Re: oil bust coming soon

From: Aidan Karley (aidan_at_mynameplus1.demon.co.uk.invalid)
Date: 03/16/05 

Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:00:06 GMT

In article <42369f49$0$11694$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, Maison.mousse wrote:
> Who would spend several million for a hole offshore and not run logs
> "which take more time" or a DST.
       You're shifting your position to one of not taking logs and not
taking a DST. That is not what I've said.

> Well logs tell more about the formations
> and point
> to where DST's need to be done. DST's tell the operator
> if and how the well is to be completed.
>
       Logs can tell the operator that as well, and *without* adding another
"out of critical line" operation. *IF* your petrophysics people and
production people are confident that they can determine the probability of
success from the logs alone, why run a DST? Why trip out (3/4 day), build a
DST BHA (1/4 day, plus any waiting on equipment), trip in (3/4 day), do your
DST (however long, plus contingency) and then return to the critical line?
Oh, I forgot the time to rig up the diverters and flare booms on the rig,
pressure-test them, and rig up the burners. Throw at least a half-day in
there too.

       It is not uncommon to see a well drilled without any wireline logs at
section TD or at final TD. The logs from LWD are perfectly adequate and are
acquired on the critical line of operations. So why take the best part of a
day detouring from the drill-case-cement- drill-case-cement-
drill-case-cement- drill-case-cement-complete critical line to run wireline
if the LWD is of adequate quality. Boom, you've just saved $200,000 - which
pays for a lot of days of LWD service at however many 10s of thousands of
dollars/day. If you've got to have DD and MWD anyway ... well that's on the
critical line, so LWD becomes almost free in those circumstances. (When did
I last do a non-directional well? 1 last year; then the previous would have
been 2001; next previous 1992.)

> If you are speaking of the North Sea all wild cat or
> production wells must be logged and tested.
>
       Logged, certainly. If possible. But if the hole tries grabbing hold
of the nukes, then you *do* *not* push it. Try logging with just GR and
resistivity on LWD if it's really necessary - that's normally good enough to
decide on P+A, suspend or complete. Depends a lot on your area knowledge how
hard you're going to push to get a full suite of logs. A couple of years ago
a set of sources was planted in one of the northern fields - 5 million on
fishing operations, plus the loss of a million dollar toolstring plus a
couple of million to re-drill the well in a sidetrack. That's a lot of
disincentives to losing a set of sources for information that is not
*absolutely* essential.
        

-- 
 Aidan Karley, FGS
 Aberdeen, Scotland,
 Location: 57°10'11" N,  02°08'43"  W (sub-tropical Aberdeen), 0.021233