Automated Steering Tendency Estimation for Steering Ellipse Derivation

Abstract With directional drilling being a major activity during well construction, using the industry 4.0 platform (Vaidya Saurabh 2018) to transform the operational aspect of well construction represents great risk and reward scenarios for proper planning and execution. In effect, the directional drilling process has grown in efficiency and complexity with a move to more and more 3D horizontal wells. This means that delivering consistent and efficient steering performance can be very tricky. In this paper, the emphasis is put on an automated steering tendency estimation which is paramount for deriving efficient steering commands to meet trajectory targets without compromising on hole quality goals. In particular, we show a steering ellipse derivation for all rotary steerable system (RSS) downhole steering modes in real time (RT) and how it is used to understand the performance of the downhole controllers and adjust steering parameters accordingly automatically. After examining what steering ellipse tendency estimation is and giving examples of steering tendency ellipse for different steering modes, a field application of this is discussed and it shows significant improvement in wellbore quality with lower tortuosity index.