A Novel Ultrasonic Cased-Hole Imager for Enhanced Cement Evaluation

Abstract

Abstract Current acoustic (sonic and ultrasonic) techniques for cement evaluation have proved to be limited in providing unambiguous answers to the zonal isolation issue. This is especially true in lightweight cements where they often fail to differentiate cement from mud. Also, as far as imaging of the cement sheath is concerned, ultrasonic pulse-echo tools fail to image beyond the cemented region adjacent to the casing, thus providing limited diagnosis of the annulus. A new ultrasonic imaging tool has been developed to address these limitations. The new imager combines the classical pulse-echo technique with a new ultrasonic technique that provides temporally compact echoes arising from propagation along the casing and also reflections at the cement-formation interface. Processing these signals yields unprecedented characterization of the cased hole environment in terms of the nature and acoustic velocity of the material filling the annulus between casing and formation, the material immediately behind casing, the position of the casing within the hole, and the geometrical shape of the hole. Different wells cemented with conventional and light cements were logged with the new experimental tool. The results demonstrate enhanced cement evaluation for both cement types and significant reduction in the uncertainty in making a squeeze or no-squeeze decision. Introduction Cement evaluation logging tools have been used successfully for many years to evaluate casing and cement conditions. These tools, which use sonic or ultrasonic1 techniques, are designed for conventional steel casing and cements. The sonic tools, commonly known as Cement Bond Log or CBL, operate at frequencies of about 20 kHz and measure the amplitude or the attenuation of a wave traveling along the casing. The wave loses energy mainly though shear coupling to the surrounding cement, so that well-bonded solid cement attenuates more quickly than a fluid. Due to the low frequency, the CBL logs made with these tools lack azimuthal resolution, which makes it difficult to distinguish channeling from poor cement properties.