New Way to Landing Improves Reservoir Seismic Understanding

Successful placement of horizontal wells requires accurate landing of the well at a desired position in the reservoir. The current industry practice is to drill exploration wells and pilot wells to improve the knowledge of the reservoir structure and at the same time to obtain a better correlation with seismic to refine the overall reservoir geological structure. A new 8.25-in. Deep Directional electromagnetic (EM) LWD service with a radial depth of investigation in excess of 30 m has been introduced in Brazil for landing applications that allows remote detection of the approaching reservoir with sharper resolution than obtained with seismic measurements. Because of its depth of investigation, a more accurate correlation with the seismic model structure could be reached in real-time allowing for optimization of the landing trajectory without the need of a costly pilot well. Based on this new information, improvements in seismic reprocessing are expected to further enhance the knowledge of the reservoir.