Any new technology rides a bell curve of early-adopter acceptance, broad-market acceptance, a peak and a decline. Intelligent wells have broad acceptance among early adopters now and they are heading for the steep up-slope of broad acceptance.

"We're now on the up-take portion of the bell curve. A lot of larger operators are making them (intelligent completions) part of the mainstream of their organizations. Still others are waiting for hundreds to appear in the field," said E.J. Zisk, Weatherford product line manager, optical permanent monitoring systems.

"Intelligent completions are going into more and more wells in more and more markets," added Karl Sakocius, vice president of marketing for eProduction Solutions, a Weatherford company.

Operators traditionally have considered intelligent completions too expensive, but the price of oil and the improved reliability of intelligent completion systems and components are helping operators look at the total value of the systems rather than equipment cost.

Intelligent wells are particularly well suited for high-output wells that produce from several zones in which water or gas incursion is an anticipated problem. Those wells will benefit most from downhole monitoring with optical sensing and downhole flow control.

Intelligent completion technology has seen high acceptance in areas such as the North Sea and in the Middle East.

The best way to gauge the acceptance of a technology comes from the operators that use it. In areas like the North Sea and the Middle East, operators know about intelligent completion technology and the best ways to use it. In those areas, operators are coming to service companies to ask how they can put the technology into practice, Zisk said.

"I think, in the next 5 years, it will be in the mainstream with most operators," he added.