Practical Application of Distributed or Cloud Computing in Real-Time Geosteering Operations

During real-time geosteering operations, helpful and informed decisions should be made quickly; delays in data transmission, calculation performance, and interpretation interfere with optimal well placement. The sooner decisions are made; the less aggressive modifications of the well's trajectory are necessary to reach a target.

When ultra-deep electromagnetic (EM) resistivity tools are essential for optimal well placement, the results of inversion computations are needed quickly to help prevent any lag in decision-making associated with the results. Inversion canvases provide an unambiguous picture of a well's position within the stratigraphy; they are not a direct measurement, but a representation of the subsurface geology created by algorithms that compare multiple models to resistivity field measurements. These inversions demand multiple calculations for which increased computational resources are necessary to make near real-time updates to the geological model. The time expected for even a simple inversion calculation means that a standard desktop computer would lag behind the real-time transmission of subsurface ultra-deep EM data. The application of increased computing resources to the inversion process using a high performance computation platform powered by the Cloud is discussed. Well details are discussed for a well wherein increased data density from wired pipe technologies required additional processing power.