Sampling While Drilling: An Emerging Technology

Abstract

Summary Even though it is the early days of the realization of sampling-while-drilling (SWD) as a service, a picture of what might be achievable in practice is beginning to emerge. Previous SWD experience has demonstrated that the sampling process may be controlled sufficiently well that relatively clean samples may be acquired when sampling aquifers drilled with water-based muds (WBMs), and it has demonstrated that the SWD tool and sensors used are capable of operating effectively while withstanding the drilling process. On the basis of this experience, operational guidelines have been formulated, particularly regarding the most opportune time to sample during the drilling process. The first part of the paper describes SWD in a high-angle appraisal well drilled to assess the continuity and quality of several target sands and to establish the degree of continuity of these sands with the main field. The well was drilled by use of an oil-based mud (OBM). Samples would be acquired after the well had reached total depth so that the most appropriate sampling points could be identified by means of openhole logs. Multiple water-, oil-, and gas-bearing formations were identified. Sampling duties were split between the SWD tool and a drillpipe-conveyed wireline sampling (WLS) tool in an attempt to rationalize the sampling program of the well. To enable a comparison of the relative performance of the two tools, two oil-sampling stations were chosen where multiple samples would be acquired under similar operating conditions by both tools. In addition, water samples were collected at two stations by the SWD tool and scanning was performed at one (wet) gas station to confirm the formation-fluid type. Laboratory analysis of the oil samples at the common stations showed that the contaminations and fluid properties of the samples acquired by the two sampling tools were very similar. The second part of this paper describes results obtained in an appraisal well and sidetrack in a different field. Both pilot and sidetrack were high-angle wells drilled by use of OBMs. The purpose of these wells was to identify and evaluate the commercial potential of unproduced hydrocarbon-bearing zones. Both wells were drilled to total depth before conducting sampling operations, and no wireline operations were planned in either well. Five oil samples were acquired in the pilot well in two zones, and four oil samples and two water samples were recovered in the sidetrack. The results obtained during the SWD operations described suggest that it is possible to consistently acquire quality formation-fluid samples during drilling operations, even under less-than-optimal sampling conditions and strict time-on-station constraints. The quality of the samples recovered is sufficient to perform reliable pressure/volume/temperature (PVT) analyses.