Description of a High-Profit Combination of Low-Cost Real-Time Survey Management Practices Used to Optimize Reservoir Landing in Unfamiliar Deep Offshore Geological Environment
Authors: Momot Fabien , Comte Marie-Jocelyn , Lacaze Chloé , Sikal Anas , Balou Efficience , Reynaud Denis , Bledou Manfred , Shabanov Sergey 
Published: March 2021

After a first part of the drilling campaign, including about 10 wells and branches achieved within two years, the operator started questioning the geological reservoir model and reserves implications for the field Offshore Congo. Considering the potential economic impact of this development, the decision was made to reduce wellbore positioning uncertainty relying on optimization and survey QAQC processes that could be applied without adding cost of extra equipment, operational time or personnel.

With more than 10 wells drilled using recent while drilling measurement and directional tools in the same environment, a wide range of wellbore positioning information was available for analysis, post-correction, and geological/reservoir model deeper understanding. Also, investigation was done to recover existing geomagnetic data acquired during the geophysical campaign. Thanks to this extensive data set, enhanced wellbores positioning was implemented using meticulous combination of processes. The "process" overall impact is often underestimated while most of the data is already available. For lateral positioning correction, it included the processing of geomagnetic IFR data over the Moho field associated to Multi Station Correction. For vertical repositioning, BHA sag correction was applied with scrutinous assessment of residual sag uncertainty and detailed analysis of continuous survey data. This robust, cost-effective, and valuable solution was chosen to be applied by the operator in the Moho field.

The process was first applied post-drilling to evaluate the level of improvement that could be brought to another well also exposed to challenging trajectory context (ERD 2 with reduced target 25 × 50 m at almost 8000m MD/RT). It confirmed that the achievable uncertainty reduction would meet well objectives without adding any risk or operational time nor jeopardizing wellbore positioning and collision avoidance. Thus, it brought up to 50 to 60% of uncertainty reduction and about 30m lateral and 3m vertical displacement. The reduction of the uncertainty and trajectory adjustment allowed to enhance geologic context understanding. The vertical position of the well was offset following this revision. This had a 5% consequence in term of oil layer thickness for this well. Then, the team designed and rolled out to the operator and contractors an execution strategy and operational workflow including remote monitoring with near real-time survey QAQC that would ensure the best correction process customized for the specific drilling challenges. This monitoring enabled reducing the ellipsoid to ~20 by 50m radius at TD = 7618m. This allowed entering in the reservoir at the exact top of the structure, behind the fault that was the optimum in term of reserves and secured 90% of potential reserves of this well.

The operator's choice of valuing the available information to enhance their asset is a very interesting way to optimize the past efforts put in wellbore positioning to face the current economically constrained environment.