Executing the Digital Well Plan - Enhancing Process Automation

Hummes, Olof; Macpherson, John; Bone, Kimberley; Marwah, Gaurav; Arévalo, Pedro; Forshaw, Matthew

doi:10.2118/213726-ms

Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

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Optimization of time, effort, and costs for well planning using standardization and automation of the well design process on a cloud-based solution

Srivastava,

Raizada

2024

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

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The current well planning process for operators is capital-intensive that takes time and has a lot of discrete, disconnected steps. Well planners and engineers dedicate a significant amount of time and effort to analyze sub-surface and offset well data for trajectory planning, casing policy selection, casing design, torque & drag, hydraulics, time & cost analysis etc. For development wells and unconventional wells, it is a common scenario for drilling engineers to have a very clear understanding of how the well design shall look like as the oil & gas field is extremely well familiar. As an initial step towards standardization, a review and study of several well design processes were performed by interviewing several engineers, all around the globe. The study revealed that even though every engineer had their own way of working, there was an inherent workflow that could be standardized. This standardized workflow was then outlined with user experience development techniques to cater to the generic steps that well planners, engineers and managers had described. With implementation of this standardized workflow and UI/UX supported process, the next step was to build a cloud native solution which supports micro-services-based engineering calculations in the backend. This allowed to implement speed and scalability in the solution which can cater to various personas in a team. The next step was to automate the process for a development field. This was achieved by applying checkpoints in the workflow to identify an exploratory well vs. a development well, before calling a microservice. For a development field, the microservice architecture identifies the design aspects of an existing well and incorporates similar well trajectory turn points, casing policy, casing design, BHA, fluids, operational parameters etc. while honoring the surface hole location, targets, and datum reference of the new wells to be planned. This technique helped to not only automate the engineering calculations but also speed up the entire process of designing each well in under a minute. Apart from engineering calculations, a planning workflow is never complete without team governance, approvals from peers and supervisors, testing various scenarios and creating reports. As these tasks are an inherent part of the planning cycle, they were also incorporated in the workflow. The UX design process techniques ensured that these supplementary tasks were a part of the main workflow and did not interfere with the calculations. The solution has shown a tremendous increase in the work efficiency of user by reducing the planning efforts from days to minutes. The users can now focus on wells using management by exception as the entire design process can be automated. This also eliminates any unnecessary data entry and avoids errors.

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Optimization of time, effort, and costs for well planning using standardization and automation of the well design process on a cloud-based solution

Srivastava,

Raizada

2024

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

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Maintaining Wellbore Safety: Closed-Loop Limit Control of Tripping Operations

Arévalo

Becker

May

et al. 2023

Middle East Oil, Gas and Geosciences Show

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A significant part of well construction is invested in tripping drill pipe. This type of operation is considered not productive in terms of drilled wellbore but is however necessary for the well construction process. The associated cost of tripping operations can be as high as 30% of the overall well CAPEX and poses an attractive optimization case to reduce spending by means of increasing efficiency. Furthermore, a byproduct of increased efficiency is a cleaner operation in terms of carbon emissions. Increasing efficiency for tripping operations concerns two main components: reducing connection time and optimizing the motion of the string while tripping in and out of the wellbore. The connection time can be reduced by means of machine automation to deliver repetable and safer handling of the drill pipe during connections. Optimizing the tripping parameters to move the string requires a more complex approach, where physics-based modeling plays a key role in determining a safe operating envelope (SOE) to move the string without harming the formation or the surface equipment in the process. The system described in this paper touches upon this problem and includes the concept of interfacing to automated drilling control systems (ADCS) to achieve closed-loop control of tripping operations. The solution proposed deploys a hydraulic digital twin of the wellbore that estimates the permissible axial velocities and accelerations to use when running drillstring in and out the wellbore. The same digital twin is used during pre-job modeling to verify proposed tripping plans, and later on in real-time to update the tripping limits for velocity and acceleration for every stand as the tripping process continues. The results produced in real-time are published to a data aggregation layer to serve as input for a tripping automation application to refine fit-for-purpose monitoring and control algorithms. The automation system finds optimum proposals of tripping limits and updates them directly in the rig control system in real-time. The trip monitoring system automatically and continuously publishes optimum velocity and acceleration tripping limits per stand and transmits them as set points to the ADCS to define a safe operating envelope (SOE). This approach can greatly reduce the overall tripping time in comparison to non-automated deployments. Furthermore, the reduction of invisible lost time (ILT) takes place while maintaining the integrity of the formation, and the integrity of the surface equipment. A set of case studies confirm the effectiveness of the approach and illustrate its benefits. A case study from the Middle East addresses the topic of adoption of drilling automation applications such as the tripping advisor. Another case presents the concept of interoperability using as example a deployment on a rig simulator setup in Europe to perform closed-loop control using the tripping application to write velocity and acceleration limits continuously to the ADCS.

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Integration of Geosteering into an Automated Wellbore Placement System, Possibilities and Challenges

Holbrough

Forshaw

Wessling

et al. 2023

Middle East Oil, Gas and Geosciences Show

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The benefits of geosteering for accurate wellbore placement in reservoirs are well documented, with an emphasis on comprehensive reservoir mapping capabilities and related well path adjustments. Similarly, drilling-related processes such as well re-design, proximity scanning, and downlinking are important. The integration of geosteering and drilling processes adds complexity and challenges to designing automated wellbore placement systems. Automated systems need to contain sufficiently robust technologies and algorithms to avoid unintended and frequent exceptions. Equally, the human element must be considered to design an automated system with a great user experience. To gain user acceptance, an automated system must have the characteristics of predictability, transparency, adaptability, and automation levels that are validated prior to utilization. Without this, the result will be wellbore misplacement by engineers who blindly trust immature automated systems. This paper provides an overview of processes and tasks within a comprehensive wellbore placement system, including the directional drilling and geosteering services as used by stakeholders who own well placement execution. We will provide an overview of the potential of automation and pitfalls to be avoided. The experience of many expert engineers from complementary disciplines has been used to develop a comprehensive concept as a framework to implement an automated wellbore placement system. The paper also provides an analogy to the automotive industry which has developed reliable and robust systems for navigation, lane and speed control over the last few decades. The comparison highlights a fundamental difference to the petroleum industry of having multiple stakeholders involved in the process of wellbore placement. Consequently, communication between all the stakeholders during operations, notably proposals and approvals, must be designed into the system from the beginning. Automation concepts to achieve great user experience are demonstrated on components of a wellbore placement process, including the illustration of lessons learned from recent development initiatives. Based on the demonstration, we conclude that an iterative development process is essential to ensure acceptance by the user community.

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Executing the Digital Well Plan - Enhancing Process Automation

Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

Optimization of time, effort, and costs for well planning using standardization and automation of the well design process on a cloud-based solution

Optimization of time, effort, and costs for well planning using standardization and automation of the well design process on a cloud-based solution

Maintaining Wellbore Safety: Closed-Loop Limit Control of Tripping Operations

Integration of Geosteering into an Automated Wellbore Placement System, Possibilities and Challenges

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