Tracerco to provide smart tracer technology for new oil wells in UK North Sea

Tracerco, an international oil and gas service provider part of Johnson Matthey, has landed a contract to provide smart tracer technology for flow measurement of six new oil wells.

Heavy oil was discovered at the Mariner field in the UK North Sea in 1981, but has remained inaccessible until now.

Alternative technology implemented by Statoil at its Maureen reservoir has made producing from the discovery viable.

As part of field development, Tracerco's smart tracers will enable fluid inflow measurement of both oil and water in various zones within the long horizontal wells that would not easily be accomplished using traditional production logging technologies (PLT).

Tracerco's technology, known as a Tracer Production Log (TPL), can be deployed without interruption to well production and allows operators to gain a better understanding of their production inflow by monitoring both the oil and water phases at a lower cost than with traditional PLT.

The contract was awarded to Tracerco based on several factors including the flexibility of tracer integration into the specified screen design and the tracer lifetime performance, which can extend to several years.

Nils Gunnar Sætherø, mariner petroleum technology manager at Statoil, comments: ‘Statoil Aberdeen is focused on ensuring an efficient ramp-up of the Mariner field to production plateau and we see the use of chemical tracers as a key technology for the verification of well clean-up as well as improved well productivity understanding.

‘We believe the use of chemical tracers gives the optimum cost benefit to the Mariner project in the current economic climate and look forward to working with Tracerco to achieve this goal.’

The project is due to commence in the second quarter of 2016 and Tracerco's technology will be deployed to initially measure clean-out efficiency, with further measurements being provided into the life of the wells.