Application of Noise and High Precision Temperature Logging Technology to Detect Tubing Leak in an Oil Well - A Case Study

Leak in well bore tubulars & packers leads to communication between tubing/casing or Short/Long strings thus causing enormous production losses in Oil & Gas industry. Moreover, it can cause cross flow between different reservoirs. Sometimes leak may lead to charging of shallow formations thus posing a big threat to well integrity. The detection of the source of communication presents a big challenge to the industry. Knowing the precise location of a leak helps in designing an effective remedial action thus reducing downtime and repair costs.

When a fluid leaks, it moves from the high-pressure side through the leak point to the low-pressure side, where it expands rapidly and produces a turbulent flow creating noise and temperature changes. Conventional noise and temperature tools are not capable of detecting the leak point with high confidence. However, the new generation Noise and Temperature logging tools have been able to locate such leaks precisely.

This paper presents successful use of Spectral Noise Logging in combination with High Precision Temperature logging (HPT-SNL) in a dual-completion oil well in Kuwait Oil Company for identifying communication between the long and the short tubing strings. The acoustic tool contains a new-generation, high-sensitivity hydrophone – a piezo crystal element that records noise in a wide frequency range (0.1 – 60 kHz). Temperature tool utilizes a super-sensitive platinum sensor with a response time of less than one second. Leak was detected at the bottom blast joint of the long string that was causing water entry into the short string thus killing the well. The technology can be used in critical oil and gas wells to identify tubing and casing leaks and address well integrity issues. It can also be used in water injection wells to identify the zones of water intake.