Case Study: Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Drilling Company avoids a costly loss zone with SLB’s Rt Scanner fracture analysis

Rt Scanner Triaxial Induction Service Identifies Drilling-Induced Fractures, Deepwater Gulf of Mexico

SLB worked with Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Drilling Company to address extreme, unexplained mud losses while drilling a difficult intermediate section of a deepwater Gulf of Mexico well. The customer needed to determine the cause and extent of the losses so it could plan a bypass well trajectory and avoid drilling back into the same loss zone.

SLB applied Rt Scanner triaxial induction service with vertical fracture detection processing to identify fractures, determine their orientation and dip, and characterize the loss zone. Within 24 hours, SLB diagnosed likely drilling-induced petal fracturing as much more extensive than first thought, enabling the operator to select a bypass kickoff direction that successfully avoided the fractured zone and prevented wasting the USD 7.8 million bypass cost.