Leveraging a New Well Delivery Methodology for Stellar Drilling Results Steam Injection Project Case Study

Abstract

Mexico has set challenging oil and gas production to meet worldwide demand. In order to deliver promised oil production outputs in this challenging environment, the operator came up with efficient partnerships with key service providers to leverage resources and technical know-how whilst encouraging knowledge transfer and drilling project cost reduction. By working with various service companies, the operator creates a competitive environment where each strives to outperform the other. One such success case is in the "S" field, a heavy oil field producing via steam injection in the South of Mexico. Utilizing a creative design and execution methodology, the "S" project team succeeded to deliver improved project performance over the course of drilling the 14 wells in the campaign. The average well operational time was successfully reduced by 10%, hence maximizing the well construction index to 122 m/day and reducing overall well costs. The main strategy to optimize performance is to re-engineer solutions for profitability such as performing a study to replace OBM by WBM, designing a new wellhead system, collaborating with the rig contractor to reduce flat time activities, redesigning cement properties for losses mitigation, improvement of ROP by merging new technologies and local practices, among others. Complementary to this, the strategy is to prioritize realistic areas of improvement by the development and utilization of a new tool called Best of the Best (BoB), a methodology breaking down all well activities in order to measure its fastest time per well and then aiming to achieve that aggressive goal. Detailed follow up in the field allows to reduce operational times by allowing the wellsite team monitor and suggest new and improved ways of doing a routine task all of which result in lower costs per foot. Utilizing this BoB approach and stringent performance monitoring while drilling (pre-actual-post) activity analysis, allowed superior performance to be achieved. The project reached a 60% improvement on well times from the first well drilled to the best performing well. The best well was drilled in 8.68 days versus a field average of 18 days (217 m/day construction index). This generated 369,000 bbls of earlier oil production, 176 days ahead vs client expectations. Furthermore, in coordination with field staff, lessons learned were captured. But this is not enough since fast and effective communication is required, and the BoB methodology provides the solution to share optimization tricks quickly and effectively between crews, to continue well to well improvement and overall project and field level learning. Improved well delivery results is possible only by aligning the detailed planning and execution follow up in both the wellsite and a remote operations centre which monitored drilling activity in real time from town. This synergy and proactive communication system is also a key factor in the project delivery. This paper will present the results from the first application of the ‘Best of Best' (BoB) methodology in Mexico. This successful application enforces the idea that by coupling re-engineering practices to develop a more creative well design along with stringent performance monitoring; any field performance can be improved to deliver stellar results.