Tripping Performance Analysis and Quantifying Invisible Lost Time

Abstract

In the oil and gas drilling industry, cost savings has a key importance. Evaluating the operational efficiency of a rig on a daily basis has proven to be an economically rewarding pursuit, as it enables operators to identify and ensure that the majority of the operational time is spent drilling and making footage. It holds true that around 70% of the operational time on a rig is spent in unavoidable non-drilling activities. With respect to this, tripping in and out of hole are one of the inevitable operations that require a closer inspection in terms of its efficiency. This paper outlines the method used to evaluate tripping performance on a rig, and also outlines the benefits and findings of such analysis. The innovative method used to evaluate the tripping performance includes the tripping speeds, time spent while making connections, and also the tripping footage over a certain period. This system is capable of evaluating the same Key Performance Indicator (KPI) over the depth of the cased hole and open hole separately, while streaming real-time data that can be calculated with the respective KPI. That information can be used to determine the effective tripping performance in real time, correlating with the benchmark post-optimized KPIs. The complex procedure is explained in detail in the paper and highlights the process of collecting raw data and turning it into valuable KPIs. Directly identifying and reducing this Invisible Lost Time during the Tripping activity helps us to gain control over a previously intangible quantity of lost time. This translates to real world savings and meeting corporate bottom line requirements. Armed with the results for such analysis, Operators can persuade Rig Contractors to ensure best Drilling practices and ensure proper and on-time Well delivery. Evaluating the Tripping speed is also further enhanced by incorporating averaging analysis like the Effective, Gross and Global Tripping speeds calculation. In addition to this, a historical analysis is also done to identify the true connection time in Slip to Slip Analysis. Having this data over a few months of activity on the rig across many wells gives us a general trend in the performance of the Rig. This analysis directly tells you how much of the time spent tripping is actually being wasted as Invisible Lost Time.