EM MWD Technology Improves Performance In Fayetteville Horizontals
HOUSTON–Horizontal drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing are making the Fayetteville Shale reservoir in the Arkoma Basin of Arkansas highly prolific, with performance comparable to the Barnett Shale. However, even though the Fayetteville is one of the fastest growing shale gas plays in North America, it presents numerous challenges: lost circulation, well bore instability, and significant connection times that reduce efficiency while drilling the curve and lateral sections. To address these challenges, a detailed engineering analysis was performed using a proven drilling optimization procedure.
As a result of the study, engineers determined that surface pressure limitations with high rates of penetration, together with pumping lost circulation material (LCM) to control fluid losses, negatively impacted the performance of downhole measurement-while-drilling equipment. Standard mud-pulse technology could not operate efficiently while drilling with lost circulation, no fluid returns, or high LCM concentrations. Wired-pipe technology typically is cost-prohibitive in this application, so an electromagnetic MWD (EM MWD) system was used to transmit realtime data electromagnetically through the formation instead of fluid pressure pulses through the inner bore of the pipe.
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