At Baker Hughes, the LWD team has been focusing on delivering solutions with broad impact on geo-steering, geo-mapping and well placement.
Interview with MARVIN YATES, Baker Hughes
Recently, World Oil Editor-in-Chief Kurt Abraham sat down with Martin Yates, Product Manager, Well Construction, at Baker Hughes, to discuss the recent progress made in technology that allows operators to improve understanding of their reservoirs and target wells better. In particular, the discussion centered on the TRU-ARMS™ service, which enhances the ability to improve real-time decision-making for geo-steering and geo-mapping objectives. Additional progress is being made with the firm’s VisiTrak service, which allows the operator to skip pilot holes and go directly into the reservoir.
As this conversation indicates, these innovations are having significant impact for operators, in terms of more accurate placements, great overall efficiency, and the ability to further reduce costs.
World Oil (WO): What are some of the things you're working with in your current role as product manager for well construction?
Martin Yates (MY): Within our LWD team, we're really focused on launching solutions that have a broad impact. These solutions are focused on driving global scalable change in terms of delivering our overall corporate strategy of providing sustainable, affordable and more secure energy. This is particularly the case with the TRU-ARMS™ service that we've launched during this year's annual meeting. The TRU-ARMS™ service really is a step change within the reservoir navigation and reservoir mapping space, Fig. 1. So, this service really supports that overall strategy.
The TRU-ARMS™ service specifically, and simultaneously, enhances our ability to improve real time decision-making for both geo-steering and geo-mapping objectives. At the end of the day, this service is really improving the return on investment, not just for our customers, but also our end-users. It's able to do this, based on a couple of points. It enables optimal reservoir contact and well deliverability. It improves reservoir performance and really the overall, asset production recovery. It eliminates risk and reduces overall fuel development costs. And most importantly, it delivers more sustainable energy by requiring less wells to be drilled.
WO: That's one of those key factors that we identified in the US last year, where the rig count in the back half of last year steadily declined. And yet, we added a million barrels a day of production. Some of that has to do with what you're talking about.
MY: Absolutely. I think all of the solutions that intend to deliver more efficiency and effectiveness allow our customers to be able to reach their production targets or any of their targets across the overall fuel development process. With less resources going in, be that fewer wells needing to be drilled, fewer rigs required to drill those wells, what we're always seeking to do is be more efficient and effective with the solution that we're providing our customers.
WO: So, what do you see, building on what you've already got? What do you see for the next year or two, or even further out, in terms of not only the physical drilling of the well, but also. determining the best trajectory, picking the best spot. How does all of that come together?
MY: If you just look at the evolution of reservoir navigation, it's reservoir mapping. It's really interesting. A lot of our initial products and services that came onto the market over 30 years ago were really intended for objectives close to the reservoir. So, this informed decision-making, it came to how do we land and develop a reservoir, how do we remain in that reservoir? And it's really reacting to data that manages that one well. Our next step away from geo steering was geo mapping—our first product or service that we launched. This track allowed you to both geo steer and geo map. We saw the impact of that service, based on the fact that we can eliminate pilot holes. In the past, operators controlled the pilot holes and plugged those back and then drilled their production wells afterwards. With the introduction of VisiTrak, we were able to achieve the objective of eliminating those pilot holes and going directly into the reservoir, landing it at an ideal location right towards the top of a reservoir, where we're not getting too close to the water contact that would end with water infiltration.
So, we're basically able to maximize that well landing and drill the entire well. Now, with the VisiTrak service and the scope of the objective that it was seeking to provide, it was really focused on a scale that was about 150 ft away from the wellbore. Listening to our customers requirements, they want to be able to see more and do more, as they drill each well. And that's not just influencing that one well that they're drilling, but it's really informing more about the overall fuel development process.
With the TRU-ARMS™ service, we're really excited to again launch an industry-leading depth of detection of up to 300 ft. This really allows our customers to not only achieve their geo-steering objectives of entering the reservoir at the right place, following the contour of the the roof of the reservoir with high definition and insight. But also, while they're doing that, being able to map the entire reservoir thickness.
While previous services would allow you to place the well along the top of the reservoir, if it was an extremely thick reservoir, you wouldn't be able to see the bottom of the reservoir. So, you wouldn't necessarily be able to understand the total reservoir thickness by having a dynamic depth of section that's up to 300 ft. What that allows us to do is track the top of the reservoir, but also see the bottom very clearly and quantify the location of the bottom of the reservoir. And in so doing, we're able to basically calculate the reservoir thickness and ultimately calculate the total hydrocarbon reserve estimate. That's an amazing piece of information that our customers are able to take from this service, because that allows them to really understand the true value of that asset, as well as the true value of their position strategically.
