Autonomously Placing Reservoir Sections: Linking Automated Directional Drilling and Automated Geo-Steering

Friday, March 15, 2024 | 09:00AM – 10:30AM CT Automated drilling control (ADC) has been implemented at scale on the Norwegian Continental Shelf market over the course of the last five years. The return on investment for the stakeholders has been tangibly demonstrated through reduction in well construction cost, and ultimately the effect this has on the lifting costs for liquids produced from those assets. 2023, however, issued in a new era, with a new lens through which to realize the value-added from automation. With the wide-spread adoption of automated control for rotary-steerable drilling tools in fixed geometric sections, the natural next step was to combine this technology with formation evaluation tools, and geo-steering workflows, for production reservoir sections. The operator and service company worked for over a year to develop interfaces required for the seamless flow of data from logging-while drilling resistivity measurements, through surface acquisition, processing, geo-steering workflows, real-time well planning and finally into steering commands passed back downhole to the RSS. The presentation will present the results of the September D-3 well in the Johan Sverdrup field where ~70% of a 8-1/2” was autonomously drilled. The value will be quantified through demonstration of how this technology has played a role in reducing distance for producing sections to reservoir roof. This eliminates unnecessary residual attic-oil, increasing potential production from that section, while also reducing overall number of sections required to be drilled for the same total production and hence also reducing emissions associated with each barrel produced. All content contained within this webinar is copyrighted by Matthew Forshaw and its use and/or reproduction outside the portal requires express permission from Matthew Forshaw. This webinar is FREE to SPE Members. Webinar recordings will be available on-demand within 1 business day of the webinar completion. For those who attended the live webinar, your certificate will be available in your “Learner Profile” within 1 business day of the webinar completion