Session: 11-10-01 Sustainability and Green Transition in Petroleum Industry

Submission Number: 157305

Active Magnetic Ranging From Drill String for Geothermal Systems 

Many advanced geothermal systems require drilling deep connected closed loop wells.  These wells are connected by a series of parallel horizontal well sections pairs for heat transfer from the formations. The separation of these wells, and the distance between them, must be controlled in the drilling operation to ensure efficient heat transfer.

Active Magnetic Ranging (AMR) is an oilfield drilling measurement technique developed for efficient relief well drilling and to drill well sections within a conglomerate of old wells without hitting any existing wells.  Different to traditional ranging systems where the ranging is performed using a wireline operation, an AMR system integrate the logging system onto the drill string bottom hole assembly.  Such method would save several rig days as the trip-out operations can be skipped.

The active magnetic ranging tool emits an alternating current into the formation. This will reach the target well and then run through steel casing/tubulars and finally return to the well being drilled. This current sets up a variable magnetic field that is measured by the AMR tool determining the direction towards the target well as well as the distance. Traditionally, if drilling a relief well without an active magnetic ranging tool on a drill pipe, 10 – 25 wireline runs are needed before the target well is intercepted. The present tool allows similar operations using an integrated tool systems in the drill pipe and, thus, avoid all the tripping operations necessary when running wireline operations.

In this paper we present assessment to optimize performance of this tool. Both experiments and simulations are applied in this analysis.

Presenting Author: Jan David Ytrehus SINTEF

Presenting Author Biography: Jan David holds a Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) with fluid mechanics as main area. Currently he is a senior scientist at SINTEF Industry. SINTEF has been his employer for more than 20 years and he has worked with oil field development, production, wells and drilling issues. He has managed projects for many Clients, such as the Research Council of Norway and Norwegian and International service and operating companies. His main field of expertise is within drilling fluids & well technology.