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URTeC: 2889444

TST3D: Automated Structural Interpretation in Horizontal Wellbores


Tuanfeng Zhang*1, David McCormick1, Allan Nandlal2, Marie LeFranc1
1. Reservoir Geosciences, Schlumberger-Doll Research, Cambridge, MA, United States
2. Schlumberger, Denver, CO, United States
Copyright 2018, Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC) DOI 10.15530/urtec-2018-2889444

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference held in Houston, Texas, USA, 23-25 July 2018.

The URTeC Technical Program Committee accepted this presentation on the basis of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). The contents of this paper
have not been reviewed by URTeC and URTeC does not warrant the accuracy, reliability, or timeliness of any information herein. All information is the responsibility of, and, is
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is prohibited.

Abstract

Horizontal wells dominate the development of unconventional shale reservoirs. Using real time drilling data to steer
in a target zone is the key to economic success. Today structural interpretation in unconventional horizontal wells is
a manual process that is time consuming, tedious, and error-prone, especially because gamma-ray (GR) logs are
commonly the only available logging-while-drilling (LWD) data. For the first time, we have developed a method to
automate interpretation of subsurface structure.

TST3D (true stratigraphic thickness in 3D) automates structural interpretation using pattern recognition. Given an
initial structural model, TST3D automatically computes TST as the shortest distance from each wellbore survey
location to the initial surface and then matches GR patterns in the horizontal well to those seen in a vertical pilot
well in TST domain. TST3D inserts fold hinges, bends the structure, then recomputes the modeled GR response,
progressively matching the pilot well log signature, from heel to toe in the horizontal well. We make three
assumptions in the current TST3D: constant layer thickness across the drilled interval, GR variation follows
structural layering and no faults. Those assumptions are reasonable in most shale plays.

TST3D can be applied in either a post-drill mode for structural interpretation or real-time mode for automated
geosteering. Field tests in different shale plays and complex well trajectories demonstrate that TST3D runs quickly:
a structural model of a 10,000-ft horizontal section can be computed in minutes, and a real-time update of 100 ft of
new data takes less than a minute. Automating the geosteering correlation process would allow well placement
engineers to cover multiple wells simultaneously, increasing the efficiency of the team while potentially improving
service quality. Beyond structural interpretation, we believe that TST3D has great potential to contribute to the
digital transformation of formation evaluation and drilling automation.

Introduction

Many oil- and gas-bearing reservoirs have been drilled using highly deviated and horizontal wells. Such wells are
essential to the successful development of unconventional reservoirs, especially when combined with advanced
hydraulic fracturing techniques. Even though horizontal wells are more expensive to drill, they are still economically
viable. Such wells are preferred by operators because they enhance productivity due to increased exposure of
reservoir rock to the wellbore. However, structural interpretation of horizontal wells remains challenging because a
horizontal wellbore may penetrate the same stratigraphic layer many times at varying angles, which makes it
difficult to align and correlate measurement signatures along highly deviated or horizontal well trajectories.

The current approach used for the structural interpretation of horizontal wells in the oil industry is manual and
tedious. It typically requires a reference vertical pilot well close to the horizontal well so that an initial model of log
response, for example, gamma ray, can be created at the candidate lateral well locations. These local property
models typically have constant values within model layers extrapolated from the pilot well location. Then, a vertical
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slice is extracted from the layer-cake property model, called a curtain section, commonly with constant layer
thickness; it is bent by manually inserting series of vertical hinges along the well as the measured depth (MD)
increases. A new modeled log response is calculated from the intersection of the well path with the deformed model.
The modeled log response is compared to the real measurements along the wellbore. If there is a mismatch between
modeled and measured log response, the number, locations, and angles of the bends in the curtain section are
changed. This manual process of hinge-insertion and bending is repeated until an acceptable level of match is
attained as judged by the user.

Before we introduce principle of our true stratigraphic thickness in 3D (TST3D) methodology, it is helpful to outline
key concepts of formation depth and thickness.

The following specifications apply to the depth measurement:


• Measured depth (MD) is depth recorded along the length of the wellbore (Figure 1).
• True vertical depth (TVD) is the vertical distance from a point along the well to a point at the surface (Figure
1), usually the elevation of the Kelly Bushing (KB). MD differs from TVD in all but truly vertical wells. MD

Figure 1: MD is the length of the path of the wellbore. In a perfectly vertical well, MD is the same as TVD. In a deviated wellbore such as that
shown here, MD is greater than TVD.

is always equal to or greater than TVD, due to wellbore deviation.

