Advances in drilling technology continue to reduce the cost and risk of multi-lateral well construction. Multi-lateral wells improve reservoir production by maximizing drainage and sweep efficiency with only incremental increases in drilling and completion costs. Multi-lateral wells also solve the problem of reaching structurally isolated zones in spite of limited slots in offshore platforms.
Visualizing Subsurface Conditions
Visualization enables well planners to more accurately determine the optimal multi-lateral well geometries for a particular reservoir.
Multi-lateral Well Planning: Visualizing the Options
WellArchitect from Dynamic Graphics, Inc. is an advanced well planning, directional drilling, survey management tool, designed for collaborative viewing and planning of multi-lateral wellpaths, sidetracks, and re-entry drilling. It easily combines relevant reservoir datasets and visualizes the data in 3D to evaluate subsurface conditions and develop multi-lateral well plans that optimize recovery while reducing risk. WellArchitect addresses those needs by:
- visualizing and modeling potential wellpaths in context of geologic data, cellular models, earth models, offset wells, and targets
- automatically monitoring the proximity of faults and horizons while planning
- calculating the target size (i.e., the “driller’s target”) based on positional uncertainty, and visualizing it while planning
- depicting minimum allowable separation distances in 3D between a reference wellpath and its offset wellpaths while planning and drilling
- showing collision-avoidance symbols along a wellpath while planning to indicate available space (including length and direction) for steering away from nearby wells; symbols are based on industry-recommended and user-defined anti-collision rules
- running automated clearance calculations ahead of the bit while drilling to give advance warning of collision risk with existing wells and avoid replanning proposed wells by not encroaching on their drainage area
- identifying possible magnetic blind spots while planning and drilling to avoid magnetic tool interference on-the-fly
Quickly Identifying Risks and Opportunities
Visualization enables well planners to more accurately determine the optimal multi-lateral well geometries for a particular reservoir.
Multi-lateral Well Planning: Visualizing the Options
WellArchitect from Dynamic Graphics, Inc. is an advanced well planning, directional drilling, survey management tool, designed for collaborative viewing and planning of multi-lateral wellpaths, sidetracks, and re-entry drilling. It easily combines relevant reservoir datasets and visualizes the data in 3D to evaluate subsurface conditions and develop multi-lateral well plans that optimize recovery while reducing risk. WellArchitect addresses those needs by:
- visualizing and modeling potential wellpaths in context of geologic data, cellular models, earth models, offset wells, and targets
- automatically monitoring the proximity of faults and horizons while planning
- calculating the target size (i.e., the “driller’s target”) based on positional uncertainty, and visualizing it while planning
- depicting minimum allowable separation distances in 3D between a reference wellpath and its offset wellpaths while planning and drilling
- showing collision-avoidance symbols along a wellpath while planning to indicate available space (including length and direction) for steering away from nearby wells; symbols are based on industry-recommended and user-defined anti-collision rules
- running automated clearance calculations ahead of the bit while drilling to give advance warning of collision risk with existing wells and avoid replanning proposed wells by not encroaching on their drainage area
- identifying possible magnetic blind spots while planning and drilling to avoid magnetic tool interference on-the-fly
Quickly Identifying Risks and Opportunities
Avoiding Risks
Such as:
- drainage of nearby laterals
- areas of potential borehole instability
- problematic drill bit angles when intersecting faults
- dogleg severity that increases the probability of stuck pipe
Identifying Opportunities
Including:
- optimal number of laterals determined by reservoir characteristics
- lateral trajectory from the target back to the main borehole, based on rock stress, permeability, and stress anisotropy
- optimized location and length of lateral in the pay zone to maximize recovery
- junction designs (TAML) that balance cost against long-term recovery potential
WellArchitect Enables Multi-lateral Planning in Complex Subsurface Environments
WellArchitect from Dynamic Graphics, Inc., is designed to handle a range of applications from single wellpath survey calculations to multi-wellsite and multi-lateral planning. By combining relevant datasets to create detailed 3D visualizations of complex subsurface environments, it gives well planners the ability to easily explore data relationships, evaluate, and plan the optimum multi-lateral placements. To learn more about WellArchitect contact our team.
