Geosteering – Popular Pitfalls, Realism, & Remedies
It’s all about drilling a hole in the right rocks. There might be bragging rights in the longest, deepest, most technical or fastest horizontal project, but not so much money. Our experience teaches that there are three broad categories of “Popular Pitfalls”, and there are strategies to mitigate these risks.
The most “Popular Pitfalls” fall into three general categories: 1) Over simplification of pre-drill subsurface geologic uncertainty and undue confidence in the pre-drill geologic model; 2) Over-confidence in the accuracy and completeness of while-drill data, including MWD-LWD logs, directional surveys, and the depth-specificity of mudlog data; 3) Procedural errors by the geosteering decision-maker, e.g. failure to account for well path positional uncertainty, fruitless over-steering, imprecise communications with drillers.
Several real-well examples will be displayed.
Remedies for these maladies are not entirely fool proof, but costs can be substantially controlled and in-target percentage can be greatly improved by applying work flows which recognize and sometimes repair these problem, or at least hedge against the unavoidable uncertainties.
More information and registration/payment at http://dgs.org/events/103/
Location:
Brookhaven Country Club
3333 Golfing Green Dr
Farmers Branch
,
Texas 75234