Selecting a Ranging Provider: 10 Questions to Ask

Magnetic ranging is a specialty within a specialty, and the gap between providers is wide. Before you award an intercept, P&A or CCUS job, these are the questions that separate a true specialist from a side-service.

Start with the record

Three numbers tell you most of what you need to know. Ask for the provider's intercept success rate, the number of intercept projects they have actually delivered, and the range of conditions, depth, geometry, formation, those projects covered. A specialist will answer immediately and specifically.

Be wary of capability described in the abstract. On an intercept, demonstrated success is the only credential that matters.

Probe the toolbox

Ask which ranging methods they own and operate themselves, active and passive, wireline, wired-pipe and coiled-tubing. A provider with only one tool will fit your well to that tool. A provider with the full portfolio can choose the method your well actually needs.

Test for integration and independence

Ask who owns the chain. If engineering, ranging, directional drilling, milling and kill are split across multiple vendors, accountability fractures at exactly the moments it matters most. A single accountable team removes the seams where misses hide.

Ask, too, whether they are independent. A provider with competing service lines has incentives beyond your well. A pure-play specialist's only incentive is to hit the target, because that is the whole business.

The ten, in short

1) What is your intercept success rate? 2) How many wells have you milled and re-entered? 3) How many intercepts have you delivered? 4) Under what conditions, depth, geometry, formation? 5) Which ranging methods do you own, active, passive, or both? 6) Can you range while drilling? 7) Who owns the full chain on my job? 8) Are you independent of competing service lines? 9) What is your HSE record? 10) Can you show me a comparable case study?