The purpose of this paper is to describe innovative improvements to mud pulse telemetry in an ultra deep environment. This aligns telemetry services with the customer need to enhance drilling performance without data quality sacrifice through mud pulse technology, providing the capability of drilling to 15 km and beyond.

• The MWD pressure pulse signal suffers attenuation and degradation while traveling uphole. Echoes and reflections, drill pipe ID changes, pulsation dampener type and mud plastic viscosity, attenuates the pressure signal up 95% as it reaches surface. Planning becomes keystone for the telemetry system where;
• Quantification of signal attenuation enables a risk managed planning.
• Hardware, improves MWD Signal detection capabilities.
• Software, allows practical transmission and bandwidth utilization

This effort resulted in the development of comprehensive models for the telemetry signal; as it evolves with depth and is affected by the different elements of the drilling system.

• Integrating enhancements in software and hardware resulted in doubling of MWD transmission data rates.
• Application of compression schemes increasing up to 7 times effective transmission speeds.

Successful drilling of deep wells relies heavily on the planning stage, to extract the maximum value from the drilling investment. The initiatives outlined in this paper expand the operating envelope of the more applicable telemetry technology, supporting the new depth limits to be set. The effort of this investigation delivered a reliable, high band-width transmission system designed for wells targeting 15km reach and beyond.