The current volatility in the oil and gas sector underscores the importance of delivering consistent top quartile performance. To remain competitive, a robust performance management plan prior to drilling is key to successfully completing the project in time and under budget. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have historically been used to evaluate well construction performance. KPI targets are set to evaluate cost, time and quality of drilling operations. In The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), a benchmark method using the actual regional average performance data of similar wells drilled in the African region is used to generate high-level KPI targets (Macro KPIs) in terms of cost and time for ‘dry hole’ drilling. This method is recognised globally for target-setting and provides inputs used in forming a business plan. However, the use of Macro KPI targets to communicate performance requirements at the wellsite has been observed not to be as effective as required, since it does not clearly articulate performance required at the micro task level. It also does not allow effective real time monitoring of daily wellsite activities, making traditional performance monitoring retrospective. Micro KPIs are measures of smaller, repetitive actions that when added up, contribute a significant proportion of the time to drill a well. Breaking each phase of the drilling project into Micro KPIs (Tripping time, Running Tubular, BOP Testing and Handling, BHA Handling etc.) easily shows what it takes to win; what the sources of competitive advantage are; and what drives value. In order to make the transition from Macro to Micro KPI-based performance management flawless, the challenge of standardising Micro KPI target-setting needs to be addressed. This paper builds on the traditional performance management process, and by leveraging existing benchmark data, presents a process of generating and setting Micro KPIs for the drilling phase in an empirical and replicable manner.

Efficient knowledge utilization is crucial for organizations to remain competitive. Recent changes and challenges facing the global oil and gas industry require companies to improve operational efficiency by effectively capturing and transmitting knowledge across their organizations. This is currently done using various knowledge management tools and processes. Challenges such as poor data repository platform integration, database queriability and Graphic User Interphase ineffectiveness reduce knowledge management efficiency. In line with on-going continuous improvement initiatives, the Wells Performance Team initiated a project to optimize its knowledge management process. The impact of recent changes including portfolio divestments, experienced personnel turnover and job role changes on knowledge archiving and transfer were identified. The limitations of existing platforms were also analysed and target solutions were designed. These resulted in the creation of a tool – AskWells. AskWells is a search tool that queries existing knowledge databases to generate information required to respond to operational challenges based on learnings from historical experiences and recommendations from best practices. It is also a tool for documenting and cascading Learnings from Incidents, Investigations, After Action Reviews and Best Practices. The deployment of AskWells coupled with a review of the people process around data management led to an improvement in the business’ ability to document operational learnings for effective retrieval and cascade. The ability to identify historical challenges to similar well delivery operations and narrow down search results to similar case conditions have taken an upward notch, thus improving well delivery performance remarkably. Learnings from other work units and teams within the organization are also effectively accessible with AskWells. Overall, AskWells has contributed to an improvement in well delivery performance while deepening integration and collaboration with stakeholders. This paper discusses the AskWells tool in detail, bringing to light various aspects considered during tool development, and the success stories post deployment.