DefinePK

Abstract

Due to escalated drilling costs, the petroleum industry has been attempting to access the largest possible hydrocarbon resources with the lowest achievable costs. Multiple well objectives are set prior to the start of drilling. Then, a geosteering approach is implemented to help operators achieve these objectives.A comprehensive literature survey has been performed on geosteering case histories, including many cases with multiple objectives. We found that the listed objectives are often conflicting and expressed in different measures. Furthermore, none of the cases from the reviewed literature has discussed a systematic approach for dealing with multiple objectives in geosteering contexts. Without implementing a well-structured approach, decision makers are likely to make judgments about the relative importance of each objective based on previous experiences or on approximate methods. Research shows that such decision-making approaches are unlikely to identify optimal courses of action.In this paper, we propose a systematic method for making multi-criteria decisions in geosteering context. The method is constructed such that it is applicable for real-time operations. Results show that different decision criteria can have significant impact on well success as measured by its trajectory, future production, cost, and operational efficiency.