Publications

Catastrophic casing collapse in a producing well can result in lost production and expensive remedial work. Corrosion monitoring techniques do not provide information on the potential for collapse due to stresses on the casing. and prompted a search for techniques to provide early warning of casing problems that could lead to collapse, and identification of the failure mechanism(s).After some investigation, ovality of thc casing was identified as kc? in assessing the casing's ability to withhold collapse pressures and attention was focused on developing a nev and more accurate processing technique for the Tubing Geometry Sonde (TGS) multi-fingered calipcr to extract this parameter.The new eccentralization technique uses a least squares fitting and optimization routine that allows accurate identification and measurcm ent of developing casing ovality that could lead to collapse The technique has been tested on field data and compared to surface measurements on new casing stock.This paper explains the details of the problem. the solutions proposed during the development and the methodology used in the improved processing scheme.