PAD PLACEMENT PLUG-IN

FOR PETREL 2013

USERS GUIDE
SCHLUMBERGER INFORMATION SOLUTIONS

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ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT

This document provides instructions on the use of the Pad placement plug-in for Petrel, including installation and
operation of the plug-in.

COPYRIGHT NOTICES AND DISCLAIMERS

Pad placement for Petrel 2013, Copyright 2014 Schlumberger. All rights reserved.

No part of this user documentation may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or translated in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without prior written permission of
Schlumberger Information Solutions, 5599 San Felipe, Suite 100, Houston, TX. 77056-2722.

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CONTENTS

1 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................................5

2 Overview ................................................................................................................................................................5

3 Tutorials .................................................................................................................................................................6

3.1 SHALE Example .............................................................................................................................................6

3.2 SAGD Example ............................................................................................................................................14

3.3 Using the Pad placement output in the Pad well design process ..............................................................22

4 Reference.............................................................................................................................................................25

4.1 Ground Surface ..........................................................................................................................................25

4.2 Geometric restrictions ...............................................................................................................................25

4.2.1 Name......................................................................................................................................................26

4.2.2 Restriction data type..............................................................................................................................27

4.2.3 Polygon set / Surface .............................................................................................................................27

4.2.4 Applicable location ................................................................................................................................27

4.2.5 Pad allowed ...........................................................................................................................................27

4.2.6 Cost/cost functions ................................................................................................................................28

4.3 Pad selection ..............................................................................................................................................29

4.3.1 Pad selection ..........................................................................................................................................29

4.3.2 Pad and Well Parameters ......................................................................................................................30

4.3.3 Sensitivity Analysis on Pad and Well Parameters ..................................................................................33

4.4 Pad placement Strategies & Options .........................................................................................................33

4.4.1 Pad placement Strategies ......................................................................................................................33

4.4.2 Pad placement Options..........................................................................................................................34

4.5 Folder .........................................................................................................................................................35

4.6 Available actions ........................................................................................................................................35

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5 Editing the Proposed Wells ..................................................................................................................................37

5.1 Spreadsheet ...............................................................................................................................................37

5.2 Settings for Pad locations ...........................................................................................................................37

5.3 Moving individual points in a 3D window ..................................................................................................38

6 Pad Configuration ................................................................................................................................................39

7 Appendix ..............................................................................................................................................................42

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1 INTRODUCTION

With the onset of new unconventional plays, there has been an increase in the number of wells drilled in a lease
area. Typically, in order to minimize surface impact, pad drilling is utilized. Here, multiple wells share the same
surface location, but deviate as they travel outward from the pad surface location in order to increase the
reservoir drainage area.

In Petrel, this concept is maintained, while maximizing the users time and efficiency. The Pad placement plug-in
works in conjunction with the Pad well design plug-in. The Pad placement plug-in aims to maximize the number of
wells in contact with the reservoir while limiting the number of pad locations in a specified surface area; and, the
Pad well design plug-in generates the well trajectories that are connected to each pad location. The Pad
placement plug-in allows the user to define a variety of surface restrictions (i.e. rivers, roads, cities, etc.), reservoir
targets, and associated cost functions in order to establish the available ground and reservoir surfaces. From
here, pad locations will be chosen, and can be adjusted to minimize cost. The cost convention is defined by the
cost surface (which is the culmination of the various, contributing cost functions).

These pad locations are dropped into the Pad well design process where the well trajectories are generated. The
available pad configurations can be changed, added, or deleted (see Section 6 for more information on this).

These two plug-ins work well in first identifying and characterizing all possible surface pad locations, and second, in
creating all of the wells underneath each pad. The benefit of using these two plug-ins is the users ease in
generating thousands of wells through the definition of a few basic input parameters. This ease is further extended
to the users ability to customize pad well configurations, restrictions pertinent to ground level and reservoir level
attributes, and complex cost schemes.

2 OVERVIEW

The Pad placement plug-in generates surface pad locations. Pad locations are chosen based on the objective of
maximizing the total number of wells that intersect the provided reservoir area, while being contained within the
user-specified ground area. These locations are used in the Pad well design plug-in to generate well trajectories.

Petrel points mark each pads surface location. This set of points is defined by the lattice nodes of the input ground
surface, and become further constrained by the ground restrictions, reservoir targets and cost functions which are
added in the Pad placement process. From the input restrictions and cost functions, two cost surfaces are
generated for the ground level and the reservoir level, named Ground level and Reservoir, respectively. These
cost surfaces reflect the allowable pad locations with the associated cost. The plug-in requires at least one
restriction at the ground level and another restriction at the reservoir level to produce the cost surfaces.

After the cost surfaces are generated, the pad locations are decided based on which Pad configuration(s) are
defined and which Pad placement strategy is chosen. The pad locations can be further changed by
enabling/disabling Pad placement options, which can alter the final placement of the pad locations.

Additionally, these points may be edited like other Petrel point-sets, using other Petrel processes. Please refer to
the Reference section for a more detailed explanation of each of the inputs of the Pad placement process. For
examples of how to use the process to generate pad locations in Shale or SAGD environments, please refer to the
Tutorials section.

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3 TUTORIALS

This section describes how to make a set of pad well locations in a Petrel project containing basic surface and
reservoir conditions for shale gas and SAGD cases. The last tutorial of this section shows how to use the output
points of the Pad placement process with the Pad well design process to generate wells. Each tutorial starts with
the Pad_Placement_Tutorial_Start.PET project. For the completed versions of either the shale or SAGD cases, refer
to the Pad_Placement_Tutorial_Completed.PET project, and the appropriate Pad placement and Pad well design
objects labeled either shale or SAGD. Begin by unzipping the Pad_placement_tutorials.ZIPX to an appropriate save-
location.

3.1 SHALE EXAMPLE

In this example, the Pad placement plug-in will be used to generate pad locations for a shale gas example. This
tutorial demonstrates how to generate pad locations in a shale setting across a 72,188-acre land area, finding the
optimal number of wells that will contact the reservoir target in accordance with the stress orientation provided by
a pre-defined stress surface. Use the Pad_Placement_Tutorial_Start Petrel project found in the
Pad_placement_tutorials.ZIPX zipped folder.

