Integrated Subsurface and Drilling Work Environment Enables Geosteering to Maximize Wellbore Placement in Brown Field Development

Abstract

E&P Operators are facing challenges with the on-going development of brown fields and the increasing need for accurate wellbore placement and geosteering during infill drilling. This is driven by business plans that involve large in fill well drilling program. The planning and execution of these in fill wells will involve the drilling of highly deviated, horizontal and extended reach wells. Good use has been made historically of the geosteering services provided by contractors in order to support drilling programs. This paper investigate the process of establishing an Integrated Geosteering Environment (IGE) that would enable efficient collaboration between reservoir geologist, petrophysicist, operational geologists, reservoir engineers and drillers engaged in field development. This environment makes use of a real time data to enable the drilling team to reduce risk and reservoir uncertainty while maximizing wellbore contact with the zone of interest. This will translate into reduced drilling time, better well placement and an increase in capital efficiency. The paper primarily focuses on the establishment of the IGE that will enable the development of workflows to optimize the placement of horizontal wellbore to achieve the business objective. The workflows cover predrill planning, drilling execution including 24/7 real time monitoring to steer the well, post well evaluation and update the reservoir model. This is enabled by real time data acquired while drilling along with modelling visualization tools. Transforming from the current working environment into an Integrated Geosteering Environment combined with a real time Drilling Environment enables effective decision making and increased business agility towards achieving Operator business objectives, increasing oil recovery and sustaining the production capacity of brownfields. There are several papers in the past addressing collaborative work environment or shared earth model. This paper discusses real time integrated workflow between sub-surface and drilling domains from a geosteering perspective.