Design, Implementation and Operation of an Advanced Collaborative Environment for Enhanced Performance in Tangguh Drilling and Completions

Abstract

The Tangguh Project in West Papua Province, Indonesia represents significant challenges in terms of drilling conditions, extreme remoteness, and social and environmental sensitivity. The Tangguh Drilling "Advanced Collaborative Environment" (ACE) was designed to enhance drilling performance and safety. Very positive results were achieved within the first months of the drilling operation. This paper describes the design approach, implementation and subsequent operational experience of the Tangguh Drilling ACE. A number of features of this ACE have since become exemplars for BP's drilling operations globally.The two-rig Tangguh development drilling campaign of 15 wells faced particularly difficult challenges with total losses, high vibration and the extreme remoteness of a location two timezones ahead of the office. To enhance drilling performance, an ACE was developed based on BP's global design principles covering people, process, technology, physical environment and organisation. The ACE connects each rigsite drilling team to the BP office in Jakarta and the onshore supply base. Real time drilling data in WITSML (Wellsite Information Transfer Standard Markup Language) format and high quality video conferencing were essential components to support the Wellsite Leader in the execution of the drilling plan.Tangguh drilling commenced in May 2007 with a successful 10 months of field operations. The Wells Manager attributed a significant part of this success to ACE and associated working practices. The drilling ACE made a significant contribution towards reducing the recovery period from major non-productive time incidents and has promoted better connectivity between rigsite and office. This has improved teamwork and the sharing of information. It is consistent with BP's goal for Field of the Future™, "Better Decisions Faster".Critical to the success of the ACE was engagement and ownership by the Wellsite Leaders and drilling operations management. Significant organisational and interface challenges were overcome, including applying vendor neutral data standards between different service companies. This was a first for Indonesia. A number of other firsts were achieved also:-• First BP drilling ACE designed specifically for performance enhancement.• First BP multi-rig drilling ACE.• First drilling ACE in BP using full time high quality video conferencing over satellite and wireless broadband.

WITSML: Laying the Foundation for Increasing Efficiency of Intelligent Wellsite Communications

“…Many companies, such as BP, Saudi Aramco, and Statoil (Grøvik 2007;Khudiri et al 2008Khudiri et al & 2009Pickering et al 2008), have embraced WITSML using it as a key component of the communications backbone of their realtime drilling operation centres. However, some other companies have been reluctant to embrace WITSML.…”

“…To achieve these goals for drilling and workover operations, companies must be able to use "best-of-breed" equipment (e.g., sensors and downhole tools) and software applications and integrate these technologies together for a complete solution that supports real-time operations across the wellsite and the office (Grøvik 2007;Khudiri et al 2008Khudiri et al & 2009Pickering et al 2008). The "digital oilfield" is focussed on enhanced information availability and collaboration and is using technology to increase operational efficiency and transform work processes to improve safety and to realise new value.…”

“…Realtime drilling operations centres, which are now commonly used by operators and service companies (Grøvik 2007;Khudiri et al 2008Khudiri et al & 2009Pickering et al 2008), provide an excellent example of the transformative solutions that are possible with technology integration. Advanced communications and collaboration technology make it possible to integrate oilfield and software technologies for complete views of drilling operations in one centralised, convenient location, remote from the rig site, which improves safety (less people at the rig site) and makes it possible for scarce experts to support more operations because they don't have to actually travel to well sites.…”

Sand Management in Tangguh Big Gas Wells

“…Facilities are located in a region of acute environmental, economic and social sensitivity (Ahmed 2008). Little or no industry existed in the remote location and nearly all supporting facilities, roads and other infrastructure had to be created from the "ground up" in a grassroots effort with local governments and indigenous residents (Pickering et al 2008). …”