Drilling Evolves as Exploration Campaign Moves to Deeper Water Offshore Mexico

During the 10-year period between 2003 and 2013, Mexico drilled 30 deep- and ultradeepwater wells in water depths ranging from 512 to 2900 m. During this exploration period, the learning curve has improved with each subsequent level of difficulty and increased well depth. In order to reach water depths greater than 1500 m, both the wellbore geometry and the real-time data-acquisition strategy have changed.

Introduction

Fig. 1 shows how wellbore geometry evolved to reach geological targets and how the various hole diameters changed to meet exploration objectives.