1. Open Pad_Placement_Tutorial_Start.PET.
2. Visualize the ground level and reservoir restrictions by opening a new 2D window (Menu
bar>Window>2D window), and toggle on the following items in the Restrictions folder in the Input
pane: Ground_level (Z-attribute) surface, Roads polygon/lines, Rivers polygon/lines, Pre-existing wells
polygon/lines, and Acreage polygon/lines, which will be used in the Pad placement process.
a. Change the background color (if necessary for better viewing), using the button found in the
Tool bar at the top of the Petrel project.
b. Use the mouse to zoom in on the reservoir area of interest: in the 2D window, holding the left-
mouse button (LMB) while scrolling the mouse away from the computer will enable a zooming
effect; to shift the point of focus,
hold down the middle button
on some mice, this is the center
scroll wheel, which can be
clickedand move the mouse so
that the center of focus is in the
center of the open window. The
magnify function, , found in
the Function bar (usually in the
right-most edge of the Petrel
project), can also be used to hone
in on a visualized item in an open
window.
c. Use the View all button, , to
reset the view in the window.
d. Lastly, toggle on the Shale_target
polygon from the Restrictions
folder. This will be the reservoir-
level target used in this tutorial.

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 3. Once, the different restrictions have been seen in the active window, double-click on the Ground_level
surface to access the Settings of the surface. Click on the Statistics tab and look at the second list to see
the Increment in the X-direction and Increment in Y-direction items on the left-side of the window. It
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is important to note that this increment is what will dictate the pad-spacing. In this case, the increment is
100 x 100 feet [for more regarding ground level input details, please refer to Ground Surface section].
4. Press to close the Settings for the Ground level surface.
5. Now, open the Pad placement process by double-clicking the process (Processes pane>Well
engineering>Pad placement).
6. In the Create new: input field, type Shale.
7. Use the button to drop the Ground_level surface from the Input pane into the Ground surface
input field.
8. Under geometric restrictions, use the button to drop the relevant restrictions from the Input pane:
Roads, Rivers, Pre-existing_wells, and Shale_target. Drop the Acreage polygon in two times. We will use
this as both a surface and reservoir restriction.
9. By default, the first 3 fields to the right of the drop-window will be filled using the respective polygon
names [for more on Geometric restrictions and the input fields and options, please see the Geometric
restrictions section of the Reference section]. The next two fields (Applicable location and Pad
allowed) are by default set to Ground level and Inside, respectively:

10. For each geometric restriction, choose the relevant location, and condition to be applied in the
Applicable location and Pad allowed fields:
a. Roads-- Applicable location: Ground level; Pad allowed: Both sides
b. Rivers-- Applicable location: Ground level; Pad allowed: Both sides
c. Pre-existing_wells-- Applicable location: Reservoir; Pad allowed: Both sides
d. Acreage-- Applicable location: Ground level; Pad allowed: Inside
e. Acreage_reservoir-- Applicable location: Reservoir; Pad allowed: Inside

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To change the increment of the surface, use the Petrel utility Make/edit surface process. See the Petrel Help Manual for more details.

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 f. Shale_target-- Applicable location: Reservoir; Pad allowed: Inside
11. Each geometric restriction needs to have a cost function [see the Cost/cost functions section of the
Reference section for more information on this]. This can be generated, or edited, by clicking the
Create/edit cost function button, . To use a pre-existing cost function, use the to drop it into the
Cost input field. Create the following cost functions to be added to each restriction:

Shale_target/Acreage:

Optional comments to add:

This cost function will allow pad well heads and well toes within 20 feet of the applicable boundary surface and polygons.

Roads/Rivers/Pre-existing_wells:

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 Optional comments to add:
This cost function describes the allowable drilling proximity to the Roads, Rivers, and Pre-existing wells geometric
restrictions.
The nearest a pad is allowed to any of these surface features is 1000 ft. The cost will be higher the closer a pad is located to
any of these geometric surface restrictions.

12. Drop the appropriate cost functions in the Cost input field for each geometric restriction:

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13. Press Apply to save these Pad placement specifications in the Pad placement template Shale.
14. In the Pad selection tab of the Pad placement process, drop the following well pad configurations via the
button: 8WX4 and 3WX3. These are the configurations that we will use for this process; although,
other configurations can be created by clicking the create or edit pad configuration icon [see Pad
Configuration Section 6].
15. Type in the following specifications for the first pad configuration and drop the Stress_direction
attribute from the expanded Ground_level in the Input pane [see the Pad and Well Parameters section for
more information]. Copy/paste the inputs from the first configuration to the other configurations by
selecting the copy/paste button, :

16. In the Placement options tab, toggle on Rank by pad count and Optimize ground cost options. See the
below figure [see Pad placement Strategies section for more information]:

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17. Now, click the button. This will generate the cost surfaces for the ground level and for the
reservoir level. Allow a few moments for this computation. The resulting surfaces can be found in the
newly-created Pad placement outputs (Shale) folder in the Input pane. Toggle these on one at a time in
a 2D or 3D window to verify that the geometric restrictions were used in the intended way, for example,
that the ground cost surface shows no cost surface area within
18. Next, click to generate the pad
surface locations and well laterals. Visualize the pad
surface location point-set in a 2D or 3D window
with the surface restrictions to see how the pad
locations were chosen with respect to these
restrictions. Notice the distance between a pad
location and a restriction polygon, while referring to
the respective cost function inputs. Visualize the
well laterals line-set and compare to pad placement
and other input parameters.
19. Right-click the Pad locations and select
spreadsheet to view details for each pad point
location. This spreadsheet contains location and
geometric configuration information.
20. Right-click the Laterals and select attribute
spreadsheet. This spreadsheet contains the Pad

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 index number which corresponds with the Pad locations point set numbers. Well IDs are also listed for
each well at each pad, in this example, well numbers 1-8 at each pad location (see below).

21. The Pad placement point-set can now be dropped into the Pad well design input field. Here, the well
trajectories deviating from the pad well head will be created. Please refer to the next tutorial for brief
guidance in this procedure. Use the Pad well design documentation file for more information regarding
the Pad well design plug-in.
22. Save the project as Shale_Pad_Placement_Tutorial_Complete. See below for a sample of what the
generated well trajectories may look like, after the Pad placement points have been used in the Pad well
design process. This can be found in the Pad_Placement_Tutorial_Completed project. Refer to the
Reference sub-categories for more information regarding any of the inputs or processes that are used in
this tutorial.