One of the things that you're also able to do is in the opposite application. If we go from a thick reservoir to a thin reservoir, with the power of the measurements from TRU-ARMS™, and the power of the multi-dimensional inversions and thinner reservoirs, we're able to navigate very, very tight windows. And between the structural boundaries in the water or fluid contacts, we're able to really clearly define and interpret areas that in the past might have been unclear with high uncertainty.
So, we're able to resolve the immediate needs of the wellbore placement. But using that dynamic depth of detection up to 300 ft, we're actually able to identify potential hydrocarbon reserves, layers away from that initial reservoir that that we're looking to steer within. Thus, in these applications, a customer is able to see infill targets that they weren't necessarily aware of, because they wouldn't have shown up at seismic levels. They're able to basically, with that one well, evaluate additional resources and then make decisions on whether or not they want to plan to drill more wells. It's developed that asset further.
WO: Then, I would imagine, in some of these shale locations, it's also going to help you to avoid having a parent-child situation with the wells, if you're able to place them better and you realize the depth of the reservoir. And then the other thing it's obviously going to do is give you a much more accurate, reserve figure than ever humanly possible before. Because as we both know, up until recently, the reserves total was an art form.
MY: Absolutely. That's a that's a really good point. One of the things that that we know first-hand, talking with our customers who have seen this service, is the conventional way of appraising an asset is to drill a bunch of vertical wells and to evaluate those wells. And, basically, from those wells interpolate what your production is going to be. By having a service like TRU-ARMS™, you can actually drill your initial well into the formation that, based on the real time information, can inform whether or not you're going to continue to drill that well, to actually be productive, Fig. 2.
As you're drilling an actual development phase, you're able to continue to map that reservoir and you basically have to drill less blind holes to actually understand what you have subsurface. It's really a step change from going from near-wellbore singular objectives to being able to map a reservoir at a seismic scale.
WO: That's what we call the digital transition. How much impact has all that extra data made on some of the functions you're describing?
MY: That's an excellent question. The TRU-ARMS™ service has different components. Downstairs, we have a model of the hardware that is one of the modules that goes into the BHA. It makes up, based on the objective of the project that we're going out to drill. However, a lot of the power of this service goes into being able to model the reservoir, based on previously existing information, being able to understand the reservoir characteristics, the customer's objectives and challenges, and build a pre-well model that allows us to understand exactly what measurements we need to focus on from this tool.
The tool, itself, has a broad range of frequencies that we're able to operate at. However, the correct combinations of those frequencies, when working through our inversion process, is really what gives us the most true and accurate results and insights into the reservoir. So, the power of digital tools is a big part of the pre-well, phase. It's a big part of calibrating our inversions. And when it comes to actually doing massive computations of these measurement data sets in real time, being able to not be limited by the power of a single computer, but being able to call on cloud servers and do complex computations very quickly, and provide our customers with real-time decisions, is something that we wouldn't have been able to do years ago.
It's really interesting to see how the digital progress that we've made has really opened up the envelope of the applications in which we can use that power. I'd say the final piece that's important is it's great to use digital tools to make computations. I think one of the areas where we've really evolved digitally is being able to take the outputs of these complex computations, and present them as clear, intuitive visualizations that our customers, both in terms of their domain and non-domain experts, can look at and understand and confidently make better decisions. That's something that we've really come together across the company and improved on, with our focus on digital solutions.
WO: Where do you see all this going in the next couple of years? What's on the horizon?
MY: When I look at and address the change behind you, everything that we're doing now, specifically within the reservoir navigation and reservoir mapping space, it’s all about building on the progress that we've made within our product family over the last 30 years. In the last 30 years, restaurant navigation mapping has steered and mapped over 50 million ft of reservoir for our customers, with over 96% in zone. Each one of the elements that we've launched within that portfolio was seeking to achieve a customer objective, based on the challenge that a customer had at that time. As the technology has grown, their objectives have also grown. Their challenges have also become more diverse, and we've responded to each one of those objectives and challenges with greater and greater technology. With the TRU-ARMS™ service, we've made an evolutionary step forward from what we've been capable of in the past, and that's allowed us to go from steering a well, based on close-to-well measurements, to now really unlocking a true reservoir of understanding that allows us to map the reservoir in a sizable scale.
