Abstract
Today the Petroleum Industry is moving into more high-risk projects than ever before. A key to the successful completion of many of the projects is the mitigation of project risks and uncertainties. One aspect of risk mitigation is the making of timely and geo-technically correct decisions during drilling operations. The geologically complex nature of many of today’s mega projects often requires numerous experts to be involved in the decision process. If the specific professionals are not available at critical junctures, the results are increased project risk, increased costs, or probably both. A solution is to bring the risk to the experts as/when needed versus taking the experts to the risk.
The Hamaca Project, located in the Eastern-Central portion of Venezuela, is an excellent case example of the benefits of long distance decision making. In Hamaca bringing the drill bit to the experts is the norm not the exception. In just over one year of horizontal drilling operations Petrolera Ameriven drilled approximately 110 horizontal well bores with nearly 564,000 feet of lateral lined section. The lined drain holes had a cumulative 90% net sand contact rate. These results far exceeded original expectations and were in large part due to the long distant decision making.
