Abstract
A Multiwell drilling campaign was undertaken to enhance the production of a heavy oil field. Well deliverability within the target time was very difficult, as the wells were designed with a challenging profile with a DLS of 13° per 100ft at a very shallow MD of +/- 1600ft. Immediate Optimization of the entire Drilling campaign was required from the inititation of the project to meet the production requirements. Monitoring and optimization of drilling performance was required through a systematic and unique improvement cycle divided into phase's viz. PLAN, DO, CHECK and IMPROVE. As all the offset wells were vertical, there was no data available for benchmarking initial drilling performances of these challenging well profiles. Once a few wells were drilled, the data was analyzed for benchmarking, technical shortcomings were clearly identified and the lessons learnt were implemented in the next planning stage. Risk assessment was done for every section based on the Non Productive Time data analysis of the few initial wells. Monitoring performances and applying corrective measures for improvement resulted in complete Optimization of the Drilling Campaign. Once performance baselines were established, an immediate impact of 10% was achieved in the subsequent batch of wells. Non Productive time and Invisible Loss time were reduced by a significant amount. Good performances were appreciated at the end of the project. Drilling Optimization lead to reduction in average drilling days per well from 12 days to around 8 days. This resulted in completion of the entire drilling campaign safely, well ahead of target time, saving not only rig operating cost, but also enabling early production. This also resulted in reduction of overall cost per foot of the wells drilled in the campaign. Effective communication of all the lessons learnt and benchmark performances to the grass root level by organizing large scale workshop on the rig site, involving all the Drilling Engineers, rig contractor crew and service partners. Technical discussions with all service partners’ together, leading to implementation of lessons learnt while drilling a challenging profile of 13°/ft DLS well.
