METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DIRECTIONAL DRILLING

• US 20170306702A1
• Filed: 07/23/2015
• Published: 10/26/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Schlumberger Technology Corporation (SLB)
• Original Assignee: Schlumberger Technology Corporation (SLB)
• Inventors: Summers, Matthew, Hildebrand, Ginger Vinyard, Kotovsky, Wayne, Coffman, Chunling Gu, Isangulov, Rustam
• Granted Patent: US 10,612,307 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 44/02 Automatic control of the tool feed E21B44/005, E21B44/10 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 44/04 in response to the torque of the drive ; Measuring drilling torque E21B44/06 takes precedence; measuring stresses in a well bore pipe E21B47/007
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 44/06 in response to the flow or pressure of the motive fluid of the drive
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 47/024 of devices in the borehole determining slope or direction of the borehole E21B47/022
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 7/068 drilled by a down-hole drilling motor down-hole drives per se E21B4/00, E21B7/067 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 7/10 Correction of deflected boreholes

Abstract

A method for wellbore directional drilling includes selecting a starting and stopping spatial position of at least one portion of the wellbore. A sequence of sliding and rotary drilling operations within the portion is determined to calculate a wellbore trajectory. The sequence has at least one drilling operating parameter. The operations include a constraint on the drilling operating parameter or the calculated trajectory. The calculated trajectory includes a projected steering response of a steerable motor in response to the at least one drilling operating parameter. Drilling the portion of the wellbore is started. A spatial position of the wellbore during drilling is determined at at least one point intermediate the starting and stopping positions. Using a relationship between the projected steering response and the drilling operating parameter, the drilling parameter and/or the constraint are adjusted based on the measured spatial position and the stopping spatial position.

Claims

1. A method for wellbore directional drilling, comprising:

selecting an initial spatial position and a final spatial position of at least one portion of the wellbore;

in a computer, calculating a sequence of sliding drilling and rotary drilling operations within the at least one portion to enable drilling a wellbore along the at least one portion along a predicted trajectory, the sequence comprising at least one drilling operating parameter, the sequence comprising at least one constraint on (i) the at least one drilling operating parameter or (ii) a calculated result of at least one drilling operating parameter, the predicted trajectory calculated using a projected steering response of a steerable motor in response to the at least one drilling operating parameter;

starting drilling the at least one portion of the wellbore;

determining a spatial position of the wellbore during drilling at at least one point intermediate the initial spatial position and the final spatial position; and

using a relationship between the projected steering response and the at least one drilling operating parameter, adjusting the at least one drilling operating parameter and/or the at least one constraint based on the measured spatial position and the final spatial position.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising calculating a difference between an actual well trajectory change response compared to a predicted well trajectory change response with respect to a steerable motor toolface orientation during drilling the at least one portion and updating the planned wellbore trajectory based on the measured wellbore trajectory.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the relationship comprises a weighted moving average of a steerable motor steering response with respect to the at least one drilling parameter, and wherein weights for the weighted moving average comprise selecting one or more of a weight related to a distance from a bottom of a well to a point of the measured wellbore trajectory response, a weight related to a fractional amount of time during drilling the at least one section comprising slide drilling, zero weight for determined outlier measured toolface orientations and a weight on bit related to a toolface direction factor.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising stopping drilling operating and changing at least one component of a drilling tool assembly when, using the relationship, it is determined that the final spatial position cannot be reached by adjusting the at least one drilling parameter and/or the at least one constraint.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically detecting slide drilling after starting drilling the at least one portion, and wherein the automatically detecting comprises determining when measurements scatter of measured toolface orientations are below a predetermined threshold.

19. The method of claim 1 wherein the determining a spatial position of the wellbore during drilling comprises at least one of measuring a directional survey and calculating a virtual directional survey point at a selected drill bit location along the at least one section different than a spatial position of the wellbore calculated from a directional survey made using a directional survey instrument.

21. The method of claim 19 further comprising using the virtual survey point to adjust the at least one drilling operating parameter to change a trajectory ahead of a lowermost position of the wellbore from a predetermined trajectory.

