Scientific Drilling's Gyro MWD Reaches One Million Feet

On March 15, 2005, a navigation system from Scientific Drilling, Incorporated (SDI), became the industry's first gyro MWD technology to log one million ft (304,800 m) of hole. Scientific Drilling accomplished the feat with its gMWD system while drilling for operator Cimarex on a land rig in Texas.

Scientific Drilling pioneered gyro MWD technology, which integrates a high-accuracy gyro directional package in an MWD envelope. Since its introduction four years ago, gMWD service has transformed the way operators drill multi-well project top-hole sections. More recently, gMWD service has become a preferred guidance method for reentry whipstock operations.

The gMWD tool offers significant time savings over typical wireline-conveyed gyros and conventional MWD tools. "Eliminating the need for a wireline results in significant time and cost savings for our clients," said Len Duncan, VP of Marketing for Scientific Drilling. "In fact, the intermediate casing point is typically reached one to two days ahead of the time curve."

"Safety is another key advantage," says Duncan, "because eliminating wireline results in fewer personnel and less equipment on board."

Additional sensors are now added to the gMWD system to enhance its capabilities. These include Gamma, Annulus/Pipe Pressure and Resistivity.

"Even though we surpassed the million-foot mark, we have only begun to exploit the full potential of the system," says Duncan. "With tools deployed worldwide, we see the varying needs of our clients and we continue to customize the tool's configuration and setup. It is an exciting time for us to be able to provide such innovative technology and we are extremely pleased with the feedback we are getting from our clients when they see the multiple value added factors relating to this technology."

Operating throughout the world, Scientific Drilling has been an innovative developer and provider of high-end wellbore navigation services for more than three decades. SDI is the only company to offer survey/steering systems across the technology spectrum, from the simplest systems to the latest high-accuracy, continuous multi-gyro inertial systems. A continued emphasis on research and development has led to many technological breakthroughs in surveying, production logging and directional drilling, including Electromagnetic MWD ("Efield"), Memory Pulsed Neutron logging, and gyro MWD ("gMWD").