“Honing the Zone” or “Just Let Me Drill it”: The Trade-Offs in Drilling the Perfect Horizontal Well

KC Oren
Horizontal Solutions Int’l (HSI TrueTime™ Services), [email protected]

The personalities of engineers and geoscientists are typically very different. And when it comes to corporate risk/reward assessments, company incentives for these individuals are often counter to the overall end goal: higher IP and superior well performance among their peer group. For example, drilling team metrics and operating personnel objectives are often counter to maintaining geological target objectives (staying in zone) and achieving maximum overall production (highest possible EUR). As a result, these divergent drivers may create dichotomies between individual personas due to personalities, personal motivation and company goals, and therefore create conflict between otherwise closely aligned asset team members.

We will explore the trade-offs of staying in the targeted zone (sweet spot) by carefully steering the well and monitoring every move along the way versus drilling ahead for maximum ROP (rate-of-penetration) and less NPT (non-productive time). The goal of the paper is to provide a basis for better understanding what makes the drilling team itchy and uncomfortable versus the overall benefits of staying in zone … sometimes the extra deliberations or seemly costly modifications in a drilling plan do in fact pay big dividends … or do they?

What both engineers and geologists need to know!

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90154©2012 AAPG Eastern Section Meeting, Cleveland, Ohio, 22-26 September 2012