Chapter 1 - Model Discernment

01-00 - Introduction (8 min.) Sample Lesson
01-01 - Geosteering Basics (17 min.)
01-02 - Components of a Geosteering Model (24 min.) Quiz: 01-02 - Components of a Geosteering Model
01-03 - Reading a Geosteering Model (23 min.)
01-04 - Spotting Red Flags (17 min.) Quiz: 01-04 - Spotting Red Flags

Chapter 2 - Pre-Spud Operations Geology

02-01 - Intro To Ops (6 min.)
02-02 - Pre-Spud Packet (13 min.)
02-03 - Creation of a Geosteering Model (13 min.)
02-04 - Pre-Spud Meeting (14 min.) Quiz: 02-04 - Pre-Spud Meeting
02-05 - Language Of Targeting (10 min.)
02-06 - Designing the Curve to your Advantage (7 min.)

Chapter 3 - Geosteering a Well

03-00 - Chapter 3 Prologue (2 min.)
03-01 - Introduction and Recap (20 min.)
03-02 - Minor Faults In the Vertical (10 min.) Quiz: 03-02 - Minor Faults In the Vertical
03-03 - Tracking Planned Landing Point (12 min.)
03-04 - Landing The Curve (16 min.) Quiz: 03-04 - Landing The Curve
03-05 - Adjustments to Planned Landing Point (15 min.) Quiz: 03-05 - Adjustments to Planned Landing Point
03-06 - Intro to Geosteering in the Lateral (13 min.)
03-07 - Control Points (16 min.) Quiz: 03-07 - Control Points
03-08 - Changing the Plan Line (6 min.)
03-09 - LWD Tool Issues (3 min.)
03-10 - Faulting in the Lateral & My Million-Dollar Mistake (15 min.)
03-11 - What To Do If You Get 'Lost' (4 min.) Quiz: 03-11 - What To Do If You Get 'Lost'

Chapter 4 - Retroactive Geosteering

04-01 - Geosteering Data After TD (10 min.)
04-02 - Closing the Loop (19 min.) Quiz: 04-02 - Closing the Loop

Fundamentals of Geosteering / Chapter 1 - Model Discernment

Lesson 01-00 - Introduction

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Transcript

01. Lesson 1.00: Introduction 02. Intro to Instructor/Geosteering 03. Fundamentals of Geosteering - Best Practices to Build a High-Confidence Model 04. Course Summary 05. Course Summary (2)06. Stoner Engineering LLC 07. Wheelhouse Geoscience

01. Lesson 1.00: Introduction

02. Intro to Instructor/Geosteering

Hi, my name is Colleen and I'm a geologist. I've worked in the energy industry for more than 15 years now. In the last 5 or so I've gotten to spend time with more integrated science for renewable and lower carbon fuels which has been fun and interesting. But I've been in and out of oil and gas operations my whole career, and I've been lucky to work in a lot of geologically diverse plays. Over the years I have developed a bit of a specialty in geosteering. So as much as I try to escape it, I find myself continuing to offer operational support, steering and re-steering wells all the time. I'm kidding a little bit about trying to escape, but it's an easy joke to make because geosteering is not a glamorous job. It requires a lot of late nights, reliably terrible timing, and depending on the situation, it can be a pretty high-stress endeavor. I think it's likely those characteristics that cause a lot of companies to impart geosteering responsibilities onto the lowest-ranking member of the team. For a geologist, it's almost a form of initiation to work weekends and evenings and holidays, steering a well for a time, or lots of wells.
But there's another side of geosteering, in my opinion, that's much more compelling. And that is that geosteering can be powerful. A good geosteering model represents some of the highest resolution data available at depth. We're talking about a near continuous measure of various data in 1 ft increments for the entire length of a lateral. And many of these wells are a mile or more long, just in the lateral. Think about that. The resolution of a typical gamma ray tool is 1-3 ft, not several tens of feet or hundreds of feet, 1-3 ft, inches even. It's the most up close and personal view of the subsurface that you could hope for as a geologist, and it provides nuance that in a best-case scenario can change our understanding about what makes aplay work. More commonly, it can inform decisions that save rig time and money. If you think of geosteering in that way, as the powerful tool that it is, it really doesn't make sense to just pawn it off on someone with less experience. It could do a lot of good for your company to support the development of a resident expert on your team, someone who can implement quality assurance and exploit the dataset that includes every well.