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 3.2 SAGD EXAMPLE

This tutorial demonstrates how to generate SAGD well pairs across a 66,350-acre land area, finding the optimal
number of wells that will contact the thickest part of the reservoir. We will use the Geometrical modeling process
to calculate a reservoir thickness, which will be used to establish our reservoir target area with respect to available
surface locations. Use the Pad_Placement_Tutorial_Start Petrel project found in the Pad_placement_tutorials.ZIPX
zipped folder.

1. Open Pad_Placement_Tutorial_Start.PET.
2. Visualize the ground level and reservoir restrictions by opening a new 2D window (Menu
bar>Window>2D window), and toggle on the following items in the Restrictions folder in the Input
pane: Ground_level (Z-attribute) surface, Roads polygon/lines, Rivers polygon/lines, Pre-existing wells
polygon/lines, and Lease boundary polygon/lines, which will be used in the Pad placement process.
a. Change the background color (if necessary for better viewing), using the button found in the
Tool bar at the top of the Petrel project.
b. Use the mouse to zoom in on the reservoir area of
interest: in the 2D window, holding the left-mouse
button (LMB) while scrolling the mouse away from
the computer will enable a zooming effect; to shift
the point of focus, hold down the middle button
on some mice, this is the center scroll wheel,
which can be clickedand move the mouse so
that the center of focus is in the center of the
open window. The magnify function, , found
in the Function bar, in the right-most edge of the
Petrel project, can also be used to hone in on a
visualized item in an open window.
c. Use the View all button, , to reset the view in
the window.

3. Once, the different restrictions have been seen in the active window, double-click on the Ground_level
surface to access the settings of the surface. Click on the Statistics tab and look at the second list to see
the Increment in the X-direction and Increment in Y-direction. It is important to note that this is what
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will dictate the pad-spacing.
4. Press to close the Settings for the Ground level surface [for more on Geometric restrictions
and the input fields and options, please see the Geometric restrictions section of the Reference section].
5. In steps 5-12, we will create a reservoir thickness surface attribute attained from a 3D grid property. Begin
by double-clicking on the Geometrical modeling process (Processes pane>Property
modeling>Geometrical modeling).
6. In the window that appears, select Cell height for Method type, and select OK as can be seen below:

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To change the increment of the surface, use the Petrel utility Make/edit surface process. See the Petrel Help Manual for more information.

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7. This generates a property called Cell height, in the Models pane under the Property folder. Open a new
3D Window and toggle this property on by selecting the radial to the left of the property name. Use the
color scaling button , and the legend button to aid in visualizing properties in a 3D windowif you
lose your place, select the View all button to reorient yourself. If the property is not displayed in
color, un-toggle the Show/hide solid color icon, .
8. Select the Show property filter button, , found in the Function bar once there is a 3D grid selected
(indicated by the bolding of the 3D grids name).
9. In the property filter window, select the check box next
to Use value filter at the top of the window and the
Use filter box next to the Cell height property at the
bottom. Adjust the scale to only make values greater
than 70 visible:

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10. Notice the property name color change to pink, indicating that a filter is being applied. Now, right-click
the Cell height property and select Show settings.
11. In the Operations tab, select under the Make map from property folder. In the
bottom-left of the Settings window Select the Apply the calculation on the filtered cells only button,
so that it appears highlighted, , and press .
12. In the Input pane, there will be a newly created average surface map, average map for Cell height/All.
Double-click this to access the Settings of this surface map. In the Operations tab, select
under the Convert points/polygons/surfaces folder, and click and OK.
This creates a set of polygons along the edge of the selected surface and can be found in the Input pane.
13. Rename this polygon set to Reservoir_boundary in the Info tab in the Settings for the polygon set, and
move it into the Restrictions folder via a drag-and-drop.
14. Now, open the Pad placement process by double-clicking the process (Processes pane>Well
engineering>Pad placement).
15. In the Create new: input field, type SAGD.
16. Use the button to drop the Ground_level surface from the Input pane into the Ground surface
input field.
17. Under geometric restrictions, use the button to drop the relevant restrictions from the Input pane:
Roads polygon, Rivers polygon,
Lease_boundary polygon twice, Pre-
existing_wells polygon, and
Reservoir_boundary polygon. We drop the
Lease_boundary polygon in two times so that
we can specify the restriction at both the
surface and the reservoir levels.
18. Change the name of the second Lease_boundary
to Lease_boundary_reservoir [please see the
Geometric restrictions section of the Reference
section for more on this]. By default, the first 3
fields to the right of the drop-window will be
filled using the respective polygon names. The
next two fields (Applicable location and Pad
allowed) are by default set to Ground level
and Inside, respectively:

*The Apply button, used to save the Pad placement

template, cannot be used until the relative cost functions
are added to each geometric restriction.

19. For each geometric restriction, choose the

relevant data type and level as is seen
below:
a. Roads-- Applicable location: Ground level; Pad allowed: Both sides
b. Rivers-- Applicable location: Ground level; Pad allowed: Both sides
c. Pre-existing_wells-- Applicable location: Reservoir; Pad allowed: Both sides
d. Lease_boundary-- Applicable location: Ground level; Pad allowed: Inside

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 e. Lease_boundary_reservoir-- Applicable location: Reservoir; Pad allowed: Inside
f. Reservoir_boundary-- Applicable location: Reservoir; Pad allowed: Inside
20. Each geometric restriction needs to have a cost function [see the Cost/cost functions section of the
Reference section for more information on this]. This can be generated, or edited, by clicking the
Create/edit cost function button, . To use a pre-existing cost function, use the to drop one into
the Cost input field. Create the following 2 cost functions to be added to each restriction:

Reservoir_boundary/Lease_boundary:

Roads/Rivers/Pre-existing_wells:

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 Optional comments to add to each:
1. This cost function will allow pad well heads and well toes within 20 feet of the applicable boundary surface and
polygons.
2. This cost function describes the allowable drilling proximity to the Roads, Rivers, and Pre-existing wells geometric
restrictions.
The nearest a pad is allowed to any of these surface features is 1000 ft. The cost will be higher the closer a pad is
located to any of these geometric surface restrictions.
21. Drop the appropriate cost functions in the Cost input field for each geometric restriction:

