Adaptive Drilling Model Updates for Well Optimization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current oilfield drilling operations face uncertainties and inefficiencies due to unaccounted hazards, geological abnormalities, and unpredictable events, which can lead to increased costs, risks, and reduced optimization of drilling objectives like NPV.
Innovation Solution
An integrated well optimization unit that generates and updates base, overburden, and reservoir models in real-time using pre-drilling and drilling data, allowing for adaptive adjustments to drilling trajectories and operations to optimize drilling efficiency and reduce uncertainties.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If real-time data collection and analysis are implemented during drilling operations, then drilling optimization and decision-making are improved, but system complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the drilling operation into distinct phases (overburden drilling and reservoir drilling) with separate modeling stages (base model, overburden posterior model, reservoir posterior model). This segmentation allows real-time optimization to be implemented in manageable stages rather than as a monolithic complex system.
Solution Approach 2:
A base model is constructed before drilling begins using pre-drilling data. This preliminary action provides a foundation that reduces the complexity of real-time analysis during drilling, as the system only needs to update and refine the pre-established base model rather than build everything from scratch in real-time.
2Reliability
If comprehensive pre-drilling data analysis and modeling are performed, then drilling uncertainty is reduced, but time and computational resources are consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The base model is constructed in advance using all available pre-drilling data before the drilling operation begins. This preliminary modeling action reduces uncertainty beforehand, so that during actual drilling, only incremental updates are needed rather than comprehensive re-analysis, thereby reducing time loss during operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The modeling process continues continuously during drilling operations through sequential updates (overburden posterior model during overburden drilling, reservoir posterior model during reservoir drilling). This continuous refinement maintains reliability reduction of uncertainty without requiring stoppage for batch processing, minimizing time loss.
3Productivity
If adaptive drilling operations are implemented with real-time model updates, then drilling efficiency is improved, but data processing requirements and computational load increase
Solution Approach 1:
The computational process is segmented into distinct stages corresponding to different drilling phases. During overburden drilling, only the overburden posterior model is updated; during reservoir drilling, only the reservoir posterior model is updated. This segmentation reduces the computational load at any given time compared to updating all models simultaneously, while maintaining drilling efficiency through continuous adaptation.
Solution Approach 2:
The base model is prepared in advance with all preliminary computations completed before drilling begins. This preliminary action reduces the computational load during actual drilling operations, as the real-time processing only requires incremental updates to the pre-computed base model rather than performing comprehensive calculations from scratch.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method for performing an adaptive drilling operation is provided. The method involves obtaining data prior to drilling, constructing a base model with a base model unit from data obtained prior to drilling, constructing an overburden posterior model with an overburden model unit using the base model and data obtained from overburden drilling, constructing a reservoir posterior model with a reservoir model unit using the overburden posterior model and the data obtained from reservoir drilling and updating drilling operation based on the models.