The thickness of rock layers can be measured in the following ways:


• Measured log thickness (MLT) is the thickness of a given interval measured along the well trajectory.
• True vertical depth thickness (TVDT) is the MLT between two specific points in a deviated well, measured in
TVD.
• True vertical thickness (TVT) is the thickness measured vertically across a stratigraphic layer.
• True stratigraphic thickness (TST) is the thickness of a rock layer measured perpendicular to the stratigraphic
(depositional) layering.

These different thickness measures are illustrated in Figure 2 for a deviated well that is drilled down-dip and
penetrates a dipping layer at an oblique angle. Note that TST is always less than or equal to TVT and MLT. If a
vertical well cuts through a horizontal bed, TST = TVT.

TST is commonly computed using the Setchell equations (Tearpock and Bischke 2003, p. 95):

𝑇𝑉𝑇 = 𝑀𝐿𝑇[cos(𝜑) − sin(𝜑) cos(𝛼) tan (𝜃)] (1)

𝑇𝑆𝑇 = 𝑇𝑉𝑇𝑐𝑜𝑠(𝜃) (2)


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where φ is wellbore deviation, α is angle difference between the bedding azimuth and the wellbore section azimuth,
and θ is the bedding dip. The Setchell equations assume a planar bedding surface cut through by a straight wellbore.

Gamma ray (GR) measurements are commonly used for well-to-well correlation in vertical wells in TVD domain;
however, the method proves difficult when applied to horizontal wellbores to identify the formation structures. This
is caused by the distortion of GR patterns in TVD domain when a horizontal wellbore penetrates a formation with
variations in dip, resulting in mismatch between down-going and up-going GR in TVD domain along the wellbore
trajectory unless the bedding plane is perfectly flat, which is rarely the case.

To overcome the limitation, TST is considered a better tool for structural interpretation in horizontal wells.

Figure 2: Thickness measurements in a well deviated down-dip, penetrating a stratigraphic layer; θ = bedding dip and φ = wellbore deviation.

Earlier work on the use of TST or related concepts and tools for the structural interpretation in horizontal wells can
be found in, for example, Bateman and Hepp (1981), Stoner (2007), Azike (2011), Berg and Newson (2013), and
Liang et al. (2015). However, all previous work and existing structural interpretation methodology and
implementations in horizontal wells involve a time-consuming manual process for model updates and comparison
regardless of the domain they are performed in (TVD or TST).

TST3D Concepts

The purpose of TST3D is to automate the structural interpretation process by fast computation and update of TST in
three-dimensional space and perform accurate GR model updates and comparison using true dip and dip azimuth
angles of the formation. Our program generates 3D near-wellbore structural models, rather than 2D curtain sections,
using GR pattern-matching between the measurements in horizontal wells and in pilot wells using the TST
projection.

TST3D is defined as a shortest distance between any point along the wellbore to a reference surface. In Figure 3, at
locations A, B, and C, the shortest distances can be computed as the distance between the point and a tangent plane
of the surface. By convention, TST3D is positive if the point is below the reference surface; otherwise, TST3D is
negative. In this case, a reference surface is a stratigraphic surface that is parallel to the depositional surface and the
stratigraphic layering is parallel to this reference surface. If this is true, the shortest distance between a
(stratigraphic) reference surface and a point along the borehole path is equal to TST. This is likely the case when
dealing with unconventional mudstone depositional environments.
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This approach extends the traditional two-dimensional TST concept, which generally assumes constant interval
thickness, and constant formation dip, and requires the well to cut through the top and base of the target zone.
TST3D makes no assumptions about formation dip, bed thickness, or well log signature.

Figure 3: TST3D definition and computation

We recommend using vertical pilot wells in TST3D when available. Otherwise, a pseudo pilot well can be created
by TST3D and treated as a pilot well. A pseudo pilot log is built by projecting measurements from a horizontal or
deviated well parallel to a structural reference surface, which could be a planar surface with a single dip or a horizon
interpreted from seismic data.

