Real-Time Drilling Surveillance

Expert Analysis – When and Where You Need It

Business Challenge

Operators involved in challenging wells are constantly looking for ways to minimize risk and reduce uncertainty. Solid pore pressure and wellbore stability information helps ensure that the right decisions can be made to keep the drilling program on track.

Overview

Key components of the drilling plan—casing points, mud weights and even the trajectory—are based on a pre-drill prediction of pore pressure and earth stress. Data acquired while drilling brings new insights into wellbore conditions that can require a change to even the most robust wellbore design.

To remain useful, the pre-drill model must be regularly updated. The revised model results must be quickly and effectively communicated to decision makers, in actionable terms, and converted into decisions that optimize the safety and efficiency of wellbore construction.

Halliburton's Drilling Surveillance Services help reduce uncertainty with unmatched pore pressure and geomechanical expertise. As conditions deviate from pre-drill pore pressure and wellbore stability predictions, Halliburton analysts quickly provide actionable, real-time solutions to get the drilling back on track.

Halliburton's Drilling Surveillance Services can be delivered in three ways:

• At the wellsite, where analysts are keyed in directly to rig personnel and are directly involved in every aspect of drilling operations
• Synchronous remote monitoring – for dedicated coverage by shore-based analysts, coverage at specific times, or for specific sections of the well
• A synchronous remote monitoring, for shore-based analyst coverage on less critical operations where data updates are only required once or twice each day

At The Wellsite

For many challenging wells, there is no substitute for having a dedicated pore pressure analyst on the rig. Expert onsite analysis captures valuable information from sources outside the traditional data stream. For instance, our analysts can diagnose the wellbore failure type by examining cavings, and in turn, communicate appropriate options to the people offshore that need to know.

Analysts also rapidly integrate wireline data, leak-off tests and other subsurface information to revise the prediction quickly and effectively, and communicate recommendations directly to the drilling foreman. The result is a real-time, fully-informed drilling team that can make high-quality decisions about the drilling program.

In Your Office or Ours

In many cases, remote surveillance is a viable alternative to wellsite-based delivery. In your office or ours, data from multiple sources is easily acquired for real-time or periodic analysis using the Internet and the WITSML™ transmission protocol.

Applying this flexible communications capability, we tailor an appropriate monitoring response according to drilling demands. When risk factors are higher, we increase monitoring; when drilling conditions are less demanding, monitoring is reduced.

Real-time data acquisition is facilitated with the WITSML transmission protocol. The WITSML standard has rapidly developed as a means for fast, seamless integration of data from many sources. It facilitates seamless selection of component services from different service companies. During drilling, WITSML data is transmitted in real time through a secure Internet connection to provide remote updating for pore pressure and wellbore stability models.

Remote surveillance solutions include the following advantages:

• Reduced logistical requirements by eliminating rig-based personnel
• Short set-up time
• The ability to monitor multiple wells, anywhere in the world
• Internet-based for reliable communications at any office desktop

A Powerful Process

Halliburton's unique approach to pore pressure and wellbore stability prediction is centered on basin modeling. The process integrates geology, petrophysics, geophysics and engineering for an inclusive analysis that considers all available information.

Using our Drillworks® software, we develop a 3D geologic model of pore, fracture and overburden pressure using all available information. The model is refined by a multidisciplinary team of highly-experienced pore pressure analysts and geoscientists to ensure the results are exceptional, even when time is short and data is limited.

The value of this approach, born out of three joint industry projects and hundreds of consulting projects, is well documented.

A recent joint industry project (DEA 119 P2) found Halliburton's basin modeling technique to be an improvement over traditional well log and seismic-based techniques. The JIP determined that the basin model produced a pore pressure prediction within 1.0 ppg of the actual encountered pressures over the entire wellbore interval.

A subsequent study (SPE 96464) established that with real-time updating, the basin model could forecast pressures within 0.5 ppg up to 1,000 feet ahead of the bit.