Operational Performance Improvement Plan: How to Boost the Performance and Reduce the Cost During well Construction

Day 1 Mon, November 12, 2018

2018

"Motivation is the catalysing ingredient for every successful innovation." Clayton Christensen. One of the pillars of project management is motivation. The success of any organisation rests on the ability of a leader to identify the motivation factors of a team and to encourage everyone to maintain positive thoughts and behaviour to achieve challenging targets successfully. This paper explains the practices implemented in the project that increased the motivation level of the team during the difficult and uncertain times of the oil downturn. This method consisted of three main phases. First, to conduct an initial survey to understand the motivation level of the team and identify the areas of improvement. Based on the results of the first phase, a master plan was created it to tackle the areas of improvement and lead the team to achieve the organisations annual objectives. To create the plan, it was necessary to identify the unique strengths and passions of every member of the team, address the need for recognition and strengthen the sense of belonging. After executing the master plan, a final survey was conducted to measure the success of the implementation. The results were outstanding in several areas. With the results of the final survey, it confirmed that the team's motivation level improved by 12%, and in some areas, such as recognition and belonging in 34%. Besides the statistics, the improvement in the motivation level resulted in a more creative team that was able to develop more than thirty operational initiatives that brought significant savings to the customer. All the challenging key performance objectives were achieved contributing to the company's business success. In conclusion, it was proven that even during the uncertain and challenging times of the oil industry, if we can keep our team motivated by reducing the weaknesses and building on top of the team's strengths, recognizing people's contribution to the company and showing them that their work clearly contributes to the business, and will always be possible to achieve even the most challenging targets. The approach is innovative in the sense that goes away from traditional financial incentive plans based on monetary rewards and looks at a deeper and more meaningful aspect of the human been regarding motivation. The methodology is based on Maslow's pyramid and Ikigai concept applied during the most challenging times in the oil industry; resulted in a boost in team motivation and overachievement of challenging key performance objectives.

Project Management: Team Motivation, the Eye of the Storm

Uribe

Day 1 Mon, November 12, 2018

2018

Case study: Saving Days via Change of Connection Practices While Drilling

Day 3 Thu, October 24, 2019

2019

One of the most common operations while drilling is the connection of drill pipes after every stand drilled. The main concern during this operation is to ensure that annulus around the BHA and drill string is clean of any cuttings, when often excessive time spent to achieve it. This manuscript discusses modeling, field implementation and operational observations of changing the standard practices, what led to significant time reduction while drilling vertical, deviated and extended reach (ERD) wells. The most common worldwide practice is to wash / ream a stand up and down prior to connection to remove any potential cuttings around BHA. Having this in mind the objective was set to minimize this time as much as possible towards full elimination. To accurately predict the cuttings lifting forces, annulus cleanliness, hook load fluctuations advanced modeling combining torque, drag and hydraulics was developed. The model considers all the key parameters such as drilling fluid density and rheology, BHA configuration, pumping rates, wellbore geometry, temperature and pressure effects, etc. and can estimate the time required to spend at the end of every stand. A total of up to one hundred jobs were simulated and followed by the field implementation in the different sections, which were ranged by bit size (from 17-in. to 6-in.), inclination and complexity (from zero to 90 degrees, including ERD wells) as well as other affecting parameters such as losses, wellbore stability etc. The data from the initial wells were crosschecked vs available MWD/LWD data (as equivalent circulating density, annulus pressure while drilling, temperature etc.) to confirm the results of the simulations. As a result, new connection practices were developed with minimum clean out time prior to a connection. Two examples: in the vertical wells the pre-connection time was reduced almost to zero and only one-minute drill-off now done; in deviated wells including ERD a standard approach of washing up/reaming-down a stand was replaced to 2 − 3 minutes drill-off. Together with other changes it not only allowed the decrease a connection time by up to 90% without the negative incidents like stuck pipe, but also minimized impact on the bottom hole assembly (BHA) components happening due to off bottom stick / slip. This resulted in great time savings, where over 2 days can be saved for 20,000 ft wells vs standard practices. The manuscript describes an engineering-based approach to connection practices which allows to shorten well construction time and decrease the well cost without additional risk.

Numerical Modeling and Experimental Validation of a Wellbore Cleanliness Concept During Connection Time

Day 2 Tue, November 12, 2019

2019

One of the most common operations while drilling is the connection of drill pipes after every stand drilled. The main concern prior and during this operation is to ensure that annulus around the bottom hole assembly (BHA) and drill string is clean of any cuttings, when often excessive time spent to achieve it. This manuscript discusses modeling, field implementation and operational observations of changing the standard practices, what led to significant time reduction while drilling vertical, deviated and extended reach (ERD) wells. The most common worldwide practice is to wash / ream a stand up and down prior to connection to remove any potential cuttings around BHA. Having this in mind the objective was set to minimize this time as much as possible towards full elimination. To accurately predict the cuttings lifting forces, annulus cleanliness, hook load fluctuations advanced modeling combining torque, drag and hydraulics was developed. The model considers all the key parameters such as drilling fluid density and rheology, BHA configuration, pumping rates, wellbore geometry, temperature and pressure effects, etc. and can estimate the time required to spend at the end of every stand. A total of up to one hundred jobs were simulated and followed by the field implementation in the different sections, which were ranged by bit size (from 17-in. to 6-in.), inclination and complexity (from zero to 90 degrees, including ERD wells) as well as other affecting parameters such as losses, wellbore stability etc. The data from the initial wells were crosschecked vs available MWD/LWD data (as equivalent circulating density, annulus pressure while drilling, temperature etc.) to confirm the results of the simulations. As a result, new connection practices were developed with minimum clean out time prior to a connection. Two examples: in the vertical wells the pre-connection time was reduced almost to zero and only two minutes drill-off now done; in deviated wells including ERD a standard approach of washing up / reaming-down a stand was replaced to 2 - 3 minutes drill-off followed by ream up and down of 10 ft only. Together with other changes it not only allowed the decrease a connection time by up to 60% without the negative incidents like stuck pipe, but also minimized impact on the bottom hole assembly (BHA) components happening due to off bottom stick / slip. This resulted in great time savings, where around 2 days can be saved for 20,000 ft wells vs previously applied practices. The manuscript describes an engineering-based approach to connection practices which allows to shorten well construction time and decrease the well cost without additional risk.