Anadarko averaged 12.6 days to drill 59 Eagle Ford Shale wells during the second quarter of this year. Its best took 8.5 days from the day drilling began to when the rig was released.
Mark Sundland, drilling engineering manager of Anadarko’s Southern Region, credits the rapid pace of the 10 rigs—with times less than half of some competitors in the South Texas play—to consistent use of modern rigs and long-standing ties with top directional drillers and consulting company men. Some of those hands learned their trade working on the first big horizontal drilling play in the Austin Chalk play back in the 1990s.
The rigs are equipped with automatic drillers and equipment that replicates the skill of skilled directional drillers. Sundland said he sometimes questions the high cost of those options, which are built to do what Anadarko’s experienced drillers can do. But with so many veteran hands nearing retirement, and drillers hard to find in some places, he admitted there is a clear and growing need.
The people developing automated drilling equipment are thinking along the same lines.
“What we are trying to automate are the best practices across directional drillers so you can take one with two years’ experience and they can drill as well as someone who has done it for 20 years,” said Clinton Chapman, drilling automation program architect at Schlumberger.
The oilwell service company has developed a pair of programs. One speeds the drilling penetration rate, and the second controls the trajectory of drilling. The benefits come in the form of faster drilling, which lowers costs, and more predictable results, which is critical in satisfying the terms in drilling contracts. Both are aimed at performance that exceeds what is now available elsewhere. Shell has gone a step further with a device capable of managing the entire drilling process.
Many companies in the industry are seeking to turn what was once an art based on the experience and feel of a person, and turn it into a science using computer programs based on mathematical formulas. “We can do this much more predictably with a series of algorithms,” said Peter Sharpe, executive vice president of wells at Shell. He pointed out that a machine’s ability to instantly react to downhole data allows it to do a better job than a person at keeping a drill bit steadily engaged on the rock face.