The oil and gas industry is often blamed for being slow to adopt new technology. But sometimes the technical hurdles are such that it takes several decades to overcome them.

This has been the case with seismic while drilling (SWD). The concept has been studied since the 1960s, first to monitor drilling vibration and later to obtain seismic measurements. In the 1980s the noise made while drilling was studied as a possible seismic source.

Then the bits stopped being noisy.

“As the roller bit was being replaced by the PDC bit, which was quiet, we no longer had that source,” said Robert Radtke of Technology International Inc. (TII), which developed the new system. “It’s an interesting dichotomy because I actually designed the first economically successful domestic PDC bit in the late 1970s.”

A variety of sources were tried – explosives and hydraulic devices, for instance — without becoming commercially successful. Radtke and others experimented with a low-frequency “sparker,” having success in the laboratory in 2007 and subsequent success in the field in 2008. “We now have the only system that works satisfactorily for drillbit SWD in deep wells,” he said.

The project was sponsored by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). The funding for the project came from the Office of Fossil Energy’s Oil & Natural Gas Program, which supports research and policy options to ensure clean, reliable, and affordable supplies of oil and natural gas for American consumers.

The benefits of such a system are numerous, providing increased accuracy and resolution of seismic and other geological and geophysical methods; offering a new methodology for data acquisition, processing, interpretation, and model updating; facilitating new gas field development; and increasing economic gas recovery and improved well economics.

Placing the source on the drillstring and the receivers on the surface results in real-time data transmission that provides a true look-ahead service needed for accurate bit location and geosteering. A paper co-authored by Radtke and presented at this year’s Offshore Technology Conference likened the technology to driving a car in the dark with headlights on full-time rather than “occasionally shining a lamp to see what we hit.” It’s designed for onshore and offshore gas wells in harsh environments where high temperatures and pressures exist. Radtke added that well safety and near-wellbore diagnostics are other technical benefits.

A market study conducted in 2007 indicated that there is a $494 million/year market potential for SWD technology.
Currently Radtke is working on the final report, and companies are lining up to offer their fields for further testing and to license the technology. Already one organization has expressed its appreciation for the new technology. The Federal Laboratory Consortium coordinates research between the government laboratories in the US, and each year it awards the project with the greatest potential for tech transfer and commercialization. “Out of I’m sure hundreds of nominations, ours was selected,” Radtke said. The developers will receive the award Sept. 2 in San Francisco.

“Without bias, there is a strong market pull for this technology,” he said. “The technical gap truly has been the lack of a downhole source. We have a source that, because of its low frequency, has great range and fits with the five-year plans of some of the oil companies who will be drilling in ultra-deep water to 35,000 ft (10,675 m). This is the only source that will give them a signal back to the surface.”

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