Case Study: a major operating company quadruples data transmission rate and boosts on-bottom drilling time with SLB xBolt G2 service

Operator increases on-bottom drilling time by 25% in challenging conditions with quadrature phase shift key transmission method

SLB worked with a major operating company that wanted to improve drilling productivity in the Midcontinent oil region by reducing lost time from poor survey data, slow transmission speeds, and relogging caused by drilling noise in difficult conditions. The company was spending hours of non-productive time per well because conventional tools could not reliably demodulate data at surface.

SLB recommended the xBolt G2 accelerated drilling service with quadrature phase shift key (QPSK) mud pulse telemetry to strengthen the signal, avoid noisy frequency bands, and transmit MWD data faster and more reliably. The result was a quadrupled data transmission rate, elimination of relogging and repeat surveys, and a 25% increase in on-bottom drilling time, from 62% to 78%, while cutting survey time by 2 minutes at every connection.