A Systematic Approach to Hostile Environments

Abstract

Management It is well accepted by the scientific and engineering community that the world's energy needs will be satisfied primarily by fossil fuels for the next few decades at least. Despite remarkable growth in renewable energy technology during the past 20 years, increasing demand has kept the relative share of energy supplied by fossil fuels steady, at about 75%. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has published a resource guide that illustrates where future energy supplies will be found and the relative threshold price that will spur exploration in those areas (Fig. 1). Among these are some very challenging environments. The higher price of oil and gas, which is actually a manifestation of the supply challenges the world faces, is spurring activity in many different fronts—among which are developing heavy and viscous oil deposits, oil and gas shales, as well as arctic and deepwater opportunities. Traditionally, elevated temperatures were associated with deep producing horizons, or in some cases with known "hot spots" in the geothermal gradient. Today, the use of thermal recovery techniques in viscous crude recovery has increased the requirement dramatically for high temperature technology. Today's Subsurface Environment Temperature is just one of the many challenges facing the developers of oil and gas industry technology. It is useful to list the factors that must be considered—in the parlance of space or military terminology, these constitute the "Mission Profile."Shocks and vibrationCyclesAbsolute temperature and temperature rangeAbsolute pressure and differential pressureReliabilityBandwidthControlDuration of operationsCompressive, shear, and tensile strengthFlow rate The combination of some or all of these profiles creates myriad parameter linkages that describe the operating range of equipment. As a result, standard industry classifications often are absent, confusing, or filled with caveats. What is required is an organized approach to identify and clearly state, using standard terminology, the subsurface environments of high pressure/high temperature (HP/HT). Only then will a common understanding exist across the industry; one that will result in a true quantification of the markets and the needed technology to satisfy them.