Improved Techniques for Acquiring Pressure and Fluid Data in a Challenging Offshore Carbonate Environment

The combination of low permeability, oil base mud and near saturated oils presents one of the most challenging environments<br>for fluid sampling with formation testers. Low permeability indicates that the drawdown while sampling will be high but this<br>is contra-indicated for oils that are close to saturation pressure. A logical response is to therefore reduce the flow rate but in<br>wells drilled with OBM an unacceptably long clean-up time would result.