Fotech Solutions has closed an investment deal with BP Ventures. The long-term equity investment will see Fotech and BP Ventures collaborate to develop downhole oilfield applications for Fotech’s Helios Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) technology.
The investment from BP Ventures will be used to evolve Fotech’s Helios DAS system to help well engineers to acoustically ‘visualise’ and record what is happening downhole in real-time. The Helios DAS system converts an optical fibre, up to 40km long, into tens of thousands of individual and real-time vibration sensors.
Real-time detection of the vibrations caused by acoustic disturbance at each point along the fibre provides data and interpretative tools. This system will be useful for applications in oil and gas exploration, production and delivery; especially as the oil and gas industry is increasingly exploiting more unconventional sources and is deploying more complex techniques, from hydraulic fracturing to floating liquefied natural gas.
This added emphasis is taking the search for new tools and techniques deeper into the science lab. Chris Shannon, CEO of Fotech, commented: ‘Downhole applications for DAS technology are still in their infancy and are currently largely scientific tools that do not provide understandable actionable information in real time for operators. We are focusing our R&D on ensuring that we can deliver a product that gives end users real world benefits.’
