Apart from its main task of creating the wellbore, the drill bit can act as a valuable field laboratory with no changes in design or data gathering procedures required. As well operations continue, more data is created that improves reservoir understanding. With the addition of further diagnostic tools during both the drilling and completion phases of the well, actionable information becomes available to clarify how and why reservoir performance changes from well to well.
Over the past three years, drilling data from hundreds of wells, both vertical and horizontal, have been used to identify changes in rock, pressure, and stresses along the wellbores, in addition to reservoir level features such as fractures and faults. As this workflow has developed, it has been combined with other available data to yield a more thorough description of the bottomhole conditions that are often unclear from analysis of a single dataset. The most common datasets employed include completion diagnostics, mud log and cuttings analysis, fracturing and production results, and geosteering interpretations.
Case histories will demonstrate multiple ways that drilling data can be used in conjunction with complementary datasets to confirm reservoir analysis, explain production results, and improve completion strategy. Specifically, geomechanical and pressure models are verified and expanded to wellbore sections without separate data. When this expansion is combined with diagnostics related to completion and production, these interpretations are enhanced and provide support for changes to completion strategy that will ultimately lead to improved production. In each of these case histories, sufficient understanding of the reservoir required the cooperation of multiple engineers, geologists, and specialists incorporating all available data in an in-depth evaluation with the goal of integrating everything into a unified reservoir description.
Non-productive time, side-tracked wells, and over-capitalized completions represent enormous drains on operator budgets. Wherever a well has been drilled, data exists to combat these issues, and every new well adds to this dataset representing an opportunity to continually improve the understanding of the reservoir. In addition to preventing wellbore problems, this understanding can help operators optimize well locations, improve stimulation effectiveness, and finally enhance well productivity.
