Optimising Well Times Through Drilling Connection Practices

Abstract

From an operator's perspective, many operational instructions are written implicitly that are not sufficiently detailed to optimize drilling efficiency. Upon a review of several partner operators’ drilling performance, it was noticed that there was a significant focus on the following aspects of technical limit drilling: ROP, tripping speeds, offline activities and connection times. One operator specifically reviewed Gulf-of-Thailand best practices and implemented them in Malaysia. One of the significant areas of improvement includes drilling connections. In the previous version, PETRONAS Malaysia Drilling Operations follows a conservative ERD connection method requiring to ream a single/stand, take a good survey a minimum 10m off bottom prior to making a connection and applied to all wells regardless of inclination or complexity. This was in response to risk of stuck pipe incidents happening during these critical static periods. A comparison of the connection times after their change in practice compared to PCSB practices given the same tools and well complexity indicated massive potential time savings with no additional costs. A change in the drilling connection practices could easily save almost half of this particular "flat time" with no significant risk, amounting to a possible saving of almost 26 hours in a well of around 3000m MDDF. This also led to a better understanding of the impacts of certain "rule-of-thumb" practices that needed to be questioned from time to time. This comparison coupled with many existing literatures available allowed a data-driven approach to improving well times. Some of this information is easily glossed over considering the only time-based data most wells refer to would be the Daily Drilling Report. This paper also emphasizes the importance of data collection and usage of historical databases to search for more opportunities in terms of safety, cost and time.