American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2016 - 71

TECH TRENDS
"Nanotechnology holds tremendous promise for achieving
breakthroughs in infrastructure components using new
metallurgies, chemistries and electromechanical devices.
There are almost limitless potential application areas for nanotechnology
in oil and gas ﬁelds.'
roded tubing strings. No matter the type
of play, production downtime is one of the
biggest margin killers in the oil and gas
business. The more aggressive the operating environment and/or narrower the
margin, the greater the impacts associated with production downtime.
This begs the question: What value
would be represented by a tubular product with nanolaminated steel or nanocoating materials that could keep a well on line
for, say, 36 months instead of six or
eight, before requiring an intervention to
address a corrosion-related failure? What
impact would this have on operational return on that tubular asset?
The implications can be profound, especially if the nanotech-enabled solution
can be delivered at the same pricing point
as a conventional component. Keeping the
well producing means avoiding lost or deferred production, effectively recovering
more hydrocarbons. Plus, the operator
would incur lower maintenance expenses
and dramatically reduced recurring costs
to replace or repair tubulars and pumps.
The higher a project's capital- and operating-expenditure profile is, the greater the
potential impact associated with applying
nanotechnology is. Take, for example,
high-cost, technically complex projects
such as Gulf of Mexico Lower Tertiary wells
drilled 30,000 feet into HP/HT reservoirs in
10,000 feet of water. Here, corrosion, erosion and wear resistance remain important,
but enhanced strength, modulus, weight and
other beneficial characteristics of nanotechnology alternatives also can affect infrastructure cost dramatically.
We have run simulations that suggest
using advanced nanolaminated metals in
deepwater fields can reduce total project
OCTG requirements by 30 percent or
more, compared with conventional alloys.
Being able to deploy stronger and
more durable, yet lighter-weight casing
with one-third the wall thickness and
much larger-diameter production tubulars

not only has major well cost benefits, but
also means wells can produce more hydrocarbons. Moreover, if the tubulars are
longer lived, operations will be safer and
will not have to be shut down as frequently for repairs.
Digital Nanotechnologies
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and
nanotechnology is in the hand of the
wielder. Nanotechnology isn't a technology, but describes the impact of scale on
a number of technology sectors that can
have dramatic impact on application and
performance.
One example is using small-scale sensor technologies to characterize and monitor reservoirs and reservoir infrastructure.
This application is adapted from the core
architectures of the "smart dust" autonomous sensing and communication
devices initially developed at the Univer-

As these sensor systems and components are reduced systematically in size
down to the nanometer scale, their ability to improve the resolution of reservoir
monitoring and to interact with the chemistry of the reservoir is increased, providing more and more valuable data. These
devices plug directly into the concept of
the digital oil field, which seeks to improve
both opex and capex over the life of an asset by optimizing production performance
while minimizing operational problems
and inefficiencies.
The U.S. military's new small-unit
operations tactical model provides interesting analogies to the smart field paradigm. The model describes autonomous
operating units within the broader command structure to provide more responsive
and effective results with greater efficiency and a lower logistical burden.
In the case of the digital oil field, this basic model can be adapted to allow asset
teams to make informed, independent decisions based on real-time data being generated in the field. Instead of calling in firepower, they may call in an equipment
technician or service provider to perform ondemand maintenance or repairs based on
real-time data from the field. This structure,

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and nanotechnology
is in the hand of the wielder. Nanotechnology isn't a
technology, but describes the impact of scale on a
number of technology sectors that can have dramatic impact on
application and performance."
sity of California-Berkley. The idea is to
infuse the wellbore with microscale sensors that can "talk" with one another to reduce downhole and surface communications infrastructure.
These particle-sized, low-power devices
use small-scale batteries and antennae to
become ubiquitous to the well while both
sensing and communicating information
in real time during well construction,
completion and production operations.
They require no communications hub or
connections, and can collect data such as
pressures, temperatures, chemistries and
flow rates, and transmit them over very
long distances by relaying data from one
device to another.

enabled by infrastructure monitoring capability in real time, enables further organizational and operational efficiency.
Of course, this model assumes that the
huge amounts of data coming from oil and
gas operations can be turned into actionable information, which is no trivial feat.
Data management is a challenge already,
and data volumes will continue to grow exponentially as sensor technology becomes
more prolific. More data does not necessarily mean more information.
Fortunately, there are numerous big
data initiatives to develop technologies to
synthesize large quantities of data and turn
them into business intelligence, including
data mining, analytics, neural networks,
JANUARY 2016 71

American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2016

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