Estimating the Influence of Geomagnetic Disturbances on the Trajectory of the Directional Drilling of Deep Wells in the Arctic Region

Abstract

At high latitudes, sporadic geomagnetic disturbances associated with geomagnetic storms introduce significant uncertainty in measurements by borehole inclinometers during the directional drilling of deep wells. Variations in the magnetic declination may lead to significant deviations of the actual coordinates of the borehole from the prescribed trajectory. Using the methods for calculating the profile of the actual borehole, we conducted model estimates of the influence of sporadic disturbances in the magnetic declination observed during the magnetic storm of October 28–31, 2003 on the displacement azimuth and intensity of borehole bending at the given locations at the sites of two high-latitude magnetic observatories. It is shown that, unless filtered based on the data of parallel observatory measurements, the geomagnetic disturbances can lead to unacceptably large errors in the borehole inclinometer measurements and cause a borehole deflection exceeding the admissible values.