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 22. Press Apply to save these Pad placement specifications in the Pad placement template SAGD.
23. In the Pad selection tab of the Pad placement process, drop two well pad configurations via the
button: 8SAGDX4 and 4SAGD. Other configurations can be added/edited using the create or edit pad
configuration tool [see Section 6].
24. Type in the following specifications for the first pad configuration (for this example the inputs will be
copied by using the Copy/paste button from the 8SAGDX4 to the 4SAGD configuration as is seen below
refer to the Pad selection section for more details):

25. In the Placement options tab, toggle on all of the options and set the minimum and maximum deviations
to range from -90 to 90 degrees with an increment of 5 degrees [for more details see Sensitivity Analysis
on Pad and Well Parameters

User can do a sensitivity analysis on certain pad and well parameters, such as the well length and the pad
orientation, using a Petrel workflow. An example of this may be seen in the figure below, where the string
expression $AZ is used in the Offset field of the Pad placement process:

Figure 8: Example of workflow to sample pad locations at different orientations

26. Pad placement Strategies & Options section. See the below figure:

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27. In the Folder tab, ensure that the Generate pad index surface attribute option is toggled on. Leave the
rest of the input fields blank. The process will automatically generate a results folder containing the
output of the process. To learn more about what the pad index is used for or for other details of the
Folder tab, please refer to Section 4.5 Folder in the Reference section.

28. Now, click the button. This will generate the cost surfaces for the ground level and for the
reservoir level. Allow a few moments for this computation. The resulting surfaces can be found in the

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 newly-created Pad placement outputs (SAGD) folder in the Input pane. Toggle these on one at a time
in a 2D or 3D window to verify that the geometric restrictions were used in the intended way, for
example, that the ground cost surface shows no surface within
29. Next, click to generate the pad surface locations (represented by a point-set) and well
laterals (represented by a line-set). Visualize these point and line-sets (for cost optimized; rotated and
cost optimized; ranked and cost
optimized) in a 2D or 3D window with
the surface restrictions to see how
the pad locations were chosen with
respect to these restrictions. Notice
the distance between a pad location
and a restriction polygon, while
referring to the respective cost
function.
30. The Pad placement point-set can
now be dropped into the Pad well
design input field. Here, the well
trajectories deviating from the pad
well head will be created. Please
refer to the next tutorial, Using the
Pad placement output in the Pad well
design process, for brief guidance in
this procedure. Use the Pad well
design documentation file for more
information regarding the Pad well
design plug-in.
31. Save the project as SAGD_Pad_Placement_Tutorial. Refer to the Pad_Placement_Tutorial_Complete for
the Pad placement outputs including the pad locations point-set and laterals line-set and the
corresponding cost surfaces. Refer to the Reference section for more information regarding any of the
inputs or processes that are used in this tutorial.

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 3.3 USING THE PAD PLACEMENT OUTPUT IN THE PAD WELL DESIGN PROCESS

Here, we will use the pad placement pad location point-set to generate wells in the Pad well design process. It is
recommended to use the same well length, step out, and horizontal spacing distances in both the Pad placement
and Pad well design processes. For this example, we will use the output from the SAGD Example to generate wells
using the Pad well design process.

1. Continue using the SAGD_Pad_Placement_Tutorial.PET Petrel project which was created in the previous
tutorial.
2. Double-click on the Pad well design process icon
(Processes pane>Well engineering folder).
3. Add the following items to the Pad
configurations tab so that it looks like the figure
here:
a. Type SAGD_wells in the Create new
field
b. Drop the Pad locations (rotated and
cost optimized) point-set into the Pad
origin location input field
c. Ensure that all the square check boxes
are enabledthe first 3 indicate to use
the point-set for these pieces of
information, the last check box enables
the Target limit property/surface
attribute functionality.
d. Drop the 8SAGDX4 pad configuration
from the XML drop-down list in the
Default configuration input fieldthis
will be overwritten by the point-set.
e. Drop the Bottom surface into the
Reservoir target input field and type
10 as the Offset value.
f. Drop the Pad index (rotated and cost optimized) (an attribute of the Reservoir surface) in the
Property/surface attribute input field.
g. For the condition, select Defined and use 1, for the condition value in the adjacent field.
h. Press Apply to save this template up to this point.
4. In the Well configurations tab, type in the following input fields and toggle on the following check boxes:
a. Ensure that the relevant square check boxes are enabled.
b. Type in 20 for the Vertical spacing between wells.
c. Drop the Ground_level surface into the Kickoff Elevation input field.
d. Change the Dogleg severity inputs to 15 degrees/100 feet for each of the inputs
e. Press Apply to update the template with the changes made in this tab.

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5. In the Input pane, create a new wells folder (Insert drop-down menu> New well folder). Right-click the
Wells folder, select Insert folder from the list of right-click options. Double-click the newly-added folder
to access the Settings and rename the folder to SAGD_wells.
6. Returning to the Pad well design process, in the
Name and folder tab, change the following fields
and add the newly-created SAGD_wells folder to
the Well folder field, as can be seen in the
adjacent figure:
7. Press Apply to update the SAGD_wells template,
and to begin the Pad well design well
creation process.
8. Allow several minutes for this process to complete
and check the Message log for information
pertaining to how the wells were generated. In this
example, some of the wells extend beyond the
reservoir target surface (because of this there will
be a Petrel message indicating to look at the
Message log); these will be truncated by the
Target limit property / surface attribute option
that is used in the Pad configurations tab of the
Pad well design process. Visualize the wells in a 3D
window to see the wells in relation to the surface
pad locations, the reservoir target surface, and the

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 reservoir geometric restrictions.

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4 REFERENCE

This section describes the operation of each of the inputs of the Pad placement process.

4.1 GROUND SURFACE

The ground surface is used for two things:

1. The z-attribute from the dropped ground surface is the z-value that is used for each (x, y) pad location
that is generated by the process.

2. The surfaces dimension and increment (dx, dy) establishes the potential pad locations. Seen in the
Statistics tab of the surfaces Settings, this increment specifies the level of detail which is to be used in
the Pad placement process. In the Pad placement process, this is the parameter that indicates pad
spacing.
a. For example, a smaller surface increment allows for closer pad surface locations, and a larger
surface increment provides a larger spacing between pad locations.

