Petrocedeño is one of the companies that operate in Junín Block of the Orinoco Oil Belt. This block is located on the southern flank of the eastern basin of Venezuela and produces 150 thousand barrels per day from about 700 wells. Exploitation of this field began early in 2000 year, draining the sands with greatest potential (rock quality in terms of thickness and homogeneity). Today, the amount of this type of sand is reduced; however huge reserves still are in this complex reservoir. About 20 wells have been drilled in Unit C2, deltaic depositional environment with average sand thickness ranging from 10 to 20 ft. and heterolitic beds. Due to these characteristics of the sands, production results of these wells are far away from estimations. Multilateral technology has been used to increase the amount of reservoir exposure in these heavy-oil fields with great success. Sandy problems, observed in most of the 15 multilateral wells drilled in the area, have been solved by cementing the system junction. On the other hand, application of a real-time geosteering technique has allowed a flawless wellbore placement within a reservoir with a challenging stratigraphy and complex sedimentological environment in Junín Block of Orinoco Oil Belt. Petrocedeño used Multilateral System level 4 together with Azimuthal Deep Resistivity technologies to face this challenge. Multilateral advanced drainage architecture to increase reservoir exposure from a single surface location, minimizing collision risk, and to improve production. And Logging-while-drilling with Azimuthal Deep Resistivity tool in conjunction with specialized modeling and wellbore positioning techniques was used to enable swift reaction to maintain the well path within the reservoir boundaries in these thin laminated sands. First Multilateral level 4 well was drilled and geosteered in deltaic C2 Unit on November 2011. Geoscientists and drilling engineers worked as a multi-disciplinary team to make the best wellbore trajectory decisions to position YC36 hole into the best zone of the reservoir along of 5,265 feet. This publication will describe application of multilateral and geosteering technologies in YC36 well. Economical analysis will be presented and explained, as well as production results.

Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) Petrocedeno has encountered challenges in achieving higher production rates and maximizing extra-heavy oil recovery from complex reservoirs in the Junin block of the Orinoco oil belt of Venezuela. These complex reservoirs are located in heterolytic deltaic depositional environments, with heterolitic thicknesses ranging from 10 to 20 ft. This block produces 150,000 B/D from more than 700 horizontal wells. Most of these wells were drilled in relatively homogeneous sands with good thickness; however, large extra-heavy oil reserves are trapped in a more geologically and operationally complex deltaic reservoir sand. Horizontal wells in this area show poor production results. For these reservoirs, the geosteering technique with azimuthal deep resistivity technology was proposed to maximize oil recovery by positioning the wellbore in a better pay-zone; advanced drainage multilateral architecture was proposed to improve production rates by increasing reservoir exposure. Multilateral technology has been used successfully in the area. Sand problems, observed in some multilateral wells, were solved by using a junction support tool to provide mechanical and hydraulic integrity at the junction area. A real-time geosteering technique enabled a flawless wellbore placement within this reservoir with challenging stratigraphy and complex sedimentological environment in which more than 60 wells have been drilled with azimuthal deep resistivity tools. The well YC-36 well plan included drilling two laterals with the geosteering technique, which would improve the production rate to an estimated 343 B/D. After installing a multilateral level IV junction and positioning YC-36 100% in the net oil sand, the reported production increased to 650 B/D for an increase of approximately 300%, as compared to an average single well production from the block. This paper describes the combined application of multilateral and geosteering technologies in the YC-36 well and details about the results of the application.