WO: All this progress has also enabled you to literally anticipate what the customer is going to need, or what the customer is looking for before they even ask for it. Right?
MY: Yeah, I think the solutions that provide the most value are the solutions that are always aligned with understanding what the customer needs. This particular project has been very closely collaborated with our key customers. One of the reasons why we've been able to develop this technology and launch it as a product in such a small period of time is based on that collaboration by really aligning what we're working on to what they truly need and validating steps along the way. It means that when we launch that service, it's actually providing the solution that they want. We're not trying to sell something into pockets of market that might have needs. We're actually giving them the product that they've been looking for. Instead of predicting maybe what they need, by engaging with our customers and continuing that collaboration, we're always not just in step now, but also in step in terms of the next interesting thing. And I think that's extremely special.
WO: Perhaps you can go into some more detail on some of the differentiating items from a technical standpoint.
MY: I'll give you a high-level overview of some of these items. One of the things that we've been really excited about sharing with our customers is, again, the TRU-ARMS™ service. It's an evolutionary step forward in reservoir mapping. It illuminates the reservoir up to 300 ft away from the wellbore, and it maximizes reservoir contacts and also optimizes future field development. The three items that that are really differentiating are one, an industry leading dynamic depth detection up to 300 ft in resistive and conductive media; two, a step change in design that allows us to maximize all data objectives, regardless of the application, and three, multi-dimensional inversions with embedded confidence analysis.
To achieve those three objectives, we have introduced an industry-first transceiver design. Typically, when it comes to reservoir mapping or any kind of resistivity service, you generally have a transmitter sub in your BHA and a receiver sub in your BHA. More complex applications might have two receiver sets. When we're taking these ASV resistivity measurements, we're basically transmitting electromagnetic signal from the transmitter into the formation and back to the receiver. When we have a second receiver, that's taking a larger path to look deeper into the formation with the TRU-ARMS™ service.
With this unique approach to transceivers, instead of having a designated transmitter and receiver, a transceiver is basically a combined transmitter and receive. What we're able to do is instead of designating a unique piece of hardware, we have one universal module that's able to be positioned, based on the mobile needs. We're able to either program the head of a job or the role of that transceiver as a transmitter or receiver or, uniquely, we're actually able to send communication to the screen while we're drilling and actually change those roles.
So this is really important because in the past, you'd have to design your BHA, depending on the actual application of your data objective. With this unique approach, we're actually able to use one configuration. By being able to adjust on the fly, we're able to maximize our data objective, regardless of the application. If that's landing, geo-steering, geo-mapping, geo-stopping or general formation evaluation, that configuration that we start with isn't compromising any of those applications. In addition, we've added more frequencies to the tool, and we've also widened the frequency range. And that's what allows us to unlock that dynamic depth of section that is unmatched in the industry currently.
The second key differentiator is our innovative antenna design. This is an industry first, where each one of our modules consists of three co-located and orthogonal antennas. That means that we have an antenna that's positioned, to measure each one of the pure X, Y, and z magnetic components. Instead of taking data and trying to condition it to calculate those three components of the magnetics, we have three antennas that are purely taking those measurements. This allows us to have the highest signal-to-noise ratio. With this, we're basically able to enhance the data quality from that larger data window.
WO: In other words, the better the ratio, the better the quality of the data.
MY: Absolutely. We've stretched out wider, and within that wider space, we're getting maximum information. Then, the final piece is taking all of that data, and based on our understanding of the customer's needs and objectives, creating a model that gives them the most insights into a reservoir. One of the things that Baker Hughes does very uniquely is all of our inversion development happens in-house. That's important, because when you develop your own inversion in-house, you have proprietary information about the actual design and architecture of your measurement system. You're able to take the design and measurement system and your understanding of the confidence in each one of those measurements and propagate that through your calculation phase.
So when we're actually providing our customers with the inversion output at the location of a structural boundary, a fluid contact reservoir thickness, or, ultimately, their hydrocarbon reserve estimations, we're doing that with the confidence of each one of the individual visual measurements being propagated into that final case. They're actually able to see location, but also know the range of confidence associated with that, which is really key to informing their real-time decision-making and being able to identify, manage and mitigate the risks. WO
MARTIN YATES has been with Baker Hughes for 13 years and has held various operational roles focused on delivering best in class well construction across several major basins. Since 2019, he has been based at the Drilling Services technology center in Celle, Germany, and today leads global business development for the logging while drilling service portfolio. Mr. Yates holds a BSc degree in mechanical engineering from Boston University and a MSc in petroleum engineering from Texas Tech University.