OptaSense expands fracking monitoring operation centres

UK-based OptaSense, a QinetiQ company, has opened real time operations centres (RTOC) which will deliver advanced fracking monitoring services to customers in the oil and gas industry.

The new centres in the US, Canada and UK will provide detailed information to oil and gas companies to best utilise their operations.

As part of their service, OptaSense will also offer fibre optic data acquisition units which can monitor multiple cells concurrently.

In addition, the fracking monitoring service will include distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) and distributed temperature sensing (DTS) and pump data.

All these services will provide comprehensive data of performance during the fracking process and help the operators to know about the processes taking place deep underground.

OptaSense experts will provide their input on data analysis and interpretation, directly into customer’s operation centres.

The experts will also provide reports at every stage on fluid placement volumes during the well completion process that will help operators to design the fracking process for future well completions.

OptaSense will make the facility in Calgary, Canada, the global centre of excellence for its fracking monitoring services.

It will include a downhole fibre training facility and be the engineering control centre for operations across North America.

The service also includes real-time monitoring of fracture fluid injection locations, that gives the estimated volume of water and propellant consumption at these locations.

With the help of these services, operators can monitor operations at the treatment zone in real time, improve and simplify the hydraulic fracking process in a protected and dependable technique.

OptaSense managing director, Magnus McEwen-King, said that the investment is based on the company’s global services framework agreement with Shell that was signed at the beginning g of 2012.

"Our fleet of state-of-the-art fibre optic data acquisition units enable us to provide our customers with a full service with respect to all fibre sensing requirements," McEwen-King added.

Induced hydraulic fracturing, also called as fracking, is a method employed to release petroleum and natural gas, which includes shale gas, tight gas and coal seam gas for extraction.

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Image: OptaSense has launched real-time operations centres to provide advanced fracking monitoring services to customers in oil and gas industry. Photo: Courtesy of OptaSense.