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Downhole Fiber Optic

Distributed Temperature
Sensing System
Simply IntelligentTM
© 2002 Weatherford. All rights reserved.
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Downhole Fiber-Optic Table of Contents

Distributed Temperature Executive Summary ................................1
Sensing System 1. Introduction .......................................2
2. Distributed Temperature Sensor
Executive Summary Technology ........................................3
Weatherford offers permanent fiber optic 3. WFT Fiber Optic DTS System ...........4
Distributed Temperature Sensor (DTS) 4. System Performance ........................6
monitoring systems to provide high quality, 5. Surface Instrumentation ...................7
real-time temperature profiles of the well 6. Data Applications .............................8
bore for the life of the well. Temperature
data is collected every meter along the well
bore with capability to achieve
measurements with 0.1°C temperature
resolution. The upper end capability of the
system not a function of the DTS instrument
but is a function of the operating limit of the
optical cable, which is currently 175C and
15,000 psi.
The DTS fiber optic sensing fiber is an
integral part of the Weatherford Completion
Systems’ optical downhole cable, allowing
the unique capability to mix distributed
temperature sensing with fiber optic
pressure, temperature, flow and seismic
measurements. The optical downhole
cable is deployed with the production tubing
string, providing the total coverage of
complex and multilateral wells. DTS
measurements can also be extended to
monitor risers and flow lines to support flow
assurance applications.
Since the fiber is the sensor, there are no
electronics, it is electrically passive, reliable
and overcomes the design limitations
imposed by harsh downhole environments.
1. Introduction
Development and exploitation of oil and gas resources in increasingly difficult operating
environments such as deepwater raises many technical challenges. Among these is the ability
to provide assurance on the completions and production from high-cost and complex wells.
Real-time, permanent production and reservoir monitoring is a critical technology for providing
assurance and maximizing profitability of these fields.

Recent developments in fiber optic sensing technology have resulted in reliable alternatives
to conventional electronic systems for permanent, downhole production and reservoir
monitoring. Permanent, in-well fiber optic sensors are now being developed and deployed in
the field at an increasing rate. Fiber Optic Distributed Temperature Sensor (DTS) based fiber
optic systems provide the unique ability to provide a reliable, non-obtrusive means of
continuous temperature logging of wells, enabling full coverage of complex and multilateral
wells with a single optical fiber cable. These systems are being installed worldwide in a variety
of operating environments for a variety of applications.

Temperature logging of wells is a well-established procedure in the industry. It is used to

gain insight on the production characteristics of a well. Wellbore temperature data is used to
analyze fluid flow; characterize oil, water and gas production; and monitor water, gas and
steam injection production performance. Historically, temperature logging of wells has been
done by placing a probe in a well, usually by wireline, and recording the temperature as it is
lowered into the well. Due to the disruptive nature of some wireline services, the assessment
of wells is usually done only if there is a problem with the well. To support operators’ desires to
know immediately when there is a change to a well’s production characteristic and to minimize
production disruption, permanent temperature logging capability has been developed based on
fiber-optic DTS technology.

Distributed temperature sensing was one of the first applications of fiber optic sensors for in-
well monitoring. This technique has been deployed in 100+ wells and has gained wide scale
acceptance by providing valuable information for well optimization. These truly distributed
systems can provide a mapping of the temperature along the wellbore with ~1 m axial
resolution. In these systems, the optical fiber itself is the fundamental sensing element.
Weatherford has incorporated DTS capability into its downhole fiber optic infrastructure, which
also supports downhole fiber optic pressure, temperature, flow and seismic sensing systems.
Integrating DTS data with measurement parameters, such as pressure and flow rates, the
operator can attain a new level of understanding of the well’s production characteristic and
performance. The information attained from well production performance monitoring using
multiple measurement parameters is not limited to the points where the discrete pressure and
flow measurements are made, but along the total length of the well. In addition, incorporation
of DTS capability to a well can be leveraged, adding riser and flow line monitoring to support
flow assurance management with an incremental cost of additional fiber optic cable.

Downhole Fiber Optic DTS E. J. Zisk - September 23, 2002 - Page 2

 Weatherford's DTS system extends the line of high performance fiber optic downhole
sensors available to give the customer a complete toolbox to tailor exceptionally reliable
downhole fiber optic sensing systems to meet their unique requirements.

