Lessons Learned from the Atlanta Field Third Drilling Campaign

The Atlanta field has been producing hydrocarbons from the wells drilled during its first and second drilling campaign, utilizing a system of early oil production since 2018. Between 2022 and 2023 a third drilling campaign was conducted aiming to increase the field production capacity prior to the arrival of the definitive production system. The early oil production system has already produced more than 20 MM bbl of heavy oil with 14°API and the definitive system will recover more than 150 MM bbl of the 1.29 Bi bbl of hydrocarbons in situ. This paper covers multiple lessons learned from the third drilling campaign. Macedo et al (2023) describe aspects from the planning and execution phases of the first well drilled in this campaign, the 7-ATL-5H-RJS. This new publication expands the analysis to the following wells, ATL-6H, ATL-7H, ATL-7HA and ATL-8DP. A series of lessons learned including project innovations, new technology introductions, operational practices tailored to meet the field specific challenges are described. We share with the industry the drilling strategies and technologies, and the drilling fluids program applied in the successful well construction. Highlights are the pump and dump strategy that enabled wellbore stability prior to running casing, the well plan that enabled the discovery of another pay zone above the Atlanta main reservoir, the reservoir navigation techniques and the geomechanics study conducted to identify the root cause of the problems found while running the 16″ casing in the ATL-7H well. The need to re-spud the ATL-7HA well required a multidisciplinary study to determine the causes and avoid a reoccurrence. From the new wellhead, a sidetrack to the ATL-8DP well supported the announcement of a new accumulation in the field. The techniques utilized in the sidetrack and the well plan to meet first the ATL-8DP geological targets and then the horizontal well landed in the ATL-7HA targets are also detailed. The attempt to kick off from vertical in 20″ hole in the ATL-6H and the need to change plans back to perform the KOP in the12 ¼″ is another subject included in the analysis. The directional drilling results in the 5 wells will be used to optimize the well design for future drilling campaigns.