Silixa receives Statoil and Chevron funding for globalization of distributed acoustic sensor
LONDON -- Silixa Ltd. will begin global commercialization of its fibre optic sensing technology after an equity investment of $8 million from Statoil and Chevron.
Silixa's intelligent Distributed Acoustic Sensor (iDAS) system can record the true acoustic signal, in real time, at every meter along tens of kilometers of standard optical fibres. iDAS offers precise amplitude and phase measurements with a wide dynamic range (>120dB) and no cross-talk. iDAS technology can be combined with Silixa's distributed temperature sensor, Ultima DTS, to provide downhole data throughout the life of a well from exploration into production and abandonment stages. Applications include seismic appraisal at the borehole, cement evaluation, monitoring fracturing and fracture analysis, flow profiling, monitoring casing leaks, gas lift and electric submersible pump optimisation.
Silixa has already demonstrated the benefits of its distributed fibre optic sensing system on existing pre-installed optical fibre cables in the North Sea in collaboration with Statoil R&D. Silixa's micro-coil tubing fibre optic sensor has been successfully deployed for logging high-temperature Chevron’s gas wells to a depth of 18,000 ft. The combined distributed acoustic and temperature data have been useful for understanding the reservoir behavior and in improving the production efficiency.
08/23/2012