U.S. patent application number 12/639910 was filed with the patent office on 2010-06-24 for drop balls.
Invention is credited to Robert Henry Ash, Jack Chapman Stoner.
Application Number | 20100155055 12/639910 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 42264379 |
Filed Date | 2010-06-24 |
United States Patent
Application |
20100155055 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Ash; Robert Henry ; et
al. |
June 24, 2010 |
DROP BALLS
Abstract
A drop ball for use in wellbore activities, such as wellbores in
oil and gas drilling, completion and/or production activities
comprising a generally spherical body, the spherical body carrying
at least one marker, which contains and/or can determine at least
one parameter related to the drop ball, the wellbore and/or
activities being conducted in the wellbore.
Inventors: |
Ash; Robert Henry;
(Magnolia, TX) ; Stoner; Jack Chapman; (Houston,
TX) |
Correspondence
Address: |
C. JAMES BUSHMAN
5851 San Felipe, SUITE 975
HOUSTON
TX
77057
US
|
Family ID: |
42264379 |
Appl. No.: |
12/639910 |
Filed: |
December 16, 2009 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
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61122866 |
Dec 16, 2008 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
166/193 |
Current CPC
Class: |
E21B 47/13 20200501;
E21B 34/14 20130101; E21B 47/09 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
166/193 |
International
Class: |
E21B 23/00 20060101
E21B023/00 |
Claims
1. A drop ball for use in wellbore activities, comprising a
generally spherical body, said spherical body carrying at least one
identifier that has and/or can acquire information that can be
accessed to determine at least one parameter related to said ball,
a portion of said ball and/or at least one condition related to
said wellbore.
Description
CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] The present application claims priority from application
Ser. No. 61/122,866, filed Dec. 16, 2008, the disclosure of which
is incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The present invention relates to drop balls for use in
wellbore activities, as for example, completion systems and more
particularly to completion systems for accurate placement of
stimulation treatments in multiple zone wells.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0003] In typical wellbore operations, various treatment fluids may
be pumped into the well and eventually into the formation to
restore or enhance the productivity of the well. For example, a
non-reactive "fracturing" fluid or "frac" fluid may be pumped into
the wellbore to initiate and propagate fractures in the formation
thus providing flow channels to facilitate movement of the
hydrocarbons to the wellbore so that the hydrocarbons may be pumped
from the well. In such fracturing operations, the fracturing fluid
is hydraulically injected into a wellbore penetrating the
subterranean formation and is forced against the formation strata
by pressure. The formation strata is forced to crack and fracture
and a proppant is placed in the fracture by movement of a viscous
fluid containing proppant into the crack in the rock. The resulting
fracture, with proppant in place, provides improved flow of the
recoverable fluid, i.e., oil, gas or water, into the wellbore. In
another example, a reactive stimulation fluid or "acid" may be
injected into the formation. Acidizing treatments of the formation
results in dissolving materials in the pore spaces of the formation
to enhance production flow.
[0004] Currently, in wells, especially horizontal or lateral wells,
with multiple production zones, it may be necessary to treat
various formations in a multi-stage operation requiring repeated
trips downhole. Each trip generally consists of isolating a single
production zone and then delivering the treatment fluid to the
isolated zone. Since multiple trips downhole are required to
isolate and treat each zone, the completion operation may be very
time consuming and expensive.
[0005] To overcome the above disadvantages with multi-trip zone
isolation and treatment, as well as other problems, e.g. the
viability of cement in long lateral wells, new techniques and
apparatus have been developed which effectively provide a
substantially intervention-free method and eliminates many of the
disadvantages of prior methods.
[0006] One such system makes use of a series of sleeves/valves and
packers spaced along the length of the lateral well allowing the
isolation of multiple zones and their selective fracturing in a
continuous operation. Typically the sleeves/valves are selectively
opened by dropping balls from the surface to land on approximately
sized sleeves to operate or open each sleeve at the appropriate
time.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0007] A typical workstring used in techniques for multi-zone
completions employs a float shoe and a landing collar assembly at
the toe. This arrangement controls fluid through the ID of the
workstring as it is being manipulated in the wellbore. Typically,
positioned along the workstring as in the horizontal section of a
well, are a series of sleeves/valves which can be
manipulated/shifted by drop-ball technology. As noted, at the
bottom of the completion string is the float shoe followed by a
landing collar which is then followed by a hydraulically activated
stimulation sleeve and laterally spaced along the workstring the
desired number of packers and stimulation sleeves with ball seats
installed. In the arrangement, the stimulation sleeves are
positioned in order such that the ball seats are ordered from
smallest to largest, the smallest seat being closest to the toe of
the well. Once the completion string has been positioned such that
the stimulation sleeves are located adjacent the zones to be
treated, after a series of steps well known to those skilled in the
art, the stimulation method can be commenced. For example, after
treatment of the first zone, i.e., the zone closest to the toe of
the well, a first ball is dropped at the beginning of the pad of
the next zone's treatment and is pumped down to land on the
corresponding ball seat. When the ball lands, the zone that was
just treated is now isolated, the stimulation sleeve is opened and
the treatment of the next zone started. The process continues,
dropping the next sized ball for each stage, until all desired
zones have been treated. Lastly, the balls are returned back to the
surface by flowing into the well. If for some reason the balls do
not return or if full ID access is desired, the ball/ball seats
that are attached to the stimulation sleeves can be drilled or
milled.
