Abstract
Hydrocarbon exploration in Brunei has resulted in sophisticated drilling projects highly dependent on integrated environments, real-time decisions, and top-class drilling engineering. During peak activity in 2011 and 2012, an operator faced a declining performance in well construction projects caused by well-related drilling issues in extended reach drilling (ERD), snake, fishhook wells, leading to an unnecessary increase of total well costs.
Managing the previously mentioned risks to reduce non-productive time (NPT) was the main driver for building an integrated environment for real-time decisions (IERTD), a new concept to optimize drilling operations by facilitating the decision-making process while maximizing the value of historical and real-time data. The pre-existing real-time operation center was integrated into the operator's performance process where all workflows were redesigned to help ensure focus on cross-department value, risk mitigation and real-time interventions, instead of reporting and low-value interventions. Novel and innovative application of monitoring software technology helped align well teams to actual versus plan engineering models, helping ensure faster and reliable data analysis, providing teams better visibility of well status, allowing improved decision making.
Two years after the implementation of the IERTD, the operator experienced a reduction by 10 times in terms of leaving a bottomhole assembly (BHA) in the hole. The number of stuck pipe events was reduced by 67%, by improving the quality of information for decision makers and controlling the risk associated with the well challenges. The last 36 wells (included in this study) were drilled with zero NPT associated with drilling dynamics. The operation significantly benefited from the continuous flow of reliable and accurate processed information that allowed every final user to dispose the adequate tools to respond on time.
This paper illustrates the techniques, technologies, and fundamentals behind the successful operation of the IERTD and how the interaction of these innovative concepts may contribute to operational excellence in future drilling projects.
