Approaches to directional drilling

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12312933-B2
Application number	US-202217653404-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 3, 2022
Priority date	Mar 3, 2021
Publication date	May 27, 2025
Grant date	May 27, 2025

Abstract

A method can include receiving data for a bottom hole assembly of a drillstring and a drill plan; generating candidate trajectories using at least a portion of the data; generating drill command schedules for the candidate trajectories; ranking the candidate trajectories based at least in part on the drill command schedules; and outputting at least a top ranked candidate trajectory and its corresponding drill command schedule.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving a planned trajectory for a bottom hole assembly of a drillstring to reach a final target from a surface, wherein the planned trajectory includes one or more possible targets on a path to the final target; and
during drilling of the planned trajectory with the bottom hole assembly:
receiving data for the bottom hole assembly associated with the bottom hole assembly implementing the planned trajectory;
based on the data, determining that a hole bottom position of the bottom hole assembly has deviated from the planned trajectory;
generating a set of candidate trajectories for the bottom hole assembly to return to the planned trajectory using at least a portion of the data, wherein each candidate trajectory of the set of candidate trajectories is aimed at a respective one of the one or more possible targets on the path to the final target, wherein the set of candidate trajectories includes one or more first candidate trajectories configured to return the bottom hole assembly to the planned trajectory at a target A of the one or more possible targets on the path to the final target and one or more second candidate trajectories configured to return the bottom hole assembly to the planned trajectory at a target B of the one or more possible targets on the path to the final target, and wherein the target B is at a different position on the path to the final target than the target A;
generating a drill command schedule for each candidate trajectory of the set of candidate trajectories, wherein the drill command schedules provide hardware specific drill command sequences for respective candidate trajectories of the set of candidate trajectories;
ranking each candidate trajectory of the set of candidate trajectories based on a cost for each candidate trajectory to reach its respective possible target on the path to the final target, wherein the cost for each candidate trajectory is based on a plurality of weighted steering properties and a plurality of weighted steering violations for each candidate trajectory;
identifying a top ranked candidate trajectory based on its associated cost;
outputting at least the top ranked candidate trajectory and its corresponding drill command schedule;
appending the top ranked candidate trajectory to the planned trajectory at the hole bottom position to generate an appended planned trajectory; and
communicating the hardware specific drill command sequences of the drill command schedule for the top ranked candidate trajectory to control the bottom hole assembly of the drillstring to access the final target from the hole bottom position via the appended planned trajectory.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining a trajectory context for the respective possible target associated with each candidate trajectory, and wherein ranking each candidate trajectory is based on the associated trajectory context and a future context for a future possible target of the one or more possible targets that is positioned further on the planned trajectory.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the trajectory context for the respective possible target associated with each candidate trajectory is based on one or more past possible targets of the one or more possible targets that the hole bottom position has passed.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the trajectory context for the respective possible target associated with each candidate trajectory is based on one or more unachievable possible targets of the one or more possible targets that are unachievable from the hole bottom position.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein the trajectory context includes one or more of curve, landing, horizontal, vertical, tangent, nudge, nudge to vertical, or nudge to horizontal.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the target A is an active target of the planned trajectory and the target B is further along the planned trajectory than the active target.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the data for the bottom hole assembly includes receiving the data in real-time during a drilling operation.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein ranking each candidate trajectory of the set of candidate trajectories includes removing one or more floating candidate trajectories of the set of candidate trajectories.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the set of candidate trajectories includes removing one or more unachievable targets from the one or more possible targets.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, prior to generating the set of candidate trajectories:
determining a closest point on the planned trajectory to the hole bottom position;
scanning forward in space until encountering an achievable target of the one or more possible targets on the planned trajectory that is at least one look-ahead distance; and
including, for the set of candidate trajectories, proximity targets of the one or more possible targets that are on the planned trajectory within a proximity distance of the hole bottom position.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising assessing the proximity targets within the proximity distance according to one or more hit or miss criteria.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising, based at least in part on the assessing the proximity targets within the proximity distance, generating context information, constraint information, or context and constraint information for the ranking of the candidate trajectories.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining that a landing constraint is not satisfied for landing prior to drilling of a lateral portion of a borehole; and
responsive to determining that an unsatisfied landing target is unachievable, applying the landing constraint to target generation for generating at least one landing target for the candidate trajectories.

14. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
selecting one of the drill command schedules; and
communicating at least one command thereof to the bottom hole assembly of the drillstring.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:
receiving data from the bottom hole assembly; and
estimating a downhole state using at least a portion of the data from the bottom hole assembly.

16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising generating additional candidate trajectories based at least in part on the estimated downhole state.

17. The method of claim 15 , wherein the downhole state comprises includes a directional drilling state.

18. A system comprising:
one or more processors;
memory accessible to at least one of the one or more processors; and
processor-executable instructions stored in the memory and executable to instruct the system to:
receive a planned trajectory for a bottom hole assembly of a drillstring to reach a final target from a surface, wherein the planned trajectory includes one or more possible targets on a path to the final target; and
during drilling of the planned trajectory with the bottom hole assembly:
receive data for the bottom hole assembly associated with the bottom hole assembly implementing the planned trajectory;
based on the data, determine that a hole bottom position of the bottom hole assembly has deviated from the planned trajectory;
generate a set of candidate trajectories for the bottom hole assembly to return to the planned trajectory using at least a portion of the data, wherein each candidate trajectory of the set of candidate trajectories is aimed at a respective one of the one or more possible targets on the path to the fin

Assignees

• Schlumberger Technology Corp

Inventors

• Ba Samba
• Jiang Lu
• Chassard Adrien
• Hedlund Magnus
• Ignova Maja
• Mantle Katharine
• Kim Jinsoo
• Yu Tao
• Toghi Farid
• Suryadi Hendrik
• Liu Qing
• Medina Diego

Classifications

• E21B41/00

  Equipment or details not covered by groups E21B15/00 - E21B40/00 · CPC title

• E21B7/068

  drilled by a down-hole drilling motor (down-hole drives per se E21B4/00, E21B7/067 takes precedence) · CPC title

• E21B7/04

  Directional drilling · CPC title

• E21B47/022

  of the borehole, e.g. using geomagnetism · CPC title

• E21B2200/20

  Computer models or simulations, e.g. for reservoirs under production, drill bits · CPC title