Enhancing Wellbore Positioning and Operational Efficiency Through Advanced Surveying Technologies in ERD Project

Abstract This paper illustrates the optimized way medium and extended reach wells were drilled with a focused strategy on caring for the environment with the use of innovative technologies. The acquisition of redundant well surveying was processed using all available data to obtain the most accurate position (MAP). Post processing of high density definitive dynamic surveys (DDS) allowed the evaluation and analysis of wellbore tortuosity. The impact on the operational results of cutting-edge survey processing is to reduce well drilling risk and decrease the drilling and environmental costs (CO2 savings). In Colombia's Llanos Orientales Basin, the development of an environmentally restricted reservoir required advanced high-displacement and extended-reach drilling strategies. Complexities arise from the high density of drilled wells, which necessitates precise trajectory management to avoid collisions and ensure safe reservoir access. To tackle this, several technologies have been applied, starting with Gyro technologies (Drop and while drilling) and also after an economic evaluation recommended acquiring local magnetic In field reference measurements, which allowed the reprocessing of magnetic surveys (MWD) using In-Field Referencing (IFR). This reduced positioning errors associated with crustal magnetic variations, alignment corrections for the BHA (SAG), and multi-station analysis (MSA) for statistical accuracy. Applying IFR reduced drilling risk by reducing EOU not only in while drilling wells but also from previous drilled wells with MWD technologies. This led us to reduce trajectory tortuosity and complexity from planning, improving well positioning and helping avoid remedial costs by minimizing collision risks. These methods also enabled enhanced wellbore positional certainty, allowing safer, continued operation without halting neighboring wells. As a complement to this magnetic model data acquisition technique, an innovative processing known as MAP (Most Accurate Position) was carried out in the last extended well drilled. This approach integrates surveys data obtained from gyroscopic tools, specifically Coriolis Vibratory Gyroscope (CVG), with magnetic measurements corrected via IFR in a holistic model, yielding a significantly smaller uncertainty ellipse with minimal associated error. It is the first time that this type of modeling has been used in Colombia, which has allowed reducing the size of uncertainty ellipses by up to 50% for both the well under execution and the existing ones. This processing can be applied in real-time without impacting the development of the operation, maintaining less tortuous and better-positioned drilling trajectories. And to add a novel processing, an specific tortuosity analysis was carried out using MWD DDS measurement, to understand in a better way the casing runs, and the impact on the tortuosity in the hole pass through size.