22. The method of claim 19 wherein calculating the at least one virtual survey point comprises:

(i) rotary drilling assuming a substantially constant wellbore trajectory or including an empirically determined trajectory change tendency; and

(ii) slide drilling using the value of the weighted moving average and a measured steerable motor toolface to estimate a position and an orientation of the wellbore.

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23. A drilling system comprising:

a) a steerable motor;

b) a sensor for measuring orientation of the wellbore;

c) a sensor for measuring toolface orientation of the steerable motor;

d) a drill bit at a distal end of a drill string coupled to the steerable motor;

e) a processor in signal communication with the orientation sensor and the toolface sensor, the processor having instructions to cause the processor to compute one or more of, (i) a steering response of the steerable motor, (ii) measured depths of slide drilling intervals, (iii) a change in tool face orientation with respect to weight applied to the drill bit, and (iv) parameters related to variation in measurements made by the toolface sensor; and

a user interface in signal communication with the processor, the interface providing a output of one or more of the computed parameters or values derived therefrom, the output provided to at least one of a user interface and an automatic drilling unit controller.

35. The system of claim 23 wherein the processor is programmed to cause the user interface to display a warning to replace one or more components of the drill string when the steering response or toolface variation fails to meet threshold criteria either predetermined or based on a current well status and at least one target well spatial location.

36. The system of claim 23 wherein measurements of the toolface orientation change with respect to reactive torque of the steerable motor is used by the processor to compute outputs displayed on the user interface that assist determining a zero reactive torque toolface measurement that will result in a desired toolface orientation when a selected reactive torque is determined.

37. The system of claim 23 further comprising:

instructions for the processor to receive as input a target spatial position of a wellbore; and

instructions for the processor to calculate one or more drilling parameters which when applied enable the steerable motor to cause the wellbore trajectory to reach the target spatial position.

44. The system of claim 23 wherein toolface orientation measurements are used by the processor to determine measured depth intervals that were slide-drilled and rotary drilled.

45. The system of claim 44 wherein scatter properties of the toolface orientation measurements are used by the processor to determine measured depth intervals that were slide drilled and rotary drilled, the scatter properties including any combination of a difference between successive toolface measurements, an absolute deviation, a variance, a range, a norm of an average of vectors representing the toolface orientations, a modulus of an average of complex numbers representing the tool-face orientations.

47. The system of claim 23 in which virtual survey points beyond a measured depth of directional surveying equipment or values derived therefrom are calculated by the processor and are output to at least one of a user interface and an automatic drilling controller.

48. The system of claim 47 in which a virtual survey point at or near a bottom of the wellbore is used as a starting point for a well path and wherein an orientation of the virtual survey point is used to constrain tangent vectors at or near the beginning of the well path.

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33. The system of claim 32 in wherein the extrapolation of the steering response is estimated from a weighted average of prior steering responses, wherein weights for the average are based on one or more of temporal proximity, depth proximity, fractional or absolute amount of slide drilling included in an associated directional survey interval, tool-face scatter in the associated directional survey interval, relationship to change-points estimated from any combination of prior steering responses or drilling parameters and outlier measurements.

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52. A non-transitory computer-readable medium (CRM) storing instructions comprising functionality to:

select an initial spatial position and a final spatial position of at least one portion of a wellbore;

calculate a sequence of sliding drilling and rotary drilling operations within the at least one portion to enable drilling a wellbore along the at least one portion along a predicted trajectory, the sequence comprising at least one drilling operating parameter, the sequence comprising at least one constraint on (i) the at least one drilling operating parameter or (ii) a calculated result of at least one drilling operating parameter, the predicted trajectory calculated using a projected steering response of a steerable motor in response to the at least one drilling operating parameter;

determine a spatial position of the wellbore during drilling at least one point intermediate the initial spatial position and the final spatial position; and

use a relationship between the projected steering response and the at least one drilling operating parameter, adjusting the at at least one drilling operating parameter and/or the at least one constraint based on the measured spatial position and the final spatial position.

53. The non-transitory CRM of claim 52, further comprising functionality to:

calculate a difference between an actual well trajectory change response compared to a predicted well trajectory change response with respect to a steerable motor toolface orientation during drilling the at least one portion and updating the planned wellbore trajectory based on the measured wellbore trajectory.