2. Distributed Temperature Sensor Technology

The primary means to measure the distributed temperature of an optical fiber is to send a
pulse of light down the optical fiber and record the returning light. Distributed temperature
sensing technology is derived from technology used in the telecommunication industry to
measure the loss in fiber optic communication cables. As light travels down an optical fiber, a
portion of the light is reflected back to the source of the light much like the blinding light a driver
sees when driving through fog with your headlights on full beam. The reflected light the driver
sees is caused by small water droplets Scattering Process
suspended in the air acting like tiny Propagating
glass beads, refracting and reflecting fiber TEMPERATURE, T light

the light back to the car. In an optical

fiber, the reflections back to the light
source are caused by imperfections Scattered
and materials added to the optical optical signals

fiber. Along with the reflected light,

light referred to as “backscatter” light Figure 1 – Light pulses travelling down an optical fiber produces
can be measured from the optical fiber
(figure 1). Backscatter light is generated when the source light interacts with molecules in the
optic fiber’s glass core, generating light with different colors than the reflected light. By
measuring the relative intensity of two of the backscattered light’s colors, temperature of the
optical fiber can be measured. Since the speed of light in glass is known, it is possible to
determine, by tracking the arrival time of
the reflected and backscattered light,
Raleigh
the precise location of where the light
came from. With knowledge of where
the backscattered light came from and
measuring the relative intensity of the Brillouin Stokes
backscatter light colors, a DTS Raman Band
Intensity

instrument can produce a plot of the

Anti-Stokes
temperature versus distance along the
Raman Band
optical fiber.

The primary backscatter

measurement technique used by
Weatherford DTS instruments is Raman
Backscatter (figure 2), which measures Wavelength
the molecular energy state of an optical
fiber’s glass core. The energy state is a
Figure 2 – Raman backscatter is comprised of two bands, Anti-
measure of the optical fiber core’s Stokes which changes with temperature and Stokes band,
molecular vibration, which increases which does not.

Downhole Fiber Optic DTS E. J. Zisk - September 23, 2002 - Page 3

and decreases with temperature. When a pulse of light is transmitted down an optical fiber,
Raman Backscatter it generated. Raman Backscatter is comprised of two components, the
Stokes and the Anti-Stokes. The intensity of the Anti-Stokes color band changes with
temperature while the intensity of the Stokes color band remains practically constant. The
relative intensities of the Stokes and Anti-Stokes signals are used to calculate the temperature
in the fiber. By sampling at a time increment of 10ns, a DTS instrument can collect
temperature data points approximately every meter along the length of a fiber. The distance
through an optical fiber that a DTS instrument can provide high-resolution temperature
measurements is dependent on the instruments ability to detect the very weak returning
Raman Backscatter signals. DTS instruments utilized by Weatherford can provide temperature
measurements with 0.1°C resolution at lengths of fiber up to 10kilometers long.

3. Weatherford Fiber Optic DTS System

Weatherford's permanent, in-well fiber optic DTS monitoring system consists of three sub-
systems, as shown in Figure 3: instrumentation unit; wellhead outlet and surface cable; and in-
well cable and connectors.

Instrumentation. The DTS

instrumentation unit can be used
independently for short-term logging Wellhead Equipment Surface
applications or can be integrated with a Instrumentation

microprocessor, monitor, keyboard, Rugged,

Scalable,
associated power supplies, disk drives, and Distributed
Sensing,
data communication interfaces for Multi-well

permanent monitoring applications. The Cables &

Connectors
DTS instrument also contains the software
required to control the data acquisition,
conversion, storage and interfacing. In Transducers

standard permanent monitoring Pressure,

Temperature,
implementations, the instrumentation is Qualified for high
temperature & pressure, Flow,
Liquid Fraction,
designed to reside in a control room H2S, corrosives
Seismic

environment and interface with an external

data management system.
Fig. 3 - Components of Weatherford's permanent, in-well
Wellhead Outlet and Surface Cabling. fiber optic monitoring systems with optional transducers.
The wellhead outlet provides for feed-
through and exiting of the fiber optic cable
from the well in a safe and reliable manner and is similar to that for an electrical system. The
standard wellhead outlet contains a minimum of two sealing barriers to every potential leak
path and is rated to a working pressure of 15,000 psi. It has been DNV certified, both for
design and manufacture. The connection from the wellhead outlet to the instrumentation unit is
made with the optical surface cabling. On multi-well installations, a multi-core surface cable
can be run from the instrumentation unit to a junction box in the well bay and separate surface
cables run from the junction box to each well.

