Directional well trajectory design: The effect of change of Azimuth builds and turns on build-&-hold and continuous build trajectories

Abstract

Across several texts dealing on the issue of the Build-&-Hold and Continuous Build basic well trajectory designs, it was observed that entire mathematical expressions were based on a direct or straight azimuth departure course. In this work, the effect of a curved bend in azimuth from the kick-off to the target of the well trajectory was considered, therefore slightly altering the entire mathematical expressions from the horizontal departure to the Radius of curvature, as well as the overall angle change. By using WellTIT v. 1.0 (self-developed application using Microsoft Visual Basic), two examples were illustrated using 2-domensional and 3-dimensional plots along with survey records to validate the effectiveness of our mathematical expressions.

Keywords: Build-and-Hold, Continuous Build, Trajectory, Azimuth, Straight course, Horizontal departure