Either reference GR logs or squared logs can be used to build initial GR models on which TST3D will operate. Log
squaring (Moghaddamjoo 1989) discretizes the original continuous GR log in the pilot well into fewer finite number
of GR values that are constant within a layer.

The typical use of log squaring is to help in the identification of layer boundaries. TST3D runs faster using
discretized squared logs instead of the original continuous log; however, it tends to slightly reduce the quality of the
match between the forward model log and the GR measurements from the horizontal well.

If the stratigraphic thickness along the wellbore is approximately constant and GR variation follows the stratigraphic
layering, projecting the GR in TST domain and displaying it in a series log panels based on drilling polarity helps to
correlate GR patterns in horizontal wells.

Figure 4 illustrates how displaying GR measurements in TST domain will lead to the overlap of down-going and up-
going GR (far left display). This GR alignment by TST becomes more obvious when we show a series of TST
panels defined by the well either drilling down (black arrows) or up (red arrows) because the same TST should yield
the same GR character. Note that if the assumptions for TST3D are met, well markers should become flattened in
TST domain, such as is shown in the two high-GR layers A and B indicated in this example.

The key idea in TST3D is to automate the process to align the GR measurement patterns in Figure 4 by finding the
optimal formation dip iteratively by searching possible locations for fold hinges and bending angles. This is
achieved by overlaying the forward-modeled GR curve from the curtain section, which is created from the pilot GR,
on each split panel in TST domain, and comparing the GR forward model with the signature of the actual
measurement from the horizontal well. If two GR patterns are similar and reasonably aligned, the match is accepted
and the corresponding search dip angle is chosen as the best local structural dip.

This process proceeds by moving from the heel to the toe of the well until a satisfactory match between the forward
model and the measurements is obtained across all the well.
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Figure 4: Correlating GR patterns in a horizontal wellbore by TST projection. Far left, the display of the GR meaurements in the horizonztal
wellbore in TST domain leading to the overlap of the down-going and up-going GR signatures. Right, the display in split panels in terms of
drilling polarity. The wellbore trajectory across all the split panels is shown by a thick dark blue curve in TST domain.

TST3D can work with complex well trajectories in 3D, for example, a wellbore survey with both frequent change of
inclination and variation of azimuthal, as illustrated in Figure 5. The black sinuous curve is the 3D wellbore, and the
dashed zig-zag curve is the 2D projection on the XY-plane. The red rectangular box indicates a regressed plane of
the wellbore section that consists of vertical fences with variation of azimuths. α is the azimuthal angle of the
regressed plane. Note that the bedding dip direction is towards east, which is different from the wellbore section.

TST3D starts from where the reference surface intersects the horizontal well. In practice, the reference surface could
be a regional tectonic trend, a seismic horizon, or a simple bedding plane as the initial input to guide the search of
optimal dip angles. Given a fold hinge location, for each individual trial dip angle, a planar surface is created by the
dip and given azimuthal angles; TST is computed as described in Figure 3. Both the GR measurements and the
forward-modeled models corresponding to the tested surface are compared using the split panels by TST3D such as
in Figure 4.

The mismatch error between the forward model and GR measurements is defined as averaged relative error (ARE)
in the studied TS3D split panel interval, which is computed by:
H
1 |𝐺𝑅(𝑖) − 𝐺𝑅_𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑙(𝑖) |
𝐴𝑅𝐸 = ? (3)
𝑁 𝐺𝑅(𝑖)
IJK
Where GR(i) is the i-th sample of the measurements in the TST domain, GR_model(i) is the corresponding forward
modeled GR log value, and N is the total number of the samples in the split TST panel interval. This mismatch error
is a standardized L1-norm and has proved to be useful in TST3D pattern matching.

An error threshold is specified by the user, and all split panels below the error are accepted. The corresponding
planar surface that is generated will be locked. The TST3D moves to a location where the error in the consecutive
split panel exceeds the threshold, a new fold hinge is inserted, and a new search for the optimal dip angle is
performed. This process is shown in Figure 5.
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Figure 5: The TST3D process. Left, a complex well trajectory in 3D (sinuous black curve) and its projection onto the XY-plane (dashed line), a
top initial bedding plane (dark red) and lower markers (shaded planes), vertical red box representing the regressed plane of the wellbore section,
and blue vertical box indicating the formation dip direction from west to east. Right, after TDT3D finds the optimal dip angle that leads to the best
matching between the forward model and GR measurements up to a new MD location, it starts at the new location by bending the plane by its true
dip and dip direction to search the best match. The new bedding plane (red) passes the inspecting point between the wellbore section and the
previous plane and has the dip angle that is being searched for and the azimuthal angle extracted from the input reference surface. The blue-shaded
rectangular box represents a vertical plane that passes the intersecting hinge line between the two bedding planes. Note that this intersection plane
is not necessarily perpendicular to the wellbore section.

