Vacuum Insulation Tubing & Casing Manufacturers and Suppliers

Vacuum insulation tubing and casing: The Complete Guide for Importers and Buyers

The expansion of thermal enhanced oil recovery processes such as Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS), Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD), and the steam flood has led to the development of thermal wells in oil and gas drilling.

These are high-temperature processes that are coupled with several challenges to the design of oil and gas wells, especially by looking at the performance and the integrity of the wells.

The applications of vacuum insulated tubing and vacuum insulated casing have significantly improved well design and performance in two main aspects;

1. They mitigate the effect of higher temperatures on some parts of the formation;
2. They reduce heat loss from the injected fluid.

This article describes the design and economic considerations that may influence the choice for vacuum insulated tubing or vacuum insulated casing for well formation and completion.

The information on this post contains some of the parameters considered during thermal well design.

These are factors that should be taken into account when looking to buy insulated tubing and casing.

In most cases, you will need to look at the temperature of the casing and tubing and heat loss. Knowing these parameters will help you study the integrity of the well and estimate its overall efficiency.

Additionally, some simple aspects between different formation using vacuum insulated tubing are run to compare various aspects of vacuum insulated tubing and casing.

At this point, you need to know that vacuum insulated tubing is often used to convert a non-thermal well model into steam injection.

When selecting the right vacuum insulated tubing and casing for oil and gas well applications, you need to look at a wide range of its thermal performance.

What is vacuum insulation tubing?

Vacuum insulation tubing is a select type of pipes used to improve the thermodynamic potential of oil and gas wells by delivering more enthalpy to the oil reservoir.

High-temperature vacuum insulation tubing helps engineers to reduce the effect of heat when oil and gas recovery.

Since the process of drilling oil from deep into rocks requires the delivery of steam to optimize the thermal performance of the steam process, the pipes used in delivering steam and other fluids should be able to withstand high temperatures without compromising the performance of the well.

In some cases, high-temperature ranges may require the use of a double-wall vacuum-insulated tubing to mitigate the effect of extremely high temperature on the formation.

What is a vacuum insulation casing?

Note, the use of vacuum insulation tubing is often driven by its strength or weaknesses.

On the other hand, vacuum insulation casing is designed to offer a specific solution to some parts of the formation.

In that respect, vacuum insulation casing depends on the inevitable integrity failure of the oil and gas well, such as cement integrity under thermal cycling, pressure buildup in the annuli, and casing expansion and the resulting load.

A thermal well design provides tubing and casing temperature that can be used to assess the effectiveness of vacuum insulation tubing and casing in mitigating well failure.

On good performance, heat loss is used to evaluate different vacuum insulation tubing and casing and their economic aspects.

Vacuum Insulated Tubing and Casing applications

In Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage completion, vacuum insulation tubing is used to improve the overall process. The application starts at the reservoir, well design, injection string, and surface facilities.

At the initial stages of Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage, well pairs steam is injected down a long string. At the same time, reservoir fluids produced during the process are returned to the surface through a short concentric string.

In the entire process, insulation tubing and casing are used for the following reasons:

1.To reduce the heat exchange between the injected and returning fluids.
2.To reduce the mass flow of steam, therefore producing the right enthalpy to the reservoir by using less steam volume.
3.To improve the initial steam oil ratio as a result of the reduced mass steam flow.
4.Cut the demand on surface facilities to allow for smaller plants or give existing plants extra space for the circulation of the additional well pairs.

These benefits have a vast return on investment and significantly influence the payout.

In traditional steam injection and Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage processes, vacuum insulation tubing and casing are used for the following reasons:

1. To deliver the highest rate of enthalpy to the oil-bearing rocks.
2. To reduce the extent and the magnitude of thermal expansion and heat transfer in production casing and cement. This helps relieve concerns for thermal-induced damage and the quality of cement sealing.
3. To maximize the injected enthalpy delivered to the reservoir, therefore enhancing viscosity reduction, thermal expansion of gas, and the potential for reservoir distillation.

The performance of vacuum insulation tubing and casing can vary significantly, and there is no such thing as a standard specification or generic.

What every engineer should know about Vacuum Insulated Tubing and Casing

Many engineers in the oil and gas field that require the use of vacuum insulation tubing and casing often have many questions to answer:

• What is the thermal conductivity value?
• What is the thermal performance of the vacuum insulation tubing ad casing? How about its heat loss per foot or meter length?
• What are the mechanical properties of vacuum insulation tubing and casing? What about their limitations?

While these questions are more specific, their answers may or may not lead the engineer to the best buying decision.

There is a certain level of knowledge about vacuum insulation tubing and casing required before specifying and buying an insulation tubing and casing string.

Once the decision is made, a steam injection process will reap the benefits of using the right vacuum insulation tubing and casing.

However, before the buying decision is made, it is crucial to understand the technical matters the type of insulating system that should be installed.

This section will create a level of technical transparency and offer engineers with the right information that can be used to evaluate various vacuum insulation tubing and casing manufacturers and technologies.

