The need for accurate location information — in a subterranean environment that Global Positioning System satellite signals cannot reach — is true now more than ever, as oil and gas wells go deeper and become more complex, veering off horizontally through narrow hydrocarbon reservoirs or parallel existing wells. But it is especially true right now in the Gulf of Mexico, where BP is drilling a relief well to intersect the runaway well that has been spewing oil since April. The relief well will be used to pump heavy drilling mud, followed by cement, into the damaged well to stop the gusher permanently. But first it, or a second relief well being drilled nearby as a backup, must hit the target — the existing well’s steel casing pipe, only seven inches in diameter, more than 3 miles below the surface of the gulf.
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