Completing a well to being a normal well or smart well is choices based on economic evaluation. More oil and gas companies complete their offshore wells as smartly as possible. Long horizontal wells are also prefer completed as smart wells. The purposes of all of these are for decreasing well intervention and controlling the wells or downhole pieces of equipment.
Many expandable and inflatable tubular or equipments are being a part of a smart well completion. Tubing, casing, well packer, screen are expandable. Downhole control valve, choke are controllable whether from surface or left it downhole controlled by the reservoir characteristic. Umbilical, optical fiber, hydraulic line, pneumatic line are some ways to connect controllable downhole equipment with controller.
The invention idea of ‘Inflatable Packer inside Expandable Packer’ is to control the expandable packer by using an inflatable packer. The sealing of an expandable packer can not be control once the packer setting. If leaking indication encountered, the expandable packer must be pulled out and then re-set. The same action must be done if the sealing is no longer desired.
In Figure 1, the production Zone#1 and Zone#2 is completed with an expandable sand screen and expandable smart screen respectively. Between them, an expandable packer is ready to expand. Both zones are in communication since the expandable packer is not forced yet.
In Figure 2, the inflatable packer is run on the tubing to the expandable packer position. Through a control line, pressured fluid is then inflated the inflatable packer which in turn forces the expandable packer for sealing (Figure 3) to prevent cross flow from Zone#1 to Zone#2 and vice versa.
Recommended rading:
