I hope Ivz plans it as you described it, letstryagain:"I would...

I hope Ivz plans it as you described it, letstryagain:
"I would have thought a better strategy would have been to go in with a normal mud weight and wait for any drilling break on intersecting a target zone and monitor the well pressure. If there is a kick engage the BOP and then increase the mud weight until the pressure is normalized. I think this would give them a better chance of detecting any hydrocarbon shows with the LWD tools."
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If Ivz does it the other way, my conclusion would be that the sealing cap rocks of the other 6 targets are crap and do not seal. Or the faults are leaking like hell. Not good and that means question marks for the seismic interpretation . From what I have seen from the direct hydrocarbon indicator interpretation presentation recently, I would not expect such leackages.


IMO: drill it hydrostatic but have everything 100% prepared to go to SG=1.5 For me this is standard and good oilfield praxis. Drilling with a too high mud weight without knowing if you need it or not has got risks as well: you can fracture the formation and then when you have bad drilling luck, you can get losses and at the same time a kick and then drillers can become nervouse.
Moreover it is not the first time that a heavy mud with barite causes skin effects and afterwards you have discussion and doubts...

I hope and assume that Ivz got an experienced onshore drilling engineer and an experienced onshore drilling company man and an experienced mud man on site. You do not need to drill on the edge but you do not need offshore personnel on an onshore rig, preparing for a Macondo neither. (I take the published documents and papers about Macando very, very seriously and have used the findings for my daily work as well).

And when you have some trust in your direct hydrocarbon indicator interpretation , you should not see highly overpressure targets because there you do not see these leakage pathways (but be prepared for the worst with the mud weight, and this is it what mining authorities ask usually)