US 12,460,528 B2
Approaches to directional drilling
Samba Ba, Houston, TX (US); Lu Jiang, Beijing (CN); Adrien Chassard, Houston, TX (US); Magnus Hedlund, Houston, TX (US); Maja Ignova, Stonehouse (GB); Katharine Mantle, Stonehouse (GB); Jinsoo Kim, Houston, TX (US); Tao Yu, Beijing (CN); Farid Toghi, Clamart (FR); Hendrik Suryadi, Abu Dhabi (AE); Qing Liu, Beijing (CN); and Diego Medina, Houston, TX (US)
Assigned to Schlumberger Technology Corporation, Sugar Land, TX (US)
Filed by Schlumberger Technology Corporation, Sugar Land, TX (US)
Filed on Feb. 7, 2024, as Appl. No. 18/434,900.
Application 18/434,900 is a continuation of application No. 17/653,404, filed on Mar. 3, 2022, granted, now 12,312,933.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/280,058, filed on Nov. 16, 2021.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/200,380, filed on Mar. 3, 2021.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/200,376, filed on Mar. 3, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2024/0247578 A1, Jul. 25, 2024
Int. Cl. E21B 44/00 (2006.01); E21B 7/06 (2006.01); E21B 47/022 (2012.01)
CPC E21B 44/00 (2013.01) [E21B 7/068 (2013.01); E21B 47/022 (2013.01); E21B 2200/20 (2020.05)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method comprising:
receiving a well plan and determining a plurality of sections of the well plan;
receiving data from surface and downhole to determine a current location of a drill bit, the drill bit located on a bottom hole assembly of a drill string;
analyzing the well plan to automatically derive trajectory constraints that are associated with each of the plurality of sections of the well plan;
determining a plurality of trajectory candidates that pertain to respective paths from the current location of the drill bit to respective targets included within each of the plurality of sections of the well plan based on a consideration of the trajectory constraints;
ranking the plurality of trajectory candidates based on the respective paths, wherein ranking the plurality of trajectory candidates includes penalizing, with a penalty weight, violations of the trajectory constraints;
using the ranking, determining a working plan that includes an optimal path from the current location of the drill bit to reach a final target based on the plurality of trajectory candidates, wherein the working plan includes hardware specific drill command sequences to direct the drill bit along the optimal path;
communicating the hardware specific drill command sequences to control the bottom hole assembly of the drill string to access the final target from the current location; and
executing the hardware specific drill command sequences to steer the drill bit to the final target.