The ground surface may be edited outside of the Pad placement process with the Petrel Utilities process
Make/edit surface. Here, a pre-existing surface may be edited or regenerated through the use of various tools. To
perform simple operations on a pre-existing surface, a user can alter the depth or x/y locations of the surface
through the surface settings, which can be accessed either by double-clicking on the surface in the Input pane, or
by right-clicking the surface in the Input pane and selecting Settings. Here, the surface may be manipulated in
either the Calculations tab, or in the Operations tab under the Common operations folder or the Surface
operations folder.

One consideration that must be kept in mind is that a wells horizontal length, L, must be longer than the ground
level surface increment, otherwise there is not enough detail for the well to be created. If the well length should
not be changed, the surface increment can be decreased to show a higher resolution and allow for the well length
to be written.

Like in other Petrel processes, the ground surface must be selected in the Input pane prior to pressing the in
the Pad placement process window.

4.2 GEOMETRIC RESTRICTIONS

Restrictions must be one of the following Petrel objects, in the Input pane: closed polygons, polygon lines, or
surfaces. Things like rivers or roads may be best represented as a set of polygon lines, whereas lease boundaries
and city limits may be better represented as closed polygons. Surfaces may be used to describe several things:

1. The ground surface--where the pad points will be located with respect to elevation
2. The reservoir target--where the toe of the pad-wells will end up
3. Cost function of either the reservoir or the ground level--where an attribute from the surface may be used
to create a relative cost scheme (i.e. the gradient-attribute of a surface can be used to create a cost
function where the steeper the gradient is, the greater the costsee the below example of a cost
gradient based on a z-gradient in Figure 1) or the relative proximity to a polygon or line-set may be used
to indicate available pad or well locations.

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 Figure 1: Cost surface based on z-attribute of a surface

The first three fields of a geometric restriction are automatically filled upon the drop of a Petrel object in this input
window. The plug-in uses the name, restriction data type, and polygon set/surface from the dropped geometric
restriction. The name and polygon set/surface can be edited by the user within the Pad placement process.

Each geometric restriction is tied to either the ground level or the reservoir. The combined effect of all the
geometric restrictions generates a cost surface (one for the ground level and one for the reservoir level). Each
geometric restriction must have a cost function associated with it. The cost function is what establishes the
restriction and cost scheme to be associated with the respective restriction.

The logic that manipulates how the polygon or polygon lines are treated is found in the Pad allowed: field, where
the user may specify either Inside, Outside, or Both sides.

The minimum requirement of geometric restrictions (not including the ground level surface that is used in the
Ground level field) to generate pad well locations must include:

Ground level surface or polygonif a ground level surface is dropped into the geometric restriction
window, the extent of the allowable surface pad locations will be limited by the surface boundaries. If a
polygon is used to define this, then Inside must be used in the Pad allowed field to declare that pad
locations must be within the closed polygon at the surface level.
Reservoir surface or polygonthis geometric restriction works the same way as the ground level
geometric restriction. Either a polygon or a surface may be used to limit the drillable area at the
reservoir level.

4.2.1 NAME

By default, the name in this field is filled with the name of the dropped polygon/surface, as is seen in the Input
pane. The name can be changed outside of the Pad placement process through the objects Settings. The name
can also be changed within the process by editing the name in the Name field, but this will not change the name of
the object in the Petrel Input pane; this change will instead only be observed in the Pad placement process. This
distinction may be important when the same polygon/surface is used for multiple restrictions, such as a lease
boundary which is to be applied at the surface and at the reservoir level. In this type of case, it may be convenient
to distinguish these two separate restrictions that use the same input object.

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4.2.2 RESTRICTION DATA TYPE

This field is to simply show what type of restriction has been dropped in the process. If a surface is dropped, then
the surface radial is automatically selected, and consequently, the polygon radial if a polygon restriction is
dropped. This information is attained from the Settings of the object in the Info tab in the type field. The two
available types to be dropped in the Pad placement process are Polygon/lines and surface. Only regular surfaces
can be used as an input (as opposed to structured surfaces).

Polygons must be closed if intended to be used with the Inside or Outside logic in the Pad allowed field.

4.2.3 POLYGON SET / SURFACE

By default, the process adds the respective polygon/surface that is dropped into the Pad placement window. If
desired, the user can change this field by using the button next to Polygon set, the name of the restriction will
remain unchanged. This action will replace the polygon/surface of the geometric restriction that is dropped with
the new polygon/surface, which is useful when replacing an old version of the polygon/surface with an updated
version. The new object that is dropped into this field must match with the previous data type (i.e. a surface must
be replaced by a surface).

4.2.4 APPLICABLE LOCATION

The Applicable location field is used to indicate whether the geometric restriction should contribute to the ground
level or the reservoir level cost surface. The z-elevation of both the ground level and reservoir cost surfaces is 0.
If, for visualization purposes, it would make more sense to see these two cost surfaces at z-depths different than
0, the user can change the depth (through a Settings calculation action) of the respective cost surface, without
jeopardizing the functionality of the cost surface in the Pad placement process.

4.2.5 PAD ALLOWED

This is the condition to be tied to the dropped polygon set. This may be used for closed polygons (Inside or
Outside) or for polygon lines (Both sides).

Inside forces any pad location to be within a given closed polygon

Outside forces pad locations to be outside the specified closed polygon

Both sides allows a pad location to be within a certain distance of either side of a
polygon line

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4.2.6 COST/COST FUNCTIONS

Cost functions are used to generate a cost surface for the ground and reservoir levels. Cost surfaces indicate all the
locations available at the surface and at the reservoir levels, and the relative costs associated with these two
surfaces.

At the most basic level, a cost surface can convey drillable area. This simply states where available pad locations
are at the surface and reservoir level. The cost can be 0, where the range of x-values denotes the closest a well
can be drilled to an object or boundary. The simplest case would indicate a ground level surface where there are
no surface restrictions, and no costs tied to any attribute or border distance. Simply, the drillable area would be
the entire ground level surface, and the cost to drill would be 0 at any given location. Alternatively, the cost
surface can contain much more complexity. Other than indicating drillable area, it can also show cost
conventions with respect to surface and reservoir-defined parameters, like rivers, cities, reservoir thickness, dip
angle, etcetera. This gives the user the ability to incorporate as many of the real-life decision-pending drilling
parameters into the Pad placement process as is coveted.

There may be multiple cost functions or just one, but each geometric restriction added to the Pad placement
process must have at least one specified.

A cost function is in arbitrary units, where x describes the relative distance or property value range to be
considered in the cost function versus the relative Cost. The idea is
to allow a user to create as many cost functions using a variety of
inputs (either through a surface attribute, or polygons, or lines). This
means that a user can establish a cost structure based on any attribute
of a surface. For polygons, the x corresponds to distance. For
example, a cost scheme could be created where the closer a pad is to
the corresponding Petrel object, the higher the cost of the pad/well.

For example, a surface geometric restriction like Rivers may be

represented by polygon lines. The logic that may need to be conveyed
may be something like, we cannot drill within 500 feet of the river, it
will be more expensive to drill within 500-1000 feet, and the cost will
become less, the further we drill from the river. For this logic, x will
refer to the 2D distance to the polygon lines that represent the
Rivers restriction. To indicate that it is impossible to drill within
500 feet of the associated polygon lines Rivers, the first x value will
be 500, with the rest of the logic as seen in the adjacent figure:

The default cost function applies a 0 cost from an x-value of 0 to Figure 2: Cost function example for
rivers/highways/cities
10,000. If applied to polygon geometric restrictions, this means that a
pad location can exist within 0 and 10,000 units from the dropped polygon. The 0 x-value can be seen as the
floor restriction and the 10,000 as the cap.

Additionally, the user has the ability to specify how to treat the x-increments, either as a staircase step function or
as a linear function. The step function allows for a single value between x-intervals, whereas the linear function
makes a linear interpolation between the two cost values of the respective x-increments.

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This example highlights a couple of the available things that cost functions provide. Summarized below, cost
functions allow a user to:

1. Limit the drillable areathe x-min and x-max values limit the proximity/range of drillable locations. By
limiting the minimum or maximum values of x, a user has the ability to limit or enable available drillable
areas at the surface and reservoir levels.
2. Establish a cost scheme relative to a surface propertya cost function may be based on a surface
attribute. A surface attribute, like z-depth can be used to show an increased well cost based on depth. A
surface may have a property like NTG defined, and this can be used in a cost function to indicate non-
drillable locations at the surface level to be where NTG < 0.5.
3. Establish a cost scheme relative to the proximity of polygon linesthis was demonstrated in the above
example with Rivers. Other relative applications could include roads, pipelines, property lines, etc..
a. When Both sides is selected, the cost function is applied to each side of the polygon line.
b. If Inside is selected, anything outside of the closed polygon is not considered, and the cost
function is applied to the inside of the polygon. This can be used to describe the lease area,
reservoir boundary or some other confining restriction.
c. If Outside is selected, anything inside of the closed polygon is not considered, and the cost
function is applied to the outside of the polygon. Applicable examples may include cities,
airfields, residential areas, where drilling may not be allowed within a given representative
polygon, and may be more expensive the closer a pad is to the given polygon boundary.

4.3 PAD SELECTION

In this tab, the user selects which pad configurations should be considered for the Pad placement process. The list
of pad configurations can be found in an XML configuration file, and can be edited using a text editor to add or
change the available pad configurations. To learn more about how to edit pad configurations, please refer to
Section 6. The user can add as many pad well configurations as is desired.

In the Pad placement process, the extent of the pad wells is considered in order to determine the areal extent of
each pad (with all wells considered) so that the effectiveness of each pad is maximized. The inputs of this tab allow
for user-specified well border distance and horizontal spacing of wells. These influence the contact area of a single
pad.

4.3.1 PAD SELECTION

Once a pad configuration has been added (via the Add new specification/New row button, ), two fields in
the Pad selection process are populated: Specification name and Pad well head preview. The Specification name
repeats the name that is specified in the configuration file. This can be edited to appear differently within this
process by changing it in the Specification name field. This may also be changed in the XML configuration file, but
changes to the configuration file must be done carefully and with the understanding that any change made to the
file is a local change that does not apply to the configuration files of other Pad placement/Pad well design users.
Just as with the name field in the Geometric restrictions input, the name field here provides the user with the
ability to provide more contextual information in the name of a pad configuration.

The Pad well head preview generates a schematic of how the different wells in the pad will be organized based on
the geometry specified in the create or edit pad configuration dialogue. In brief, this is meant to show the

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individual wells location with reference to the pad location. See the preview shown for a 16 well pad, containing 8
wells on each side:

Figure 3: Example of Pad well head preview for 16-well pad

The Pad placement process considers this list of configurations sequentially: first, trying to use the first pad
configuration, followed by the second configuration in the list, and so on. If none of the pad configurations from
the list can be used, then that location is left empty. It is generally recommended to start the list with the most
desirable pad configuration first, the next most desirable pad configuration second, and so on, so that the least
number of pads may be used to supply the most number of wells.

4.3.2 PAD AND WELL PARAMETERS

Here, the user needs to enter some of the relative well information for the selected pad configuration. This is used
to estimate where the respective wells toes will end up aerially with respect to the pad well head. This is
important in determining if the wells in a given pad will remain inside the specified reservoir target. Each input
changes the final location of the end point of this well trajectory in the x-y plane.

The below figure shows the relationship between the points used in the well trajectory and the respective input
fields:

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 X/Y axis

Z axis

Figure 4: Cross section of well schematic, illustrating defining well points

Aerially, this translates to the following depiction of wells departing from a pad well head:

Figure 5: Aerial schematic of pad well parameters

The pad orientation field is the pads azimuth. This field is used to indicate the degree orientation that a pad has.
The sum of the surface attribute, dropped in the Stress surface attribute field, plus the value in the Offset field (by
default this is 0) is used to indicate at what orientation the pad should be at. In the Placement options tab, there

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is an option to Automatically rotate the pad and check for all orientations, which samples a range of orientations
at specific increments to determine the best orientation of a pad; see Section 4.4.1 for more on this.

Well length from heel to toe is the length of the well from the heel point to the toe point of the well. This is used to
determine the length of the horizontal lateral of the designed well.

The drainage area is defined as the bounding box of all the points representing the heels and toes, plus Bx and By
on both sides.

The drainage area calculation does not take orientation into accountthe calculation is based on 0-degree
orientation. It calculates the theoretical drainage area that will be affected by a well in the pad.

The minimum well length from heel to toe allows the user to set a minimum required length. If this minimum is not
met, then the well will not be created. If this field is left to be the default value, 0, then the minimum required
well length is the value entered in the Well length from heel to toe field.

Horizontal spacing between wells specifies the spacing between the heel (or toe) locations of two or more wells in
a pad.

Step out from the well head to the heel is the lateral distance allowed between the well head point and the heel
point of the well trajectory. Please see Figure 4, above.

The Border distance controls the minimum distance between wells in a neighboring pad. This provides the x-
distance and y-distance that the nearest well from an adjacent pad may exist at with relation to the wells of a
given pad. Either one of the border distance inputs uses twice the entered distance to provide the relative
proximity that pad wells should have to one another (Figure 5).

NOTES

A radial well configuration does not use the horizontal spacing input parameter, instead, the heel and toe
are calculated from the other input parameters and the XML configuration
A wells step out should be entered with discretion. By not providing enough step out distance, or by
providing too much step out, a wells dog leg severity may be violated, or an infeasible well may be
created. See the below example, which makes the difference in step-out inputs apparent after generating
wells in the Pad well design process:

Figure 6: Unfeasible well pad; step out of 600

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 Figure 7: Feasible well pad; step out of 800

4.3.3 SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS ON PAD AND WELL PARAMETERS

User can do a sensitivity analysis on certain pad and well parameters, such as the well length and the pad
orientation, using a Petrel workflow. An example of this may be seen in the figure below, where the string
expression $AZ is used in the Offset field of the Pad placement process:

Figure 8: Example of workflow to sample pad locations at different orientations

4.4 PAD PLACEMENT STRATEGIES & OPTIONS

In this tab, users can choose between two strategies and various options. The strategies available are pad
rotation and rank by pad count. Each strategy uses a different approach to determine pad placement locations.
If both strategies are selected, then each strategy will be used separately, and the strategy that yields the largest
number of wells will be the final output from the Pad placement process.

Options can be used to modify the pad locations generated by the various strategies to further maximize the
reservoir coverage. The possible options are optimize ground cost and generate pad locations for all selected
strategies.

4.4.1 PAD PLACEMENT STRATEGIES

AUTOMATIC ORIENTATION SAMPLING

By selecting the Automatically rotate the pad and check for all orientations, the pad orientation will be sampled
at the user-defined increment through the user-defined range of orientations. The minimum and maximum
deviation orientations set the minimum and maximum extents for the pad orientation sampling in this process.
The increment input allows the user to specify at what increment the orientation range should be sampled at. The
minimum deviation input is counter clock-wise from the 0 deg. Origin, and the maximum deviation input is clock-
wise.

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This strategy first generates as many pad locations at the initial input orientation in the Stress surface attribute
field, or, if no surface is added here, in the adjacent Offset field. After this, additional pad orientations are
considered by rotating the pads clockwise/counter-clockwise for the range of orientations provided by the user, at
the increment specified to determine if additional pads can be placed at a slightly different orientation. For this
reason, the plug-in generates as many pads along the preferred orientation as possible.

Well laterals are outputs in conjunction with the pad locations to represent the well specifications and areal extent
of possible wells for each pad. These are based on the well specifications in the Pad selection tab of the Pad
placement process. The laterals are useful in comparing to pad locations and restriction parameters.

RANK BY PAD COUNT

The Rank by pad count strategy aims to further maximize the total pad count. By enabling it, the number of top-
listed pads that can be placed in the I-direction is counted. The strategy considers other combinations varying the
different applicable pad configurations in the Pad selection list, and selects the best combination of pads (the
option having the highest number of pad wells in the I-direction) as the final choice.

If this strategy is to be used, please ensure that the surfaces I-direction coincides with the pad well orientation. If
there is a mismatch, this configuration optimization may not work as intended.

4.4.2 PAD PLACEMENT OPTIONS

OPTIMIZE GROUND COST

The cost minimization that is done in the Optimize ground cost option will not eliminate pads, since the primary
goal of the Pad placement process is to maximize reservoir contact, but rather will shift existing pad locations in
order to reduce the total cost, if possible. For example, within the same increment a pad may be shifted from a
ground location with a surface cost of 10 to a location with a
surface cost of 8, as is seen in the optimization performed in Figure
9. The orange point-set shows the pad locations without cost
optimization, and the blue point-set shows the new pad location
after cost optimization. For the same reservoir coverage, this pad
may be created for 20% less of the cost.

The cost optimization process takes an iterative approach, since

moving a pad from one location to another may enable additional
movements for the pads nearby. Therefore the optimization
process can be time consuming as multiple iterations may be
needed. The plug-in requires that each successive optimization
iteration to produce lower cost such that if the optimization is
stopped before it is complete, the plug-in can output pad locations
that bear no higher cost than the pad locations without the
Figure 9: Cost optimization example
optimization.

This is useful in demonstrating a sort of cost sensitivity between two potential pad locations. But, as mentioned
above, the first priority is to maximize the contact with the reservoir surface; and so the cost optimization is only
an adjustment of the strategy-generated points.

PAD LOCATIONS FOR ALL STRATEGIES

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The Generate pad locations for all selected strategies option will show the pad locations for each of the selected
strategies. If this is not toggled on, only the case with highest reservoir coverage will be output as the final pad
locations point set. When this option is toggled on, every case is output as a result from the Pad placement
process.

4.5 FOLDER

In the Folder tab, a user can select a destination folder for the results of this process. This includes the two cost
surfaces and the Pad locations point set. If this field is left blank, a new folder will be generated in the Input pane
where the results of the Pad placement process will be sent to. This folders name will be based on the Pad
placement process name: Pad placement outputs (<Case name>). The user has the ability to clear the
destination folder upon each iteration by toggling on the Clear the results folder option. If this option is left
unchecked, the results folder will not be cleared each time, and the Pad placement results will accumulate with
each subsequent run of the process. The cost surfaces are replaced irrespective of whether this option is chosen or
not. The Pad locations point set will either be replaced upon each run of this process or left to accrue after each
run, depending on whether this option is selected or not.

