TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractStuck pipe incidents are one of the major operational challenges of the E&P industry and events usually lead to significant amount of lost time and associated costs. Various industry estimates claim that stuck pipe costs may exceed several hundred million US dollars per year. In Saudi Aramco, the recent increase in drilling activity, drilling in depleted and higher-risk reservoirs have led to an increased risk of stuck pipe. In 2010 Saudi Aramco formed a task force to focus on lowering its stuck pipe costs. In its campaign to reduce this cost, the task force selected key personnel from each of the Drilling & Workover (D&WO) operating departments.This paper summarizes the result of the Stuck Pipe Teams' findings and the best practice documents generated. For 2009, 69.5% of the total stuck pipes were due to mechanical sticking and 30.5% attributed to differential sticking. Furthermore, based on the team's findings, a customized training plan was formulated to certify key D&WO operations personnel every 2 years.

The importance of improving the efficiency of drilling operations in the E&P industry cannot be overemphasized, since it directly impacts the overall cost of constructing oil and gas wells. The key performance indicator (KPI) for measuring drilling efficiency is feet per day (ft/d). In Saudi Aramco, a high level target KPI is normally generated separately for new development oil wells and gas wells, using a benchmark (BM) method based on actual and projected performance. The drilling teams found it difficult to relate individual well performance to the high level KPI target and were unable to properly strategize to improve performance. A new method, the field specific KPI, was developed to complement the BM method and provide a more user-friendly platform to manage performance. Notable impacts of the new method include; improved planning, accurate monitoring of performance for prompt corrective action; and enhanced accountability and variance analysis from individual wells to fields, departments and the high level. These were demonstrated to be the prime drivers to improve performance. This paper presents the process of generating the drilling performance efficiency KPIs using the existing BM method and the new field specific method. The scope, strengths, benefits and weaknesses of both methods are also addressed.

The importance of improving the efficiency of drilling operations in the E&P industry cannot be overemphasized, since it directly impacts the overall cost of constructing oil and gas wells. The key performance indicator (KPI) for measuring drilling efficiency is feet per day (ft/d).In Saudi Aramco, a high level target KPI is normally generated separately for new development oil wells and gas wells, using a benchmark (BM) method based on actual and projected performance. The drilling teams found it difficult to relate individual well performance to the high level KPI target and were unable to properly strategize to improve performance. A new method, the field specific KPI, was developed to complement the BM method and provide a more user-friendly platform to manage performance.Notable impacts of the new method include; improved planning, accurate monitoring of performance for prompt corrective action; and enhanced accountability and variance analysis from individual wells to fields, departments and the high level. These were demonstrated to be the prime drivers to improve performance. This paper presents the process of generating the drilling performance efficiency KPIs using the existing BM method and the new field specific method. The scope, strengths, benefits and weaknesses of both methods are also addressed. BackgroundIn Saudi Aramco, separate annual target high level drilling efficiency key performance indicators (KPIs) are computed for new development oil wells and gas wells from benchmarking (BM) the historical performance of recently drilled wells. The challenge is that the drilling teams were unable to relate or align their performance KPIs with the high-level KPIs. The teams could not tell whether their performance was improving or not as individual wells were drilled. Even at the end of the year, when the actual high level KPI figure achieved is computed, the teams were still at a loss as to the impact of their contribution to the high level target. To address this, the field specific KPI method was developed with the result that individual wells, fields and departments had distinct KPIs where their contributions could be related to the high level target KPIs. The drilling teams are now able to focus on their individual KPIs and take corrective measures to improve performance during well construction.