TST3D Work Steps

We demonstrate TST3D work steps with a synthetic example. Figure 6 shows the final TST3D curtain section
created from the TST3D modeling process. The x-axis is true horizontal length (THL). THL is defined as a
cumulated length of the projected wellbore trajectory onto the XY plane when it moves from the starting MD to the
toe of the wellbore, such as the cumulated length of the dashed line in Figure 5 (left). The TST3D curtain section as
shown in Figure 6 has three components:

1. The upper panel compares original raw gamma measurements from the horizontal well (green) to the
modeled gamma ray (red), which is created based on the pilot GR. The vertical blue lines represent the
wellbore THL locations that cut the predefined top and specified key markers (marker named TS in this
example).
2. The middle panel shows the intersection of the final model with the plane of the curtain section. The x-axis
is THL and the y-axis is TVD. The color bar shows the magnitude of GR values shown in the middle and
bottom panels. Each intersecting point between the wellbore and each marker is indicated by a circle with a
plus sign.
3. The lower panel shows the model and well path in TST versus THL. Each location of the change in drilling
polarity is indicated by a blue circle. The drilling polarity indicates drilling down versus up in a
stratigraphic frame of reference.

The entire process of creating TST3D models is fully automated. TST3D progressively generates the structural
model by identifying optimal dip change locations to best match the measurements from the heel to the toe or total
depth (TD) of the wellbore.

The internal GR pattern matching is performed in TST3D by splitting further the drilling polarity panels into
subpanels in TST domain. The subpanels are considered in sequence from the left to the right (heel to toe), and they
are accepted or rejected based on the computed mismatching error (see Eq. 3).

Figure 7 displays the split panels of the final TST3D curtain section of Figure 6. All the log panels are hung off the
same reference surface that the user supplied. Each panel shows original GR measurements (green) and the model
(red). The x-axis is the gamma ray magnitude, and the y-axis is the TST from the final deformed reference surface.
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In this example as shown in Figure 7, there are 22 split panels, each of which corresponds to further splitting of the
wellbore for a specific drilling polarity. For example, split panels S2-1, S2-2, and S2-3 indicate that there are three
split panels for the second wellbore segment (S2) of drilling polarity. In each panel display, the two THL values
displayed indicate the start and end of the wellbore interval for the respective panel. The two markers Top and TS
are surfaces in the TST domain displayed across all the split panels as two horizontal lines (pink and gray). Each
dashed brown arrow at the right side of the split panel indicates the drilling polarity for that interval of the wellbore.

Figure 8, Figure 9, and Figure 10 show the intermediate curtain sections that are generated by TST3D before
reaching an optimal result (Figure 6).

At the start, TST3D operates from the far left (heel) of the curtain and searches for an optimal dip angle that leads to
the best matching between the measurements and the forward model. Figure 8 shows the original horizontal
structural model produces satisfactory matching up to THL=3,428 ft (MD=4,391 ft), which is indicated by a green
vertical line. The dashed red line in the top display of the curtain section indicates the THL interval with a
mismatching error above the threshold specified by the user.

After the first operation, the accepted panels are from S1-1 to S3-9 ( Figure 7). The panel S4-1 corresponding to the
flat bedding plane is rejected because the mismatching error exceeds the error threshold (=5% of the range of the GR
measurements in this test case).

Next, TST3D operates at the location THL=3,428 ft where the mismatching occurs by bending the previous planar
surface to search for the second optimal dig angle (Figure 5, right). The resulting optimal dip angle is 1.4° and the
accepted matching THL reaches to 3,849 ft (MD=4,813 ft) (Figure 9). The matched TST3D split panels now move
to the panel S4-2 (Figure 7).

In searching for the optimal dip angle by testing each bended bedding plane, TST is recomputed and all the split
panels are updated; the previously matched panels are locked and remain the same because the surface with
satisfactory matching is fixed.

