Cordax technology successfully logs 16,750 feet of a nearly 24,000-foot well in Colorado’s D-J Basin
Jan. 17, 2019
It’s about going to great lengths for the drilling and completions industry.
In this case, world-class lengths.
In late November, in the Wattenberg gas field near Boulder, Colorado, Cordax Evaluation Technologies logged a 23,960-foot (measured depth) well for a Denver-based client, Great Western Oil & Gas Company.
The 16,752.3-foot length is believed to be a world record, in terms of a lateral (or horizontal) well logging operation inside of drill pipe.
“The pump down assembly and conveyance procedure had never been applied to send Cordax’s slim logging tool-string (SGR/DEN/NEU/RES) on that long of a journey through the drill string—and we logged just over 16,750 feet of horizontal lateral wellbore while tripping,” notes Don Herman, Cordax’s manager of U.S. sales and business development.
“Our portion of the operation ended up going perfectly. The Cordax equipment not only completed the nearly five-mile trip in great shape, but all systems worked as planned,” adds Herman.
The Great Western drilling operation required 130,000 feet of total tripping and drilling with Cordax collars in the drill string. After the sixth trip in the hole, to make changes to the drilling bottom hole assembly (BHA), all Cordax logging tools were successfully pumped down and securely latched in the Cordax BHA landing mechanism.
Ultimately, Cordax’s Logging While Tripping (LWT) collars stood up to a very tough test.
The total extra rig time required to conduct Cordax’s logging operations was just 10 hours—including rigging up tools on surface, pumping the slim tool-string to bottom, and rigging down after logging had been completed and the drill string had been tripped to surface.
“This world-record logging job demonstrates how remarkably efficient Cordax‘s Logging While Tripping technique is,” remarks Herman.
Following the logging operations, Cordax applied its engineering software tools to:
categorize petrophysical properties along the horizontal lateral, using Cordax’s proprietary ZoneGrader;
determine rock mechanics, including closure stress and stimulation breakdown pressure predictions, again using ZoneGrader; and
customize stages and completion design to fine-tune cluster placement and improve cluster efficiency, using Cordax’s ZoneTuner.
“Over 78 stages were evaluated—for range of rock penetrated and multiple changes in closure stress over such a long well—to ensure maximum stimulated rock volume can be achieved. That reduced overall frac costs and provided better cluster optimization, leading to potentially more oil production,” says Herman.
“The logging operations and completions engineering were both world industry firsts, as far as we know.”