A double-walled steam injection tubing was first used in the late 1970s to lower the cost of steam, solve well issues, and improve the steam oil ratio.

The first insulation tubing was made of argon gas backfilled insulating system with a thermal conductivity value of up to 0.015 Btu/Hr-Ft-°F (0.026 w/mK).

A spell of activities and technologies in the part of oil manufacturers and processing led to the introduction of vacuum insulation tubing.

The double-walled and gettered high vacuum insulation tubing enhanced the thermal performance of oil wells due to a conductivity value of up to 0.0018-0.0023 Btu/Hr-Ft-°F (0.003-0.004 w/mK).

What is Getter?

A getter is described as a non-mechanical chemical used to convert gas molecules into solids that can be trapped within the matrix of the getter material.

The getter used in vacuum insulation systems is often made from zirconium, vanadium, and iron.

The mixture of these compounds creates granules and pills installed firmly to the inner tube. This location makes the granules and pills easily activated by the high-temperature steam.

In most cases, getter manufacturers form getters into their final configuration at room temperature and are used to pump hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon (ii) oxide, and carbon (iv) oxide gases.

A passivation layer is formed on the outer surface since getters have a high affinity for nitrogen, carbon (ii) oxide, and carbon (iv) oxide gases.

These gases coat the surface of the getter, preventing further pumping at room temperature. High-temperature reactivation is then required to start the pumping process again.

What to look out for:

• Getter: Engineers need to review technical datasheets for getter used by the manufacturer. Additionally, there is a need to find information on getter capacity, pumping speed, and activation temperature.
• Getter activation: Engineers must know how to activate the getter and compare vacuum insulation tubing and casing manufacturers’ procedures to the getter manufacturers’ data about activation efficiency.
• Getter quantity: It is essential to understand the right quantity and location of the getter installed into the annulus of each joint.

Getter reactivation for vacuum insulated tubing and casing is best done in a temperature-controlled oven in a process known as the bakeout process.

This is a vital step in the manufacture of a double-layered, gettered high vacuum insulation system.

What is the bakeout process?

The bakeout process is a common and standard practice used in the manufacture of high vacuum systems to help increase the ability of the getter to perform its primary function.

A getter is supposed to maintain a vacuum over the lifecycle of the vacuum insulated tubing and casing joint.

Outgassing from inner and outer tubes is often an issue in the vacuum system. Let’s look at it this way.

When an object is mechanically evacuated using a vacuum pump, an increase in pressure is observed, especially after the vacuum pump is removed and the evacuation port sealed.

The rise in pressure is often caused by residual gases left in the container and some trapped gases from inside the container.

The bakeout process is used to counter this issue by cleaning the inner surface of the container to remove residual gases and release absorbed gases from the walls of the container.

In a vacuum insulation tubing and casing joint, the heat applied through the bakeout process activates the gases, forcing them out of the inner and outer surface of the tubing.

The means by which the gases are mechanically pumped out as they evolve from the interior matrix of the steel tubing and casing is called temperature-programmed desorption.

The temperature-programmed desorption cycle is often divided into two procedures.

The first happens at lower temperatures when the getter is cooled with its surface passivation layer kept intact and its pumping capabilities withheld.

The first procedure allows surface gases to evolve and get pumped out through the vacuum port using a mechanical vacuum pump.

The second step is the reactivation of the getter. This happens at higher temperatures over a specified period, making the getter passivation layer absorbed and trapped deep into the getter matrix.

The process allows the getter to be used as a chemical vacuum pump.

Throughout the life cycle of the vacuum insulation tubing and casing joint, the getter is used to maintain the vacuum in the annuli space between inner and outer tubes.

Once the steam injection begins, all remaining gases trapped inside the steel matrix will be released slowly. The getter will pump and permanently trap gas molecules inside the getter matrix.

When the bakeout process is done right, the resulting raw materials are cleaned well, and the volume of residual gases in the outer and inner tubes is reduced significantly.

The bakeout process is an essential step that extends the lifecycle of the vacuum insulated tubing and casing joint.

This is mainly because the getters have a finite capacity that maximizes the pumping capacity to handle the vacuum problem, which is hydrogen permeation.

Hydrogen gas impairs thermal efficiency, increasing the thermal conductivity of vacuum insulation tubing and casing and the entire vacuum insulated tuning system.

The permeation of hydrogen gas is caused by dissolution and diffusion.

The gas first dissolves into the solid steel walls, the diffuses and desorbs into the vacuum system.

Conclusion

Buying the right vacuum insulation tubing and casing represents a substantial investment.

Therefore, a more logical and technical approach is needed to evaluate and assess various vacuum insulation and casing manufacturers.

There has been a lack of general understanding of high-temperature vacuum insulation tubing and casing that the article needed to address.

The purpose of this guide was to review vacuum insulation tubing and casing and their applications in the oil and gas industry to allow future buyers to make informed buying decisions.

In so doing, it is hoped that your understanding of vacuum insulation tubing and casing is enhanced, any misinformation dispelled, and you are in a position to use this information to make better buying decisions.