Applications configure 179 trajectories targeting reservoir beneath another operator's reservoir in crowded field
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Target reservoir beneath another operator's reservoir in crowded field
Middle East
An operator in the Middle East sought to drill 179 offshore wells, targeting a reservoir beneath another operator’s reservoir. This challenging project involved using trajectory designs that would not intersect the operator’s own wells or the other operator’s 1,200 wells, while also meeting the client’s budget, schedule, safety protocols, and material constraints. Halliburton used its DecisionSpace® software platform and other digital applications to design the wells and simulate the drilling, thus providing the client with optimal designs, appropriate well paths, durations, and costs in an unusually short amount of time.
While Halliburton had extensive experience providing past field development plans (FDPs) and well integrity analysis for the client, this project was uniquely complex in that the many well simulations and other FDP work had to occur concurrently to save time. Adding to the complexity was the fact that both operators would be adding several hundred more wells to the field in the future.
To ensure proper well placement, the wellhead towers and artificial islands, as well as the surface and subsurface hazards, were entered into the DecisionSpace well planning software. The surface and target coordinates were defined while avoiding the other operator’s wells, and the well plans were then imported into Engineer’s Data Model™ (EDM™) software. Concurrently, EDM, COMPASS™, WellPlan®, and StressCheck™ software applications were used to design a well with generic coordinates to establish the client’s drilling capabilities based on its engineering guidelines, casing specifications, and daily operations. To determine which configurations would meet the client’s budget and schedule, simulations were conducted using Well Cost software. The results were then combined with the client’s costs for facilities and for the construction of artificial islands and wellhead towers in order to arrive at the total duration and cost of each well.
Halliburton delivered a cost-saving plan with optimal well design and placement and did so in record time. By expertly dividing the work into parallel tracks and using several Landmark platforms, the project team was able to expeditiously deliver FDPs that would yield a potential savings of USD 500 million for the operator.
In addition to the sophisticated capabilities of the Landmark software applications, the expertise provided by Halliburton Consulting team members, along with their close collaboration with the client, were keys to the success of this project. Although the reservoir stacking and multiple production intervals made the project somewhat atypical, these characteristics will likely become increasingly common as fields around the world become more crowded.
