For a few years now, unconventional oil and gas operators in the USA managed to squeeze 2 mile laterals in 1 mile acreages, by drilling lateral section of shale wells across lease areas, turning them and drilling a return section inside the same lease. Shell was the pioneer, with the first horseshoe well (NEELIE 1-85 […]
Category: Technical Articles
Blog: Carbon Sequestration Projects in Canada
Carbon capture and sequestration is the main building block of carbon neutral development in oil and gas and a host of other industries. Underground sequestration is a growing industry, spurred by operator efforts towards net zero and government incentives for decarbonization. With 3 sizable projects operational, Canada captures and stores about 3,000,000 tonnes of carbon […]
Blog: The longest well
Before talking about record hitting wells, we have to define what we measure The difference between total measured depth (or total meters drilled) and maximum measured depth becomes apparent when assessing multilateral wells, where the sum of drilled legs length far exceed maximum MD reached by individual legs. The difference between maximum measured depth and […]
Carbon Emission and Proposed Sequestration in Alberta
There are several ongoing carbon sequestration projects active in Western Canada, and 26 new projects proposed in Alberta as of 2023. We know that Canada emits 708 megatons and sequestration targets for proposed projects vary between 1 megaton and 40 megatons of Carbon Dioxide, it is relatively hard to assess the size of emissions and […]
The Longest Well in Canada
In December of 2023, Tamarack Valley drilled eleven 2-mile lateral legs in their 102/03-18-075-25W4 Clearwater well in the heart of Marten Hills. The open-hole well extends to a combined 33,636 meters from the 11 legs drilled in 3 stacks, placed in a wine rack pattern in the 20 meter thick sand package.
Frankenwells (Complex Well Designs)
Well design gets complicated and extremely efficient in mature basins such as the WCSB. From well established to convoluted multilaterals, up-tracks, high turns, wine-racks, cubes to chicken legs, paper clips and other weird and wonderful designs, this is a collection of technology pushing developments. Below you can find a gallery of some of the wildest […]
Paperclip Wells
Starting with Shell in 2019, a few Permian basin drillers adopted this striking well design. It looks like an unraveled paperclip, and has been called “horseshoe well’ or “U-Turn well”. Shell adopted the “horseshoe” well design at well NEELIE 1-85 LOV-4H to address technical issues, as well as lease rights (source). These wells usually target […]
Conference: CEEC Spring Meeting 2023
Continental Europe Energy Council – Spring Meeting 2023 We are pleased to take part in the 2023 Spring Meeting, the 52nd meeting of the group. The scout group meeting is organized by CEEC, the Continental Europe Energy Council (formerly Central, Eastern European and Caspian Scout Group) and co-hosed by Geofizyka Toruń. Chinook Consulting will participate […]
Lithium Production
New lithium extraction technologies from reservoir brine offers new opportunities in old oil fields.
Helium Development
A global shortage of Helium spurred a new wave of exploration in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.
Transferable Skill and Technology
The oil and gas industry is constantly changing. Over the past few years, it has been under constant pressure to change towards renewable energy and alternative resources. There is a multitude of transferable skills and technologies that can be used towards these new developments. Some examples of transferable sills and technologies, primarily developed and perfected […]
Reservoir Navigation With Resistivity Forward Modeling
A workflow for geosteering thermal oil sands development wells Chinook is one of the more active services companies in Canadian thermal oil sands developments. Services provided include wellsite geology, coring supervision, core logging, geochemical analysis and now also geosteering, performed remotely and in the field. Since the launch of capable geosteering software packages ten years […]
Multilateral, Feather, Fishbone
A look at Well Designs in a Mature Basin Disclaimer: The following material is based on Chinook’s experience in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, not on all wells drilled in Canada. While the image may be incomplete, Chinook’s exposure to well drilling in the basin is large enough to be a representative sample of general […]
Webinar: Geosteering with resistivity forward modeling
A workflow for navigating thermal oil sands wells Resistivity geosteering has been on our radar for some time. With ROGII releasing a resistivity forward modeling module as part of Starsteer, the use of resistivity for geosteering complex reservoirs such as the McMurray became applicable for operators and third party service providers such as Chinook. We […]
Webinar: Resistivity Forward Modeling
Rogii and Chinook will co-present a webinar showcasing workflows related to geosteering SAGD wells with the use of LWD resistivity logs. What Webinar: geosteering for SAGD thermal oil wells using StarSteer resistivity modeling When June 11th 2020, 1:30 to 2:30pm MST How Webex Registration link The software deployed is StarSteer (with Resistivity module), and the […]
Webinar: Romania Energy Market
Web seminar about Romania’s energy sector, hosted by CGEF, the presentation showcased some of the particularities of Oil and gas business in Romania.
Remote Steering in the Age of the Pandemic
Remote operations combined with data analytics will continue to be a growing part of the upstream oil industry.
Emerging Clearwater Play in North-Central Alberta
Controls on Productivity A Comprehensive Play Study The emerging play in the Lower Cretaceous Clearwater and Spirit River Formations in central Alberta, Canada continues to draw attention and capital based on early production results, it’s competitiveness and perceived scalability. Average production from this interval has grown ~ 70% year over year based on sustainable production […]
Geosteering Thin Reservoirs
– Applicability, Challenges, Solutions – Software assisted geosteering is widely employed for reservoir navigation in unconventional shale plays such as the Duvernay, Montney and the Horn River in Canada, and the Eagleford and Wolfcamp in the USA. It is easily applicable for these thick and laterally continuous stratigraphic sequences that exhibit gamma signatures correlated over […]
Announcement: Petroleum Geochemistry Service
Chinook Consulting has recently added Geochem Lab Services to our ever expanding suite of professional services. Geochemical well logs are created from samples using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) that measure elemental concentrations and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) that measure mineral/phase characteristics and abundance. Geochemical well logging is a proven tool that helps clarify subtle changes in hydrocarbon […]
East Duvernay Shale Basin
Devonian Duvernay Formation, East Shale Basin, Alberta Summary The East Shale Basin of Alberta is located geographically in the Three Hills and the Ponoka/Gull Lake area, with recent activity mainly found within the strike areas of Joffre, Morningside and Huxley. The East Shale Basin (ESB) has seen a flurry of recent activity since 2016 following […]
Technological Approach in Resource Plays
The aptly titled “shale revolution” is changing the energy production landscape in North America one resource play at the time. The potent combination of horizontal drilling and multi-stage fracking is unlocking oil and gas reserves around the continent. Faced with dwindling recoverable reserves in mature basins, explorers and producers are using technological advances to extract […]
SAGD and Heavy Oil Development
Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) and Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS) SAGD/CSS is an unconventional resource development that is widely used to extract bitumen from underground oil sands deposits. These methods involve injecting steam into sub-surface oil sands deposits to heat the bitumen locked in the sand, thereby lowering the viscosity allowing it to flow and to be extracted. In […]
Geosteering in the WCSB
What Works, What Doesn’t Not all plays are equally suitable for a geosteering approach. While geosteering is the preferred method of reservoir navigation in unconventional shale and siltstone reservoirs, the approach is also used in conventional tight oil and gas clastic resource plays, as well as in some heavy oil plays and carbonate reservoirs. This […]
Drilling Optimization Approach
At Chinook Consulting Services we define Drilling Optimization as: Constructing a well that meets all objectives, for both reservoir access and data gathering, at the lowest possible cost and/or time without compromising HS&E or wellbore quality In order to meet this objective, we believe that the most two main areas focus should be: Borehole […]