Safely operating Oil and Gas wells in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria has become quite challenging to achieve owing to the prevalent vandalization of assets in the operating environment. The asset vandalization ranges from minor theft of Christmas tree accessories, flowlines vandalization, to major wellhead damages and in some cases, wells get blown up with explosives by criminal elements. The major dilemma for the operations teams in this environment lies around how to (not only) restore integrity on wells with a complex state of vandalism, but also how to produce these wells safely. Restoring integrity on vandalized wells depends on nature of damage. For subject wells, the complete wellhead systems were severed and carted away with only Down Hole Safety Valve and production packer preventing the release of hydrocarbon. Restoration included design of a false rotary, fishing of the severed tubing stumps on drill pipes, installation of plugs above the safety valve and chemical cut of the tubing above the plug. Casing plug was installed above cut tubing depth as second barrier. Casings were then cold cut below impacted depth and tied back to surface. NDT, heat treatment carried out on weld joints. In this paper, the unconventional well integrity challenges faced in the Niger Delta onshore wells (Ukp- wells 1, 2, 3 and 5) and the in-house capabilities (innovative and unconventional steps) developed to address these challenges are presented. The wells in this paper had all concentric tubulars severed from below the casing head housing and carted away by vandals. These wells had a very high potential of damage to the environment and reputational impact to the company due to the HSE exposure level, apart from not conforming to the Company's well integrity policy of a minimum of two (2) tested and independent barriers. The Well Integrity restoration team showcased various innovative ways which were applied in other to secure these wells safely, bearing in mind the non-existence of barriers for standard rig up of equipment for the securing operations. Integrity was successfully restored on the wells through the unconventional novel approach. The Heat treatment and NDT ensured integrity of the weld joints for safe rig up of the planned HWU for the abandonment. This innovative approach prevented the potential process safety incident which could have led to asset, environmental and reputational damage. This paper would detail the history of the wells, planning, design and execution of the innovative in-house integrity restoration operation. The operation led to a total cost saving of US$1.8mln versus plan for the four vandalized wells that were restored.

In the last decade, the volatility in the price of oil and gas have caused the industry to seek innovative ways of delivering profitable projects. This has been further challenged by safety and security risks and other considerations such as societal and political demands for an accelerated transition to a net-zero energy system. These complexities increasingly challenge energy companies to find ways of delivering projects within acceptable Value Investment Ratio (VIR), thus requiring that all components of the capital and operating expenditure are cost efficient. According to EIA 2016 report, drilling and completions cost (including tangible and intangible costs) account for 60 – 80% of the total well cost across the onshore and offshore plays. Most well projects in onshore and shallow offshore fields in Nigeria are in remote and challenging environments with most equipment sourced abroad. Therefore, deploying innovative approaches to managing supply chain risks and aligning these with the overarching business objective is critical to achieving the desired value for both the operator and supplier. This paper describes how the Operator developed its Outcome Based Contracting (OBC) model for Drilling and Completions Services as a fundamental lever in its Supply Chain transformation journey; highlighting the technical and commercial value realised in terms of capital efficiency and cost competitiveness both to the operator and supplier. OBC is a contracting model where the Operator pays the supplier for the outcome agreed and not the activities leading to the outcome. This approach inherently drives competitiveness as both parties partner to provide enablers in project scoping, technology and innovation as well as related supply chain strategies towards realistic and achievable outcomes. It is expected that this will contribute to the body of knowledge and adopted by other operators to improve their contracting process for maximum benefits to all parties.

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.