Perforating challenges in completing deep wells

Badr El Din Petroleum Company (Bapetco), a joint venture between Shell Egypt and the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, wanted to improve the efficiency of multizone perforating operations in deep wells in the Western Desert. Whether single or selective conventional perforating gun systems were used, significant operational time was required to assemble and arm the guns, and the integrity of the system could not always be verified until it was conveyed to perforating depth. In these deep land wells, any connection failures that could not be diagnosed until the gun was at depth caused lengthy operational downtime by requiring return to surface to be remedied. The risks posed to personnel in retrieving the live guns were also a major concern for Bapetco.

Innovative perforating system design for increased safety, reliability, and efficiency

Schlumberger recommended using the new Tempo instrumented docking perforating gun system to streamline deployment and support operational safety. This compact gun system enables running up to 40 guns for selective initiation to efficiently perforate multiple reservoir zones with a maximized explosives payload in a single trip in the well. The plug-in design simplifies the arming process to increase safety and reliability by eliminating the variability introduced by the wellsite crimping and wiring required for conventional gun systems. Onboard diagnostics are used to check Tempo system's integrity at surface, before connecting to the wireline cable head and running in hole. A confirmation check can then be conducted once the guns are at least 200 ft below ground level, instead of requiring the guns to be at the target perforating depth.

Qualification of the Tempo system for API RP 67 Group 2 initiator specifications allows use without having to establish radio frequency silence at the wellsite, which simplifies wellsite logistics and enables performing simultaneous operations.

Operational efficiencies from cutting gun arming time by more than half

Bapetco completed 11 perforating runs with the Tempo system, including 2 selective runs with 3 guns each. The plug-in design delivered considerable time savings across perforating operations, including reducing the time to arm a gun by more than half.