Well Advisor - Integrating Real-time Data With Predictive Tools, Processes and Expertise to Enable More Informed Operational Decisions

Abstract

An increasing proportion of oil and gas production comes from the technically-challenging, deep-water/offshore environment, where drilling and completions teams continue to focus on enhancing safety and operational integrity and where the costs of non-productive time during well construction can be quite significant. BP identified opportunities to address these three issues through extending its use of real-time data and launched the BP Well Advisor (BPWA) Project to develop and deploy this technology to aid in further enhancing drilling performance. This paper will share the lessons that the company has learned from this project and provide an introduction to the range of functionality within the technical solutions currently being developed and deployed. It will also discuss how the company and its project collaborators have worked together to deliver the well advisor as a solution package inclusive of the underlying technology, business transformation processes, solution deployment, training and support. This approach has been a key component of the project's success to date and has built a solid platform to support its planned future activities. The objective of the well adviosr project is to facilitate the management and exploitation of real-time data. The system being developed integrates this real-time data with other predictive tools and processes to support delivery of the right information, in the right place at the right time. This helps the operational teams to make timely and well-informed decisions as they work to deliver safe and reliable wells. The project's key areas of operational focus are enhancing operational safety, improving well construction efficiency and life of well reliability. The well advisor project has demonstrated success in helping the company to enhance all three areas of operational performance listed above, and efforts are ongoing to expand the system's technical capabilities and regional deployments globally. One highlight of the project to date has been its successful application to casing running where over 291 casing/liner strings in 4 major regions have now been run without a stuck pipe incident. This success alone is estimated to have saved over 250 days of non-productive time (NPT) based on historical data associated with stuck casing incidents prior to its introduction. Other functionality being deployed monitors cement placement, blow-out preventer (BOP) health, pressure tests and rigsite fluid management. This paper will conclude with a summary of operational performance benefits derived to date from the implementation of the well advisor and give a preview of new functionality being considered for potential future deployments.

Applying CBM and PHM concepts with reliability approach for Blowout Preventer (BOP): a literature review

“…Real-time monitoring technology is becoming more increasingly used on offshore drilling, as more capabilities for transmitting and storing a high volume and range data in order to enhance both safety and operational efficiency through more informed operational decision making. Nevertheless, the application of technology to bring intelligence for exploring this data is less mature, especially in predictive analytical areas, which could provide guidance for drilling teams to help on operation decision making (Harder et al, 2015;Israel et al, 2015).…”

Drilling-and-Completions-Applications Portfolio Management—Changes and Trends

“…These links also start to integrate the operator's WellAdvisor capabilities, (Israel et al 2015). The new work flows will help reduce nonproductive time in new well delivery, improve efficiency in work-flow cycle time, and increase the speed and quality of our decisions when planning and delivering wells.…”

“…The Casing Running and Cementing* consoles were already deployed, and the Pressure Testing*, Data Quality, and No-Drilling-Surprises (NDS) consoles were deployed during 2014. Several others are under development (Israel et al 2015). Those consoles marked with an asterisk are classified as safety-related.…”

“…By comparison, the object definitions associated with the WITSML standard provide a much-tighter binding, helping its uptake. Industry-data models, rather than proprietary ones, remain vital to efficient data sharing and applications integration (Pratt and Barazzutti 1996).…”