03. Fundamentals of Geosteering - Best Practices to Build a High-Confidence Model

This course considers horizontal elaborations with an emphasis on geosteering. About half the course is designed for operational team members that actively steer horizontal wells, and the other half is designed for a much wider audience.

04. Course Summary

As interpretive as geosteering might be, the model itself is something that can be read objectively with no explanation from the author.
Chapter 1 of this course will cover geosteering basics, and participants will learn how to read and scrutinize a geosteering model. This chapter is for anybody and everybody that is a consumer of geosteering data. It could include the ops team, the development team, anyone who manages or QCs the work of a geosteering subcontractor, and anyone that's responsible for communicating or presenting operational progress to a non-technical audience. If you're familiar with the basics of geosteering, you could skip the first couple of lessons. But you still might want to check out the lesson on red flags. It shows some of the most common bad practices that you're likely to encounter in geosteering. It explains why they happen, and hopefully it'll give you the tools you need to ask questions that will help create better geosteering models, even if you're not the one creating them.
Chapter 4 goes beyond operations to the real heart of the matter. Geosteering data can help improve your understanding of the subsurface. It can save money and time, and some of the most powerful applications of a good geosteering model comes after a well TDs. I call it batch geosteering when geosteering data from different wells are tied to each other. Horizontal wells that are nearby often cross the same structural features usually from different angles. So tying different models from two or more wells to each other can really boost your confidence in the accuracy of the model. Batch geosteering can be a very powerful tool for ops or for a development team. It has the potential to improve targeting, to identify hazards, and it can also help identify money-saving opportunities. For example, it's not always essential to thread a needle with your well path. If opening up the target window won't hurt production, you could potentially be less precise. That means you could drill faster and save some money. Chapter 4 will discuss the ways that geosteering data can be implemented to help inform decisions in future operations and development. In my opinion, geosteering is classically underrated. Anyone interested in realizing the true potential of a good geosteering model might be interested in Chapter 4.

05. Course Summary (2)

Chapters 2 and 3 of this course will discuss operations geology and horizontal geosteering in all its guts and glory. For the sake of the course, we call it live-ops geosteering when a geologist uses real-time data to direct the trajectory of the wellbore as it's drilled, as opposed to retroactive geosteering which happens after a well is TD'd. Live-ops steering involves a unique skill set. It requires high-stakes decision-making, deliberate communication and risk management. Obviously this topic is more geared toward the ops team members, and Chapters 2 and 3 consider the perspective of the operations geologists specifically.
Chapter 2 establishes an operational checklist for pre-spud preparations. It discusses data requirements, building a model in geosteering software, and recommended protocol for operational communications.
In Chapter 3, we discuss the actual geosteering of a well from the perspective of the person in the hot seat. We look at geologic implications of steering decisions, exploitation of control points, discuss how to identify hazards and tool failures. Ops geologists should understand and work within operational limits. They should also know when to lean into a type log and when to necessarily stray from one. And of course we'll address the thing that we're all thinking, but that nobody wants to say out loud, and that's what to do if you get lost.
Look, there are 2 types of geosteerers in this world: those who have been lost and those who will be lost. After completing this course, you'll have a little list of things that you can do to get your head screwed on straight, and hopefully keep your name off the drilling engineer shit list.

06. Stoner Engineering LLC

I have to thank Stoner Engineering Software for providing a license and permission to use their software to produce images for this course. I've used many tools over the years, but have come to trust and prefer this one. The folks at SES are always quick to respond to my questions, even at odd hours, so thank you to them.

07. Wheelhouse Geoscience

I also want to highlight Wheelhouse Geoscience. I've been fortunate to work with Wheelhouse for several years. They provide a variety of services in the energy industry through collaboration with a network of experienced professionals. As a consultant, batch geosteering andtraining are two of the services I continue to provide through Wheelhouse. But there are people other than me that can consult on a wide range of topics.