Drilling advances

	Vol. 231 No. 11
JIM REDDEN, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

E &P sector embracing RFID technology

A technology used in daily life for everything from recording roadway tolls to tracking down wayward dogs is beginning to make impressive inroads into the drilling industry.

Various forms of radio-frequency identification (RFID) have been around since at least World War II, when a rudimentary passive version was used to alter the radio frequency of airplanes to avoid detection. One of the first known commercial RFID patents was issued to a California businessman in 1973 for a passive transponder used to unlock a door without a key. Today, the technology counts among its myriad users some of the world’s largest retail chains, where RFID tags are used to track inventory and shipment schedules.

The majority of RFID tags contain an integrated circuit for storing and processing information and an antenna for receiving and transmitting the signal. Unlike conventional barcodes, RFID tags do not require direct optical contact with a laser, enabling them to be read at greater distances. While RFID tracking tags can be found in everything from passports to humans and animals, it was only a few years ago that they made their way into the oil field. Today, a number of major and smaller oilfield concerns employ some form of closed-loop RFID systems to provide 100% computerized and transparent record keeping, which helps end users minimize mistakes and speed up the typically tedious tracking process.

Comparatively small Halo LLC of Port Fourchon, Louisiana, which provides wire rope, chains, slings and related industrial equipment for offshore, has been employing the advanced technology for the past few years as an integral component of its safety initiative. President and owner Ken Ragusa said that unlike the traditional stainless tagging systems popularized in the 1980s, RFID eliminates human error and instantly advises clients when slings and other industrial products are scheduled for safety inspections.

“We listened to our end users, and they want total traceability,” Ragusa said, “and we want to modernize the industry by using innovative and creative technology.”

Like Halo, many of the companies and agencies promoting RFID consider the technology’s traceability and other HSE benefits its most prevailing assets. For instance, in 2005, the US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory conducted a study on the “remote detection of internal pipeline corrosion using fluidized sensors,” which examines an advanced version of RFID technology to maintain pipeline integrity and minimize risks.

More recently, Houston-based Merrick Systems unveiled a hostile-environment RFID tag that is used to “track high-value assets in downhole, surface and subsea oil and gas operations, where the stakes are high and asset identification errors can have catastrophic results in terms of human and environmental safety as well as financially,” said chairman and co-founder Samina Farid. The RFID tags are consistent with Norwegian Oil Industry Association standards and have been independently tested and demonstrated to dependably survive conditions up to 400°F and 30,000 psi.

Besides the inherent HSE benefits, a growing legion of proponents are touting RFID as a viable technology for improving drilling efficiencies. Count among those Phil Snider, senior technical consultant for Marathon Oil Corp. Marathon holds a portfolio of patents on RFID technologies that Snider sees as potentially beneficial in a variety of downhole operations, including coiled tubing, packer setting, wellbore cleanup tools, zonal isolation, perforating and cementing. In late September, he presented an update in Houston during the quarterly Drilling Engineering Association (DEA) meeting on the operator’s most recent collaborative initiative—an RFID-activated drilling reamer. The project is a joint effort of Marathon, Weatherford and RFID engineering specialists Petrowell and iiiTec of Aberdeen and Houston, respectively.

A 12¼-in. version is presently undergoing extensive field trails in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale play with an ultimate aim of taking the technology to deepwater applications. During the DEA presentation, Snider said the RFID-actuated reamer can be opened and closed as many times as needed and affords the opportunity to run multiple tools, thereby reducing trips. In addition, RFID activation allows circulation inside the casing when pulling out of the hole or in applications where the tool is closed.

Eddie Valverde, Weatherford global product line manager, said the tool is not only the industry’s first RFID-controlled reamer, “but the only drilling reamer capable of repeatedly opening and closing the cutter blocks on demand.”

Marathon has long been at the forefront in advancing RFID technology in the oil field. In 2001, the operator gained an equity position in Houston-based In-Depth Systems, which specializes in creating RFID applications for retail programs. The objective was to further its use in drilling, completions and production activities.

Operating under a Marathon licensing agreement, iiiTec, a co-collaborator in the RFID reamer project, was formed in 2007 to advance the technology in drilling and coiled tubing applications. Along with In-Depth, iiiTec formed an agreement with Aberdeen’s Petrowell Ltd. in March to develop RFID applications in completions and production.

In March 2008, iiiTec signed an exclusive licensing agreement with M-I Swaco to use RFID for open- and cased-hole drilling and pre-completion wellbore cleanup applications. The two companies believe that the use of RFID technology to actuate downhole equipment has the potential to save operators millions of dollars annually.

The technology presently is in “the field-trial stage,” said Ken Simpkins, vice president of M-I Swaco’s Wellbore Productivity group, adding, “This is very encouraging technology.”

Indeed it is, and while it may have been a long time coming, the oil and gas industry may soon join average folks who use RFID technology practically every day, often without even knowing it.