Petrobras adopts LabVIEW to improve oil & gas exploration

London -- Latin America’s largest oil and gas company Petrobras has selected National Instruments’ LabVIEW software and data acquisition hardware to develop a mud-gas separator for underbalanced drilling (UBD) applications.

Using NI tools, Petrobras engineers have developed a high-throughput UBD application capable of reducing the time it takes for a well to become fully productive as well as eliminating the need for costly fracturing after the well is completed.

“By deploying UBD technology based on LabVIEW, Petrobras has realised savings between $500,000 and $2 million, depending on the size of the well and the cost of the potential fracturing job,” said Manoel Feliciano da Silva, equipment engineer at Petrobras. The method, he added, gives Petrobras the ability to reach full production faster and with minimal impact on the formation.”

The UBD drilling technique reduces the hydrostatic pressure of the drilling fluid, causing the pressure in the wellbore to be less than the formation pressure. As the well is being drilled, formation fluid flows into the wellbore and up to the surface.

By contrast, traditional drilling often causes formation damage. This can delay the formation reaching full production or force companies to perform fracturing jobs on the well.

Petrobras’ mud-gas separator delivers a compact separation system capable of handling the dynamic gas and liquid flow rates generated during drilling with compressible fluid. It can also respond quickly to variations in the pressure or flow rates from injected or produced variations in the dynamic systems.

According to NI, its LabVIEW provides connectivity to the drilling control PLC and connectivity to remote systems. The system also delivers the flexibility to connect to existing PLCs; perform high-speed measurements; and provide the required server, client and playback modes.

The NI system provided Petrobras with real-time measurements and trending to equip operators with better data for decision making and improved safety along the drilling operations. The equipment for land operation was tested and approved during full-scale experiments and is currently being used on four oil wells drilled at the Estreito Field located in the Rio Grande do Norte state.