Methods for producing a geothermal well

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12378869-B2
Application number	US-202418613365-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 22, 2024
Priority date	Mar 22, 2023
Publication date	Aug 5, 2025
Grant date	Aug 5, 2025

Abstract

A method of producing a geothermal well includes obtaining site information including at least a site volume; obtaining drilling parameters; determining lengths and orientations of planned wellbores based at least partially on the site information and the drilling parameters.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of producing a geothermal well, the method comprising:
obtaining site information including at least a site volume;
obtaining drilling parameters;
determining orientations and lengths of planned wellbores of the geothermal well based at least partially on the site information, the drilling parameters, and a model based at least partially on thermal efficiency of the planned wellbores, wherein the determining of the orientations and the lengths of the planned wellbores includes calculating thermal recovery scores of the model for a plurality of different well configurations, wherein each well configuration of the plurality of different well configurations includes wellbores with predetermined wellhead positions, wellbore orientations, and wellbore lengths, and wherein, for each well configuration of the plurality of different well configurations, the calculated thermal recovery score is indicative of efficiency of recovery of thermal energy via the wellbores.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the site information further includes at least one of a geothermal profile, property limits, a maximum depth, or a no-drill zone.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the site volume is calculated based at least partially on the site information.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the drilling parameters include at least one of a wellbore property, a cost-per-foot of a planned wellbore, a wellbore start cost of a planned wellbore, or a total drilled length.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising selecting an optimum configuration, wherein the thermal recovery score of the model corresponding to the optimum configuration is a local extremum of the model.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising iteratively creating new well configurations by varying a parameter of one wellbore based on the configuration that has an optimum thermal recovery score for the model.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein each well configuration of the plurality of different well configurations is contained in the site volume and has a value of at least one drilling parameter that corresponds to a predetermined value.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the model is based at least partially on at least one of total installation cost, drilling cost, or wellbore length.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining a wellhead location for each planned wellbore of the planned wellbores based at least partially on the site information, the drilling parameters, and the model.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein each planned wellbore of the planned wellbores originates from a single wellhead.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining a quantity of the planned wellbores based at least partially on the site information and drilling parameters.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the geothermal well is a first geothermal well having a first quantity of the planned wellbores, the method further comprising:
calculating a first thermal recovery score for the first geothermal well based at least partially on a location relationship of the planned wellbores relative to one another;
changing a quantity of the planned wellbores to a second quantity of the planned wellbores;
determining orientations and lengths of the planned wellbores of a second geothermal well having the second quantity of the planned wellbores based at least partially on the site information, the drilling parameters, and a model based at least partially on thermal efficiency of the planned wellbores;
calculating a second thermal recovery score for the second geothermal well based at least partially on a location relationship of the planned wellbores relative to one another;
comparing the first thermal recovery score to the second thermal recovery score; and
selecting one of the first and second geothermal well based on the comparison.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising drilling at least a first wellbore of the planned wellbores based on a determined orientation and a determined length.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:
drilling the first drilled wellbore of the planned wellbores based on the determined orientation and the determined length;
measuring at least one wellbore property of the first drilled wellbore;
recalculating orientations and lengths of remaining planned wellbores based at least partially on the at least one wellbore property of the first drilled wellbore; and
drilling at least one drilled remaining wellbore of the remaining planned wellbores.

15. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising outputting the determined orientations and lengths of the planned wellbores of the geothermal well.

16. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
obtaining land information and building information;
applying a property buffer zone to outer property limit coordinates of the land information to create well property limit coordinates;
applying a building buffer zone to outer building limit coordinates of the building information to create well building limit coordinates; and
determining the site volume based at least partially on the well property limit coordinates and the well building limit coordinates.

17. The method of claim 1 , further comprising visualizing the planned wellbore in a subsurface portion of a three-dimensional rendering of land information and building information.

18. A system producing a geothermal well, the system comprising one or more processing units configured for performing the method according to claim 1 .

19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including computer program instructions that, when executed by one or more processing units, cause the one or more processing units to perform the method according to claim 1 .

Assignees

• Schlumberger Technology Corp

Inventors

• Loviken Pontus
• Simon Matthieu
• Kherroubi Josselin
• Parry Andrew J
• Meneu Ronan
• Bernard Olivier
• Coutrot Delphine
• Daynac Elodie

Classifications

• Y02E10/10

  Geothermal energy · CPC title

• E21B2200/20

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

• F24T10/00

  Geothermal collectors · CPC title

• F24T2010/53

  Methods for installation · CPC title

• E21B41/0035

  Apparatus or methods for multilateral well technology, e.g. for the completion of or workover on wells with one or more lateral branches · CPC title