Innovative Technology & Award-Winning Research: DarkVision Wins Curtis Blount Outstanding Paper Award

DarkVision and ARC Resources were jointly awarded the Curtis Blount Outstanding Paper Award for their significant contribution to the oil and gas industry’s knowledge of well integrity. The technical paper was presented by DarkVision’s VP of Product & Marketing, Tom Littleford, at the 2021 SPE ICoTA event in Houston, Texas.

Though plug failures can be observed from surface pressure and flow-rate data, the aggregate frequency, causes, and severity of the resulting erosional damage at plug locations were not previously well understood and highly speculative in nature. And that’s where DarkVision’s technology comes in.

The sub-millimetric three-dimensional imagery captured by our high-resolution acoustic imaging tools has significantly improved the industry’s awareness of plug failure frequency, mechanisms of failure, and the resulting impact on stimulation efficiency. These unprecedented datasets have helped uncover the root causes of these ubiquitous failures; operators finally have the necessary level of detail to explore solutions to failing plugs. What does that mean in practice? Operators can improve capital efficiency by reducing proppant waste, identify problematic equipment, and ultimately improve the stimulation of target zones. 

Want to learn more? Read the award winning paper “SPE-204412-MS – High Resolution Acoustic Imaging of Plug Related Casing Damage in Hydraulically Fractured Horizontal Wells.”