Abstract
This middle cretaceous reef build up reservoir has similar problems to other fields of similar setting in the region, regarding upper contact in the form of Karstification with a mixture of fill, shally interbedding, lateral / vertical tight intervals, uneven Vug distribution and large transion zone.
Those have presented a great challenge to adequately place horizontal wells, where near surface well path will intercept the Karsts topography extending in the reservoir with its potential drilling hazard while away from the surface wells will end up in high SW zone. In this context, well placement becomes a real challenge. Few wells had to be plugged and side tracked adding several million dollars to the drilling cost beside the lost in hole equipment.
After our 3D OBC seismic survey, the team attempted and succeeded in using (for the first time) a group of seismic guided Reservoir characteristic attributes to identify a sweet spot (in our case a sweet level) and develop a well path plan that properly placed the well trajectory deep enough away from Karst and surface irregularity avoiding the danger of drilling hazard and penetrating the upper layer, yet shallow enough not to fall within the high water zone.
Our success story is supported by wire line image log and acoustic logs and keeping the well cost at reasonably estimated values.
The paper reviews difficulty normally faced in drilling those wells, summarize original work carried out in selecting seismic guided attributes (as part of the reservoir characterization) to build a well design based on those findings. The paper will finally present a successful drilling case of 2700 ft supported by wireline logs.