Advances in Streamlining Development Wellbore Data from Concept to Completion

摘要

Drilling techniques have advanced significantly in recent years with the drilling of complex, multi- lateral, and extended reach wells. While drilling, wellbore geological data are collected and managed from a broad and growing range of disparate sources, presenting a need to structure and streamline these data. A new system has been implemented to play a vital role in streamlining geological data acquisition and management. This system acts as a catalyst for reservoir characterization geologists and management to analyze the complete life cycle of development wellbores from the pre-spud/planning phase, through drilling events, daily operations, and post-drilling analysis. This system was designed with the main objective of simplifying and automating daily drilling and geosteering activities. It also extends services to unconventional resources by tracking fracking data from design phase to quality control (QC) phase. A new data structure was introduced to support multiple sidetracks (called deepening) for a single wellbore. It eases geologists’ ability to track the entire motherbore activities in one place, including multiple deepenings for each wellbore. Wellbore related data and deepening data are monitored during the building, landing, and geosteering stages until the wellbore reaches its targeted depth (TD). The data collected during the planning phase includes (but is not limited to) estimated formation tops, target zones, logs, hole sizes, etc. Daily geological observations are captured during the drilling phase. Finally, at the completion stage, the system allows geologists to compare new data (actual) against existing data (planned) using statistical and analytical tools to generate an end-of-well report with the reservoir cutoffs. In addition, based on predefined user roles, the system sends automatic notifications to the Geosteering Operations Center (GOC) and field geologists as new information is obtained. These features, and more, provide a solid platform for making critical business decisions, and facilitate moving from passive/reactive scenarios to active/proactive production control. With this new system in place, oil and gas wellbore operations have realized the benefits of streamlining wellbore data acquisition from conception to completion to improve processes and to make better-informed business decisions.