Solar Powered, Wireless Acoustic Sand Monitoring Solution to Offshore Wellhead Platforms in East Africa

Many offshore oil and gas wells producing high rates of sand or solids are not being monitored for sand production due to the lack of power and communications connectivity. Remote well sites or wellhead platforms often comprise only local indication devices for metering, making real-time monitoring from central control rooms impossible.

The real-time Acoustic Sand Monitor detects instantaneous sand production in pipelines and transmits this data back to the operator’s DCS/SCADA. The instruments however require a 24VDC power supply and communication tie-in point to do this.

SMS’ solar powered, wireless Acoustic Sand Monitoring solution overcomes this problem by providing a local autonomous power source with integrated cellular data transmission capability.

Location: East Africa
Industry: Oil & Gas

Solar Powered, Wireless Acoustic Sand Monitoring Solution to Offshore Wellhead Platforms in East Africa

Problems:

Geomechanics study conducted in 2020/2021 suggests the imminent onset of sand production
No Sand Monitoring technology in situ
Monitoring system must be non-intrusive / clamp type so as not to interrupt the process
Due to the high chance of deposition, monitoring devices are required upstream / at wellhead location
No power or communications available at wellhead locations
Solution must be fully autonomous
Solution must be modular & mobile for relocation between well sites

Challenges:

Turnkey solution required without pre-commissioning survey
In-house development of software solution to receive TCP/IP data over Cellular 4G
Solar power generation with a minimum of three (3) days anatomy

Solution:

Transportable solar station with battery storage capability designed, built and factory acceptance tested in the UK - surpasses stress test criteria for three days of autonomy in darkness
EEx d control panel designed and assembled with integrated sand monitoring and MODBUS over cellular technology
High gain EEx rated antennas supplied with dual redundancy for uninterrupted data transmission
In-house software developed to read TCP packets over cellular 4G and hand-off to SMS SMART software via serial MODBUS - tested fully functional
Sand PC configured with cellular TCP read/write software and SMS SMART software
SMS SMART software configured to hand-off sand data to client DCS in real time

Results:

Non-intrusive Acoustic Sand Monitor installed on flowline at remote wellhead (offshore)
Solar station installed adjacent to Acoustic Sand Monitor and positioned for optimum solar hours
Sand PC installed in client CCR and connected to DCS module
Wireless router successfully reads and transmits sand data over 5km to sand PC
Sand PC successfully reads TCP data over 4G and hands-off to SMS SMART
Sand PC successfully integrated with client DCS
System fully commissioned and site acceptance tested within the allocated timeframe
Training and handover to site reps with the provision of health checklists, SOPs, and software familiarisation
Sand data for remote wells trending and logging both at Sand PC CPU and client DCS
Client provided with full coverage and visibility of well sanding tendencies, clean-up duration, critical drawdown and Maximum Sand Free Rates (MSFR)

Value to Client:

Remote Location Monitoring
Early identification of sanding events from remote wells
Real-time
Immediate data availability, for dynamic and informed decision making
Reduced Cost
Minimal personnel and maintenance required
Repeatable and Reliable
Reliable method of tracking sand production

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