The Show pad location in active window option allows the user to see the pad locations as they are created by
the Pad locations generation process in the active window. If this option is not toggled on, the user may
manually display the output Pad locations point set by toggling on the point set found in the destination folder in
the Input pane.

The Pad index surface attribute option enables the creation of pad index attribute(s) under the Reservoir cost
surface. The value of the attribute corresponds to the index of the pad location in the point set. If a pad is placed
with the full well length, the pad index attribute value is the index of the pad in the pad location point set. If a pad
is placed with the minimum well length, the pad index attribute value is the negative of the index of the pad. This
surface attribute can be used later in the Pad well design process to restrict the reservoir target in the Limit
property input. See the Pad well design documentation for more info on how to do this.

4.6 AVAILABLE ACTIONS

On the first iteration, it is recommended to press the Cost surface and Pad location buttons separately. A
description of the buttons functionality can be found below:

The button is used to generate the two cost surfaces, one for the reservoir and one for the
ground level. The cost surfaces will reflect the total cost, attained from the summation of each of the cost
functions.

The button cannot be clicked until cost surfaces are generated. This button generates the pad
locations point set. It considers the maximum number of pads to be placed at the ground level in order to
maximize contact with the reservoir.

The button first runs the Cost Surface process, followed by the Pad
Locations process in one click.

The Apply, OK and Cancel buttons perform the regular Petrel actions.

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While running the Cost Surface or Pad Locations process, the status of the process can be seen in the
bottom right-hand of the Petrel project. While either process is running, near to the progress meter, there is a
Stop button, which the user can select to terminate the respective process, as is seen below:

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5 EDITING THE PROPOSED WELLS

Once the pad locations have been created, there are three ways in which the point-set can be further edited:

Spreadsheet
Settings for Pad locations
Moving individual points in a 3D window, using the Make/edit polygons Petrel utility process

5.1 SPREADSHEET

To edit a proposed pad-location using the point-sets spreadsheet, right mouse click on the Pad locations point-
set, choose Spreadsheet and edit the x/y/z points of a pads location, or the trajectory control points seen in the
other columns of the spreadsheet. See Figure 10:

Figure 10: Example of point spreadsheet for Pad locations point-set

5.2 SETTINGS FOR PAD LOCATIONS

Access the Settings for the Pad locations point-set (in the Input pane, either
right-click the point-set, and select Settings, or double-click the Pad locations
point-set). Under the Operations tab, use the various options found under the
Common operations folder to scale, translate, or rotate the entire point-set.
Simply select on the desired operation, fill the relevant input parameter, and
select .

See Figure 11 to see how a point-set is translated by 2000 in the x-direction

using this process:

Figure 11: Example of translating points in the x-

direction through Settings operations

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 5.3 MOVING INDIVIDUAL POINTS IN A 3D WINDOW

Here, points can be shifted by the mouse in a 3D window. Open a new 3D window. Click on the Make/edit
polygons process (Processes pane>Utilities folder> Make/edit polygons) so that its text is bold (this enables the
Make/edit polygons active function bar buttons, found on the right side of the Petrel window).

Visualize the Pad placement point-set. Click on the Make/edit points button, , found in the Function bar. Ensure
that the pointer button ( ) is toggled on in the Function bar. With both of these buttons toggled on, click one of
the visualized points. A vertical cylinder and horizontal plane will appear through the center of the point. Click the
left-mouse button on the cylinder and drag the mouse to move the point vertically. Click the left-mouse button on
the horizontal plane and drag the mouse to move the point along the horizontal plane. Different lines and planes
will appear based on which portion of the point is selected (cylinder or plane) and the movement of the mouse.
These are to aid in moving points in 3D. Using the mouse, the points can be moved to their desired positions. See
Figure 12 below for an example of how this is done:

Figure 12: Editing point locations in a 3D window through the Make/edit points feature

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6 PAD CONFIGURATION

The XML file is named:

WellPadDesignPadConfigurations.xml

and stored in:

C:\Users\userid\AppData\Roaming\Schlumberger\Petrel\2013.1

Note: precise location may vary depending on your operating system.A default configuration file is supplied with
the plug-in, and is automatically copied to this location if not already present each time the plug-in process is
opened.

The configuration file is edited when a well

pad configuration is created within the Pad
placement plug-in. To create a new well
pad configuration, open the Pad placement
process dialogue. Go to the Pad selection
and click the Open pad configuration file
icon (looks like a notepad). In previous
versions of this plug-in, it was necessary to
manually edit the XML file. This process is
no longer necessary.

To create a new well pad configuration,

follow these steps:

1. Click on the Open pad

configuration file icon.
2. Toggle Create new to create a
new configuration or Preview existing to view existing configurations.
3. If creating a new configuration, select the number of wells.
4. Customize the Horizontal spacing, Step out, and Well length. Note: There is the ability to toggle between
a Lateral view and the Wellhead view of the selected well pad configuration when previewing existing
configurations. This allows the user to visually see the existing pad configuration.
5. Click Next to adjust the Number of rows, Space between wellheads, and Row space. Wellhead view will
automatically be viewed during this step.
6. Click Next to specify lateral directions for each well. By default, these are perpendicular to the
wellheads/pad orientation. Lateral view will automatically be used during this step.
7. Click Apply to save the new pad configuration. This configuration will now appear in the Preview
existing drop-down menu. Note: This will automatically update and save the
WellPadDesignPadConfigurations.xml file.

39
Creating a new configuration:

Specifying number of rows and spacing:

40
Specifying lateral directions:

Once a configuration is saved (by clicking Apply), it can be selected in the Pad selection tab:

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7 APPENDIX

**TIP: These surface restrictions may be generated using Petrel utilities like Make/edit polygons, Make/edit surfaces. This may
be very time-consuming and maybe only a representation of the true surface restrictions. Another approach is to first input the
coordinates relative to the field location (Menu bar>Project settings>Coordinates and units tab). Next, use online public data
sources like the Railroad commission, or state oil and gas commission websites. Here, there are many public land surface
objects, like roads, rivers, pipes, topography, and land plot outlines that can be attained and used within Petrel at the exact
coordinate-referenced location of the field. Another approach is to create a surface from satellite imagery (now available in
Petrel 2013 by using some of the new Studio features), where an image-based surface can be used to make the respective
polygons and surfaces needed for the Pad placement process.

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