Continuous monitoring system for soil gas migration in leaking Oil and Gas wells

Abstract

The cost of repairing leaking Oil and Gas wells is of major concerns for operators and regulatory authorities. After each intervention is completed, the success of repair attempt is measured at surface by various devices. The current monitoring procedure is recognized as labour intensive, requiring field personnel to physically travel to wellsite and manually measure gas concentration levels with expensive hand-held instrumentation. Due to complex nature of surface casing vent flow and gas migration mechanisms, continuous monitoring with a real-time data access is a new paradigm for analyzing the repair success. This article presents a cost-effective and efficient system prototype for continuously monitoring surface casing vent flow and gas migration of methane concentration levels.