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 Cable and Connectors. The in-well fiber optic cable and connector system provides for
light transmission to and from the downhole sensors. It is specifically designed for mechanical
and environmental robustness, as well as functional redundancy, and incorporates multiple
protective barriers between wellbore fluids and the optical fiber. Every attempt has been made
to give the cable a “look and feel” similar to its electrical counterpart. Mechanical strength and
protection of the cable is provided by a ¼-inch metal capillary tube, encapsulated in a
polymeric buffer. The tubing encases a specially coated, small-diameter stainless steel fiber in
metal tube (FIMT) surrounded by a buffering material. The optical fibers are packaged in the
FIMT with a hydrogen gettering grease, which provides high striction forces for holding the fiber
in place. Together with the cable, high-reliability optical connectors and cable fusion splicing
techniques have also been developed for long-term survival in harsh downhole environments.

Weatherford is uniquely positioned to combine DTS with discrete sensors onto a single
armored fiber optic cable to surface. This unrivalled capability is made possible by
incorporating single-mode fibers employed by the discrete sensors together with a multi-mode
fiber for the DTS into a single package as shown in cross section below.

Single Mode

DTS Multi-Mode
Optical Fibre

.
.

Figure 4 – Cross-Section of Downhole Fiber Optic Cable

Downhole Fiber Optic DTS E. J. Zisk - September 23, 2002 - Page 5

4. System Performance
Weatherford baseline DTS monitoring system utilizes a high performance DTS instrument to
support characterization of horizontal wells and distributed flow analysis. Specifications for the
baseline DTS instrument are given below. For applications that do not require the baseline
instrument’s high level of performance, such as vertical well injection breakthrough monitoring,
Weatherford can implement a DTS system that is tailored to meet the applications’ specific
requirements.

Table 1. Performance Specifications for Baseline DTS monitoring system.

Baseline DTS System
Instrument Environmental Condition
Temperature 0°C – 40°C
Relative Humidity 85% max
Supplied Power AC100/200V, 50/60Hz, 160 VA
Instrument General Specification
Optical Fiber 50/125 Graded Index (ITU-T G.651)
Dimension 425Wx222Hx450D (mm)
Supplied Power AC100/200V, 50/60Hz, 160 VA
Downhole Sensor Operating Range
Temperature -40°C – 175°C
Pressure 0 – 15,000 psi
Temperature Measurement Specification
Max Measurement Range 15 kilometer (7.5 dB optical budget)
Sampling Resolution 1 meter
Spatial Resolution <2 meters (10% - 90% rise time)
<4 to 5 meters (to achieve Temperature Precision)
Temperature Precision +/- 1°C
Averaging Time 80 minutes 20 minutes 5 minutes
Temperature Resolution at 10km 0.1C 0.2C 0.4C

A differentiating feature of Weatherford's fiber optic DTS monitoring system is that when the
DTS monitoring system is implemented with Weatherford downhole pressure/temperature
transducers, they can be utilized to eliminate drift and inaccuracies associated with competing
DTS monitoring systems. This means that as downhole conditions change over the life of the
well, the operator is assured that the DTS system will continue to deliver accurate temperature
logs.

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5. Surface Instrumentation
The surface instrumentation for the Weatherford
fiber optic DTS monitoring system is available in three
different models: standalone DTS instrument, RMS1,
and RMS2.

The standalone DTS instrument is primarily for

single well, short-term logging applications. The DTS
instrument produces distributed temperature data files
that can be converted to standard API temperature log
reports and data files. Data is retrievable from the DTS
instrument by a variety of means, including download
onto an external laptop computer. Configuration of the
system, setup of data collection parameters, and
system diagnostics are also achieved with an external
laptop computer. The unit is capable of being powered
remotely, such as by batteries or solar panels, and of
operating in an external environment up to 40ºC.
Fig. 6 - RMS1 surface instrumentation system.
The RMS 1 surface instrument, shown in Figure 6, is
designed for control room or other controlled environment applications. It uses the baseline
DTS instrument to produce DTS traces. An optional
optical switch can be added to monitor a high number
of wells sequentially. Fiber optic pressure and
temperature gauges can also be incorporated into an
RMS1 system for integrated well monitoring.

The RMS2 surface instrument offers the greatest

flexibility and capabilities for integrated distributed
temperature and multiple fiber optic pressure and
temperature gauges. RMS2 can contain multiple
pressure and temperature gage interrogator units to
monitor up to 18 gages. An on-board computer
controls data acquisition, monitors gage temperatures
and pressures, writes data files to a hard drive, and
communicates data to other systems. Several output
options are available, including:
Local monitor;
Modbus via serial cable to the platform RTU/SCADA
system;
Modbus TCP/IP;
Remotely accessible via WAN directly to PC; Fig. 7 - RMS2 surface instrumentation system.
Separate, remotely accessible hard drive attached
directly to customer LAN/WAN.

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 Other options for RMS2 include an uninterruptible power supply, optical modem, and a line
power conditioner. The unit can be supplied in a stand-alone cabinet, as shown in Figure 7, or
in a 19-inch rack mountable configuration.

6. Data Applications
The past several years have seen a great increase in the development, deployment and
application of permanent in-well monitoring systems. Drivers behind this increase include new
field developments in much more challenging, costly operating environments; the requirement
to provide assurance on the production from these new fields; and the desire to optimize
management of production and reservoir recovery.

Cost. Many large, new fields coming on line today and in the near future are being
developed with relatively few high-cost, high-rate, complex wells. Intervention costs in these
wells will be high or even prohibitive. This puts a premium on the value of real-time downhole
data during production and on the use of this data to foresee and prevent well problems.

Assurance. The large, up-front capital investment for many new field developments, such
as deepwater, puts a tremendous importance on the assurance of producing the anticipated
volumes of oil and gas in the anticipated timeframe, in order to make the required return.
Downhole monitoring systems provide data to continuously assess the health of the well,
optimize well operations, and provide assurance on the flow of oil and gas.

Optimized Production and Reservoir Management. Real-time downhole data offer many
opportunities to greatly improve production management and reservoir recovery. These include
production and injection profiling in horizontal and multi-zone wells to identify and control fluid
flow to and from different parts of the well; optimizing drainage; and increasing overall field
recovery.

In most, if not all cases, the value derived from real-time, downhole monitoring systems
greatly exceeds the cost and can be recovered early in the life of the well, IF these systems are
reliable and perform as specified over the life of the well and IF the data are managed properly
and used to their fullest potential. Fiber optic-based sensing systems being deployed today
offer the promise of achieving the level of performance required to achieve this value.

6.1 GENERIC APPLICATIONS

Gas Lift Optimization. In order to optimize gas lift production it is imperative that the entry
point for the lift gas is precisely controlled and monitored. The Joule-Thompson effect on gas
flowing through a gas lift mandrel cools the producing fluid, providing a means for detecting
which mandrel(s) are passing gas through acquisition of temperature logs. In addition, a
mandrel that is slugging gas, rather than operating normally, would be readily identified using
time lapse thermal monitoring. Sub-optimal efficiency can thus also be rectified.

The most common conventional method for acquiring temperature logs is to run pressure
and temperature memory gauges on slickline and conduct a flowing temperature gradient

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survey. However OPEX associated with this
activity is appreciable and involves
considerable logistics. Well Temperature Log
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
An alternative technique for acquiring 0

temperature profiles is to incorporate fiber

optic cable with the completion down to the
lowermost gas lift mandrel. This fibre optic 400

cable would be secured to the outside of the

completion using conventional cable clamps
and exit the wellhead in the same fashion as 800

other control/chemical injection lines. The

cable is terminated into a pressure-blocked
wellhead outlet (junction box), with armoured 1200
fibre optic deck-cable used to route the
downhole DTS signal to a data collection
point in the control room. 1600

Onset & Location Of Water Production.

In highly deviated/horizontal wells there is 2000
often a great desire to detect onset and
location of water production in the open hole
lateral(s). The most common traditional
2400
technique involves use of production logging
tools that, in this instance, would need to be
deployed on coiled tubing owing to the high Perforated Interval

2800
hole angles. Again however, OPEX
associated with this activity would be
extremely high and would involve
3200
considerable logistics.

An alternative technique would be to again

use DTS fiber optic cable deployed along the Figure 8 – Well Temperature Log (custom format)
length of the main lateral and again analysis
acquired temperature profiles on a time-lapse basis. Of course, variations in temperature along
the horizontal lateral will be small compared with the profiles acquired in vertical sections of the
wellbore. However, subtle variations do exist owing to heating of oil through Joule-Thompson
effects. The presence of water, which has significantly greater thermal conductivity and is less
affected by the Joule-Thomson effect, will tend to flatten temperature profiles. Through
superposition of consecutive time-lapse temperature profiles, it is thus possible to qualitatively
determine both onset and migration of water production along the lateral.

Perforated pipe is employed to convey the DTS fiber optic cable along the length of the
lateral to the toe. The exact choice of tubing would be determined from torque and drag
calculations. This technique has been successfully employed in extended reach ‘snake’ well for
an operator in Brunei in June 2001 and again in May 2002.

Downhole Fiber Optic DTS E. J. Zisk - September 23, 2002 - Page 9

 Estimation of Water Production through Modeling. Use of thermodynamic models that
exploit the difference in thermal conductivities and Joule Thomson heating-cooling effects can
be employed to yield first-order quantitative estimates of water production from analyses of the
acquired temperature profiles. WCS has access to DTS analysis and interpretation software
that is offered as a service in conjunction with acquiring DTS profiles.

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