Evaluating development wells with MWD alone is a standard practice in offshore environments. However, in deepwater development, wells are rarely routine due to widely spaced producing take points and minimal pre-development appraisal strategies. This issue is exacerbated as the field (or basin matures and drilling becomes more challenging. Typically, redevelopment wells have increased uncertainty in subsurface outcome, are of lesser (risked volume potential and are more complex from a drilling perspective. In this environment, petrophysicists are called upon to reduce uncertainty regarding well/seismic positioning, reservoir connectivity, gravel pack sand size and permeability data (for near-field exploration targets that have no core. In the past, most of these answers originated from measurements taken during wireline logging operations. Now, many of these measurements are available as MWD tools or can be estimated using specialized MWD data. During a recent redevelopment drilling campaign (Ram Powell field, deepwater Gulf of Mexico, we tested relatively new to market drilling bottomhole assemblies containing sensors, which measure seismic, NMR, and formation pressure information. The objective of the paper is to describe our learnings from planning and executing well evaluations using those specialized tools. We also show how data from different tools can be combined to yield novel evaluation products, like estimate of average grainsize ("virtual sidewall sample") and fluid typing ("virtual fluid pumpout")

This content is only available via PDF.
You can access this article if you purchase or spend a download.