American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2016 - 102

cur where there is either a temperature or
pressure change, primarily in or near the
perforations or slots in a slotted liner. This
is where The Stinger does its work."
According to Ballou, in addition to its
mechanical cleaning action, The Stinger's
design allows any chemical solvent or acid
to be delivered as the tools jetting fluid,
adding a chemical component directly to
the perforations and slots.
Ballou says The Stinger is available in
1
1
5
four sizes: 4 ⁄2, 5 ⁄2, 6 ⁄8 and 7-inches; and
each is custom-made from 4140 hardened
tool steel with four rows of brushes and
three rows of stainless steel jets. The
Stinger can be deployed with conventional stick tubing and coiled tubing applications, he confirms. "Our tool has a wide
range of applications, and the technology
has been shown to be effective for oil, gas,
stripper, disposal or injection wells," he remarks. "It also would be ideal for any operator doing a 'squeeze job,' because it can
assist in making certain that all perforations
are open to take the squeeze."
4B Production developed a modular
version of The Stinger specifically to address operational issues on horizontal
wells' lateral legs, Ballou says, as it is wellsuited to coiled tubing operations.
"The design incorporates wear collars
that act as centralizers, and wear bar
'fins' welded on the collars that replace
conventional collars attached to the tools
and tubing," he explains. "Two modular
tools are combined, with wear collars between each tool and on either end, stabilizing the tool and protecting the brushes.
This design has 50 percent more brushes
and 25 percent more jets than in a conventional vertical well application."
The Stinger has been tested in various
wells in Utah, Oklahoma and Kansas, and
Ballou reports it is capable of cleaning as
many as 25,000 feet of wellbore without
issues. The consumable components, such

as the brushes and jets, are replaced after
every job. Meanwhile, the tool itself is extremely durable and, with proper care, will
last for years of continuous service, he
notes.
"I recommend that operators use the
tool whenever they notice "hockey stick"
steep hyperbolic decline curves, indications
of scale, or when rods and tubing are
pulled," he says. "Production declines are
a serious challenge, but are especially challenging in today's economic market because each well's economic limit changes.
Operators are likely better off improving
the wells they already have than drilling
new ones."
Well Site Communications
In a world of instantaneous connection
and communication, Rockwell Automation
advises operators to take advantage of the
latest well site monitoring and analysis
technologies to get up-to-the-minute data
from their wells around the clock.
Luis Gamboa, global oil and gas market development manager, says Rockwell
Automation has started introducing its latest components for a well monitoring and
analysis system.
Rockwell Automation's ConnectedProduction initiative "takes advantage of
the latest smart sensors, controllers and
other technologies, and computing power to capture and analyze significant
amounts of well-site data," Gamboa describes.
The ConnectedProduction enables operators to make more informed and faster
decisions about how to optimize field operations, he clarifies.
While the initiative has several components, Gamboa highlights:
* Two new remote terminal units that
can either gather information or be used
as controllers for artificial lift equipment,
including rod pumps;

The ConnectedProduction initiative takes advantage of the latest sensors, controllers and other technologies, as well as
computing power to capture and
analyze significant amounts of
well-site data. Rockwell Automation says this enables its customers to detect well failures,
look for patterns and causes, and
ultimately avoid downtime.

102 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

* The ControlLogix® family of controllers, which typically are used as pad
controllers, or are used in other larger facilities such as processing and separation
plants; and
* Visualization software that uses
dashboards to show well-site conditions.
"We realize customers have other vendors' equipment in the field, doing controls
or gathering information from intelligent
assets," Gamboa emphasizes. "One of the
key elements we provide in the architecture is an excellent integration capability
so we can interface to all the equipment
on the well site, and gather and integrate
the data into one virtual repository.
"This way, all the data are available and
transparent to the operator, and they all are
coming into one system," Gamboa continues, clarifying that the integration typically is done through the ControlLogix family.
The entire ConnectedProduction system is capable of connecting to radio, Ethernet, satellite or cellular networks so the
information can be communicated to a
central location, Gamboa reports. Rockwell Automation can provide Ethernet
switches, and has partnerships with radio
companies and cellular network providers.
At the operator's central location,
software packages such as FactoryTalk®
VantagePoint EMI or FactoryTalk View,
"put data from the well site's multiple
sources into context," Gamboa says. This
allows operators to view the contextualized data from any remote or mobile location, including through a Web browser on a smartphone or tablet.
"These packages allow customers to see
both real-time and historical data," he confirms. "In addition, we provide software
tools that look for trends in well data, and
can predict when a failure may occur. It
also can tell customers what they need to
do to optimize production.
"I always tell our customers that this is
a journey," Gamboa stresses. "We work
with customers on specific problems and
implementing phases at a time. The ConnectedProduction provides the scalability needed to grow the overall system,
adding the benefits obtained."
According to Gamboa, most of the
ConnectedProduction's components are
available now, although Rockwell Automation has a few additional analytical software pieces in the works. The company has
been working on this system since it acquired vMonitor two years ago. Gamboa
says Rockwell Automation plans to market the whole system globally.
"We want to integrate any and all of
their data-collection and analysis components into the ConnectedProduction, so cus-

American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2016

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