Acoustic telemetry for oilfield operations

The continuing need for a reliable data path up to 10 km long with reasonable data rate is a critical issue for any number of petroleum industry applications. This article gives a brief introduction to well completions; casing and tubing use in finished wells; and considerations affecting a commercial system addressing the data rate problem in a finished well. The Measure-While-Drilling application necessarily has a toolstring in the hole, which greatly complicates the already complex task of data communications.