Figure 10 shows the consecutive curtain sections by TST3D. The optimal dip change locations are at THL=4,328 ft,
5,066 ft and 5,565 ft, and the corresponding dip angles are 3.1°, 4.3°, and 2.2°, respectively. Consequently, the green
vertical hinge lines move toward the toe of the horizontal wellbore.

In this example, a structural model is generated by TST3D with seven optimal dip angles that are identified. They
are 0, 1.4°, 3.1°, 4.3°, 2.2°, 3.1°, and 1.9° in sequence from left to right. After TST3D completion, all the split
panels are matched across the entire wellbore (Figure 7).
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Figure 6: A structural curtain section model generated by TST3D. In the upper panel measured GR is in green and modeled GR is in red; this is
the same in all subsequent curtain section displays. The middle panel shows the structural model in TVD (x,y,z) domain with the wellbore in its
true spatial location. The lower panel shows the projection of the wellbore path into TST domain, based on distance from the reference surface in
3D. Essentially, the structural model is flattened on the reference surface.

Figure 7: GR logs displayed in split panels in TST domain corresponding to the TST3D model in Figure 6.
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Figure 8: First bedding plane with dip =0° by TST3D that matches the GR measurements up to THL=3,428 ft (MD=4,391 ft). In the upper panel,
measured GR is green and model GR is red.

Figure 9: The second updating of the structural surface with dip=1.4° by TST3D up to THL=3,849 ft (MD=4,813 ft).
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Figure 10: Top, the third updating of the structural surface with dip=3.1° by TST3D up to THL=4,328 ft (MD=5,295 ft). Middle: the fourth
updating of the structural surface with dip=4.3° by TST3D up to THL=5,066 ft (MD=6,034 ft). Bottom, the fifth updating of the structural surface
with dip=2.2° up to THL=5,565 ft (MD=6,533 ft).
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If no satisfactory match is found during a given bending operation, TST3D can “roll back” to a previous point of
bending to investigate alternative interpretation paths. At each bend, an operation tree (OT) is generated in the
automated process that stores different bending hypotheses (bending THL locations and true dip angles). It is a
binary tree and each node stores the information for the best solution and another for the second-best solution. If the
best solution fails to find an optimal solution farther down the well, then the second-best solution can be used
without starting over from the beginning. This makes TST3D computation very efficient.

TST3D also uses a GR histogram equalization from the pilot well to the horizontal well to ensure both have the
same magnitude of variation. This is useful given the fact that the GR from the pilot well might be acquired by
wireline logging tools and undergo environmental corrections whereas the GR measurements in horizontal wells are
from logging-while-drilling (LWD) tools (Xu et al. 2016). As a result, absolute GR values could be different
between pilot and lateral well, but their trends are likely to be similar. This GR transformation helps the comparison
between the forward model and GR measurements in TST split panels in the TST3D operation process.

Application

Post-Drill Structural Interpretation

TST3D can be applied in post-drill mode for structural interpretation in the near horizontal wellbore region. Figure
11 is a stratigraphic curtain section generated by TST3D for a horizontal well drilled in Permian basin. The regional
structure approximately dips northeast with a very low dip magnitude of 0.5° and a dip azimuth of 35°. An offset
vertical pilot well is available and its squared GR log is used to build an initial curtain section. TST3D progressively
identifies the optimal structural dips by searching for the best match between the forward GR model (step-wise red
curve at the top display) and the LWD GR measurements (continuous green curve at the top display).

The final stratigraphic curtain section in TVD suggests that the wellbore penetrates the key marker SS at
THL=2,690 ft (MD=11,780 ft), lands roughly at THL=3,000 ft and then drills up and stays below the marker all the
way to the toe of the wellbore. The interpreted drilling polarity is shown in the bottom display and the key marker
becomes flattened in the TST domain.

Figure 11: Stratigraphic curtain section built by TST3D that uses a squared pilot GR and matches the GR measurements in the horizontal well in
automated fashion. A sequence of optimal dip change locations is identified using GR pattern matching in TST domain in split panels. The bottom
display shows the drilling polarity in TST. The wellbore penetrates the key marker SS at THL=2,690 ft (MD=11,780 ft) and stays below it all the
way to the toe of the well survey.
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Real-Time Geosteering

This example shows the application of TST3D in the process of a real-time geosteering job. It simulates the drilling
of a real-time horizontal well by incrementally feeding LWD GR measurements and well survey data in TST3D.
This horizontal well is drilled in a shale formation, and a pilot well GR profile is used by TST3D to steer the
wellbore in the target zone by matching LWD GR measurements using automated TST projection.

