Abstract
This paper discusses the approach of Cairn Energy India Ltd. (CEIL) in the use of a state of the art technology that integrates all relevant data scenarios for designing and planning development wells in the Mangala field of Western Rajasthan, India.
To improve the quality of the well planning process, CEIL has realized the importance of a collaborative well planning environment, which was implemented by means of its world-class 3D visualization center that enables multidisciplinary well planning workflows to take place in the subsurface environment. The environment includes physical infrastructure, new technology, and data. A fully functioning collaborative well planning environment enables the drilling team to plan wells using engineering tools, including drilling target definition and refinement, well pad positioning, and wellbore position uncertainty, based on company anti-collision policies, with geosciences team capacity to validate those designs against their subsurface data.
The Mangala field development process has established the success of CEIL with rapid, multisolution iterations well planning to the entire asset team and improved wellbore positioning based on potential engineering constraints. This process takes the optimum reservoir drainage into account with possible geological hazards and reduces the operational cost by complementing technical expertise across the broad disciplines. The workflow aids wellbore and drilling optimization and improves decision making and collaboration throughout the field development sequence.
The paper explains the detailed aspects of collaborative well planning and optimization of well placement methodology used for Mangala field, which includes 11 horizontal wells that were largely designed as shallow extended reach drilling (ERD) wells. It demonstrates how this method significantly improved the mutual workflow between departments and increased efficiency. This paper also describes the interactive design that dramatically decreased the cycle time in planning more than 160 wells in the field, which contributed to effective development plans and well placement based on geological, drilling, and completion requirements.
