Engineering a Directional Well Planning Software Solution

Abstract

Engineering a software solution in a growing commercial market is driven by several factors some of which are business related such as cost to develop, time to market and the size of the market. Ultimately however, a successful implementation is about functionality, workflow, interoperability, and knowing and understanding who the end users are. In this paper the process of developing a directional well planning solution is described. We include the initial investigations into our customer’s needs, the development methodology used, our early prototypes and the incorporation of the feedback gathered. We describe the implementation of an interactive visual workflow for defining a well trajectory and how this integrates with geological and numeric models and features such as temperature gradients and existing wells. The underlying calculation of how the multiple build, hold and drop section types interact is briefly summarised. Finally, insights gained along the way and the potential for future work in the directional drilling space are discussed.