In real time mode user can monitor the changes. The average MD length between adjacent survey points of the
wellbore is 150 ft in this example.

Figure 12 shows the geosteering curtain section at the beginning of TST3D operation. The wellbore drills down and
cuts into the key marker TF at MD=11,400 ft. Figure 13 and Figure 14 show the geosteering curtain section as the
well continuously drills and reaches MD=13,042 and MD=17,300 ft respectively. Even though the maker TF has
been crossed multiple times by the wellbore, the wellbore stays below the key marker most of time.

The final geosteering curtain section window is displayed in Figure 15 when the well is drilled to the total depth
(TD) at MD=21,070 ft. The satisfactory matching between the forward model and real-time LWD GR measurements
is reasonably achieved by TST3D in automated fashion. The drilling polarity identified by TST3D can help
geosteering engineers to optimally place and adjust the wellbore in the target zone in real-time.

Figure 12: Geosteering curtain section initiated by TST3D. The wellbore drills down and cuts into the key marker TF at MD=11,400 ft.
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Figure 13: Geosteering curtain section by TST3D up to MD=13,297 ft. The wellbore cuts the marker at MD=13,042 ft a second time. The drilling
polarity in the bottom display indicates whether the wellbore drills up/down stratigraphically.

Figure 14: Geosteering curtain section by TST3D up to MD=17,300 ft. The marker has been crossed by the wellbore multiple times.
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Figure 15: Final geosteering curtain section with the toe of the wellbore MD=21,070 ft.

Discussion

Our current TST3D modeling method builds stratigraphic models of horizontal wells by assuming constant layer
thickness, GR variation follows the formation layering, and no faults are present. Our future research work will
loosen these restrictions by considering the change of thickness and fault identification if there is knowledge about
the trend of the formation thickness variation in the wellbore region.

Even though only omni-directional or averaged GR measurements are used here to demonstrate TST3D capability in
automated structural interpretations of horizontal wellbores, the core function in TST3D, powered by its intelligent
automation engine can be extended to integrate multiple measurements, for example, azimuthal gamma rays and
density images, to reduce the uncertainty in the structural interpretations sometimes difficult to resolve due to the
limited resolution of the GR tools.

Conclusions

We developed a new methodology and workflow to perform automated subsurface structural interpretation of
horizontal wellbores when only GR measurements are available. It is enabled by a TST3D concept that computes
TST and performs model comparison and updates using the GR projection in TST domain automatically and
iteratively. It is more efficient and accurate than the time-consuming manual process, which is a common practice in
current well placement and geosteering community.

In contrast to 2D manual curtain section modeling, TST3D works on true dip and dip directions of the formation by
building near wellbore structural models in 3D, an advantage that allows the users to easily export the resulting
surfaces into other structural modeling software that requires surface interpretation from multiple-wells at the
reservoir scale.
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Beyond structural interpretation, we believe that TST3D has great potential to contribute to the digital
transformation of formation evaluation and drilling automation by integrating multiple measurements in a seamless
and automated fashion.

Acknowledgments

We thank Schlumberger for the permission to publish our work. We would like to thank Neil Hurley, Ridvan
Akkurt, and Shu Zhang for their technical discussion and contribution in the early stage of the development of
TST3D. We thank Farid Toghi for providing the illustrative dataset of TST3D work steps.

Nomenclature

GR = Gamma ray measurements, GAPI


LWD = Logging while drilling
MD = Measured depth, ft
TVD = True vertical depth, ft
TST = True vertical thickness, ft
MLT = Measured log thickness, ft
TVT = True vertical thickness, ft
TVDT = True vertical depth thickness, ft
THL = True horizontal length, ft
TD = Total depth, ft
φ = Wellbore deviation, degrees
α = Angle difference between the bedding azimuth and the wellbore section azimuth, degrees
θ = Bedding dip, degrees
N = Total number of the measurement samples in a TST split panel interval
ARE = Average relative error for the mismatch between the GR measurements and the models in TST domain

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