Geosteering Long Horizontal Drains in Al Khalij Field Thin Layers: An Integrated Approach

Nicolas E. Meyer¹, Florian Socquet-Juglard¹, and Ramdas Narayanan^2
1Total, Qatar
²Qatar Petroleum
*[email protected]

Accurate and efficient geosteering is a fundamental requirement for optimum reservoir development. It is becoming every day more challenging as fields are increasingly developed through long horizontal drains targeting thin reservoir layers. Such a situation occurs in the Al Khalij field, a carbonate layer-cake of alternating good and poor quality limestone reservoirs. Each good reservoir layer, whose 2–3 m thickness is far below seismic resolution, is surrounded by essentially water-bearing layers exhibiting similar porosity responses. This presentation describes an integrated approach and innovative template developed to overcome the challenge of proper geosteering of long horizontal wells beyond 3,000 m in such a geological context. All geosteering information, from real-time borehole images to drilling parameters, logs and mud logging data, is gathered in an integrated software which includes a borehole data-management tool to process the geological information and a visualisation template. This template provides a clear structural view of the well within a real-time, updated geological cross-section. This innovative visualisation tool integrates all the well data and provides, in real time, a synthetic image of the drain, which improves geosteering decisions and helps maximise the net pay along the well path.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90077©2008 GEO 2008 Middle East Conference and Exhibition, Manama, Bahrain