The Use of High Performance and Cloud Computing in Well Placement Operations

Modern drilling and well placement operations utilizing Electromagnetic (EM) inversion require high performance computational environments. These can be either on-premise as a high performance computer (HPC) or on the cloud as a collection of virtual machines. This presentation discusses some of the current uses of High - Performance and Cloud computing, the benefits this brings to well placement operations and how this can be used efficiently.

In addition, the presentation addresses the stability of the system. Uninterrupted services are a mainstay of real time drilling operations, fast, reliable data connections are required to transmit and receive data from the cloud. It is often discussed as an ephemeral resource but requires physical infrastructure. It is vulnerable to service interruptions, these can be anticipated, and contingencies put in place to limit their impact, but they need to be identified and understood prior to commencement of operations.

Computational resources need to be deployed efficiently to limit or exclude unnecessary costs. As this technology develops well placement software needs to remain agile to benefit from these advances. This will become more critical with the development of automated geosteering workflows and the associated increases in processing power required.