Is It Really A SPIDR?

By Nathan Waldman | Wed, 4 Oct 2006

Data Retrieval Corporation has pioneered the concept of using well head pressure measurements to determine reservoir properties such as skin and permeability. The highly precise SPIDR® (Self Powered Intelligent Data Retriever) data acquisition system is a key component to the DRC process methodology. Because of our success, we have fostered a growing market and increased awareness for transient well testing around the world. We are now witnessing other service companies using the name "SPIDR®" generically to describe their efforts at surface testing. Somewhat like using the term "Band-Aid®" to describe a generic adhesive bandage.

There are two primary reasons that this is incorrect. First, SPIDR® is a registered trade name and its use is prohibited by law by anyone except the owner of the trade name, Data Retrieval Corporation. Secondly, and much more importantly, SPIDR® well testing is very much more than just acquiring high precision well-head pressures. True SPIDR® testing involves ALL of the following steps;

1. Working with the customer to define the correct test objectives
2. Designing a test procedure to ensure that test objectives are achieved.
3. Acquiring the well-head data with a gauge that is;
   a. reliable
   b. effectively immune to ambient temperature change
   c. immune to well head temperature changes
4. Accurately converting the acquired surface pressure to reservoir conditions taking into account changing well bore temperature, changing phase distributions and densities due to pressure change, and using appropriate friction loss models.
   
5. Accurately analyzing the converted data for reservoir properties.

For over 22 years, Data Retrieval Corporation has been refining the proprietary SPIDR® device and corresponding computer models for converting surface pressures to accurately model reservoir conditions. No other service company offers such an advanced software and data acquisition system as the DRC SPIDR®. Decades of experience, client interaction and intensive technological development have resulted in a product/service solution that is unmatched in the industry. This helps explains the use of our name as an industry standard.


So, the next time a company offers to run a "SPIDR" test, be sure and ask them, "Is it really a SPIDR". If it is not the original DRC SPIDR® system, then you are not getting the best, you're getting a knock-off. Use the well testing solution that has been trusted for years by the largest service and E&P companies in the world, the DRC SPIDR® system.