New technologies have been developed to achieve a higher degree of accuracy in well positioning as operators have been drilling increasingly challenging hydrocarbon pockets.

The Nini East Field, Danish North Sea sector, represents a significant drilling challenge. The target is a post-depositionally remobilized sand reservoir of 2–15 meters thickness. Because of the reservoir's remobilized nature and its low resistivity, none of the standard well placement methods or the current bed-boundary mapping tools were suitable solutions for the well objectives. Previous wells drilled in this type of reservoir have been marginally economical due to sidetracks and net-pay ratios below 0.5.

In view of these challenges, DONG E&P decided to collaborate to the field test of the next generation bed-boundary mapping tool to geosteer their two upcoming production wells. The technology currently in field test provides a real-time mapping of the reservoir several meters away from the wellbore. As the depth of investigation of the tool is within the same range as surface seismic measurements, the two data sources were integrated while drilling to provide look-ahead information.

The two producers achieved an outstanding 0.99 and 0.96 net-pay ratio with no sidetracks or delays and were completed within budget.

The inversion processing of deep directional resistivity measurements clearly shows the capability of this new generation tool to map the internal variations of the reservoir structure, enabling further understanding of its nature and depositional history and allowing optimization of the field development.