[0008] As noted above, in using the ball drop technology, the balls
are of different sizes and it is important that the balls be
dropped in the appropriate order.
[0009] Typically, the balls used in the drop ball techniques are
made of plastics, such as phenolics, but can be made of composite
materials.
[0010] In one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a
drop ball for use in wellbore activities, comprising a generally
spherical body, the spherical body carrying at least one identifier
that has and/or can acquire information that can be accessed to
determine at least one parameter related to the ball, a portion of
the ball and/or at least one condition related to said
wellbore.
[0011] According to another aspect of the present invention, there
are provided drop balls which contain, carry or include tags,
markers, or identifiers, each of which in a given ball has a unique
identifier that can be scanned, read or otherwise determined using
various techniques; e.g., various mobile devices permitting users
to retrieve or leave digital information related to the drop ball
and/or wellbore condition. For example, there exists tags or
markers that can contain multiple layers of information in very
small particles, e.g. smaller than the diameter of a human hair.
These types of markers, identifiers, etc., can be incorporated into
the drop balls of the present invention and, since they contain
information related to various parameters of the drop ball and/or
can "read," "determine" or "identify" at least one downhole
condition, are ideally suited to be "read," "identified," or
"detected" by devices; e.g., mobile devices, such as handheld
scanners which can be electronic, optical, etc.
[0012] According to a specific aspect of the present invention,
there are provided drop balls which contain one or more RFID
readable chips embedded therein. The RFID chips, which can be
active or passive, can contain information such as the size of the
ball and other information which is important to both inject the
balls during the procedure as well as determine the status of
conditions downhole as the drop ball(s) or cuttings therefrom
return.
[0013] In one embodiment, it is contemplated that the drop balls of
the present invention containing the RFID chips would generally
have a plurality of such chips containing the same information such
that if one of the chips of a given ball were destroyed, the
information needed would still be available on one of the other
chips in that ball or fragments of the ball. While active RFID
chips could be employed, generally speaking, the RFID chips
contemplated by the present invention would be passive, i.e. while
not containing a battery the chips will be charged with enough
energy to communicate with an RFID reader and provide the reader
with the data stored on the tag.
[0014] The use of RFID chips as described above is desirable for
many reasons, not the least of which being that because of the
properties of radio frequency propagation, the RFID chips or tags
do not need to be at line-of-sight with the reader.
[0015] As noted above, the tags or markers contained in the drop
balls of the present invention can contain in transcript, digitized
information such as the size of the ball, temperature and pressure
limitations on the use of the ball, downhole conditions, etc.
Indeed, it is contemplated that the tags or markers could be
encrypted or encoded to detect or determine certain conditions in
the subsurface and/or downhole environment and store that data such
that when the drop ball or any portion thereof was returned to the
surface, that data could be employed to advise the operators of
corrective actions that may be necessary.
[0016] It is further contemplated that the tags or markers,
including the RFID tags, would be dispersed throughout the drop
balls such that in cases when it was necessary to mill or drill out
the drop balls subsurface, one or more returning fragments from the
ball would still contain all of the information stored on the
marker, originally, or acquired in the downhole environment. It is
contemplated that as technology advances, the tags or markers for
use in the drop balls of the present invention may ultimately be
nano particles facilitating their uniform incorporation into the
drop balls.
[0017] The drop balls of the present invention can be made of any
number of materials. In the case of the use of RFID chips, the
limitation on the compositional makeup of the body of the ball is
that the material is radio frequency transparent such that the RFID
chip can be easily read. Accordingly, plastic such as phenolics,
nylon, polyurethane, etc., could be employed. Additionally,
composites could be employed to make the body of the drop ball,
such composites including materials such as plastics reinforced
with fiberglass, carbon fibers, metallic fibers, etc. It is also
contemplated that the drop balls could be made entirely of metallic
materials and the RFID encased in radio frequency transparent
materials which could then be secured into recesses extending from
the surface of the ball.
* * * * *