Customer Challenges
- Our customer in Colombia operates strategic energy storage reserves in natural salt formations
- Salt is produced through solution mining, by injecting fresh water into a salt formation to generate brine. A diesel column in the annulus acts as a hydraulic barrier, preventing undesired dissolution and allowing control of the dissolution zone and cavern geometry by vertically adjusting the position of this column
- During operations, information on the salt formation, fluid interfaces and cavern growth were required
- The key objectives of this project were:
- Monitor salt production wells
- Measure development of cavities and ensure brine production
- Check diesel-brine interface
- Adjust diesel level according to cavity growth
- Detect diesel trapped in 10 ¾” open hole section
Expro Excellence
- Expro mobilized the reservoir analysis sonde (RAS) wireline intervention tool - a multi-detector pulsed-neutron system for measuring reservoir saturation. The tool was run in three wells in sigma mode across two separate intervention campaigns in 2025
- The RAS tool was run on E-line and provided real-time data from which operations could be monitored and optimized based on the results
- A complete set of logged data from all runs was processed and interpreted by Expro’s petrophysicists offline in our dedicated Data Analysis Centre
Value to Client
- The data from the RAS tool enabled our customer to achieve their monitoring objectives and:
- Verify and adjust the diesel column height in response to the salt cavity growth
- Adjust the leaching interval within the cavity
- Determine the top of the cavity through interface logging between diesel and brine
- We responded rapidly to a short mobilization period, allowing our customer to complete the work within a planned intervention window
- Real-time data was interpreted within two hours, which enabled data-driven insights and opportunities to optimize the operational program
- Expro’s Data Analysis Centre processed and analyzed the logs, providing insight into the salt cavern formation and operational performance
Contact
For further information, please contact wellintervention@expro.com.
