro- SureCONNECT technology.” cessed at the surface and Scott calls the development of SureCONNECT a two- turned into actionable, data- decade journey and says BP and Shell have been key part- driven solutions, according ners in ? ne-tuning the system.

to Baker Hughes. One such “We deployed various aspects of it over the years,” he says. action might be shutting One of those was a ? ber-optic only version that was off water and gas-dominant installed at Shell’s Mars A ? eld in the deepwater Gulf of zones through remotely actu- Mexico in 2012. The electric connector was deployed in ated sliding sleeves to opti- Brazil in 2003, and the hydraulic connector in 1998 in mize production in real time. the UK.

In addition to allowing The full commercialization of the modular version capa- the downhole connection ble of accommodating and mating ? ber optics, hydraulics of electric, hydraulic, and and electric came in 2019. ? ber-optic lines in multi- “The critical piece was how could we get to a place trip completions, SureCON- where we could do this reliably,” Scott says. “It’s more

NECT makes ? ow pro? ling, than just the tool itself. It’s the process and project man- fullbore well monitoring and agement process.” control possible, according All those pieces combine in SureCONNECT to make it to the company. possible to do more with less, Scott says. This ? ts in with the industry’s drive for ef? ciency across the board, he adds.

“This unlocks a whole new level of ef? ciency that gets

Connecting us to the point where we can talk about autonomous con- at Clair Ridge trol,” he says. “They can unlock more assets and pro? t-

BP has deployed Sure-

CONNECT in its operated ability over the life of the well.”

JANUARY/fEBRUARY 2020 OFFSHORE ENGINEER 27