A Novel Strategy to Identify Potential Savings in Digitized Oilfields Through Automated Drilling Data Analysis

Abstract

Abstract Digital oil fields implementation is ongoing in various oil fields around the world since the last few years. There are many research initiatives focusing on performance improvements trying to eliminate Non-productive time (NPT) caused by equipment failures or drilling conditions but the Invisible Lost Time (ILT), which accumulates when common drilling operations such as drill pipe connections are not carried out efficiently, is neglected. This makes it difficult to compare well delivery time and performance discrepancies for each activity across a field. The main challenge in optimizing drilling performance is deciphering the rich data streams in real time to make informed business decisions. This study focuses on the integration and analysis of real-time drilling data in order to evaluate the drilling performance via Invisible Lost time. The methodology starts with analysing the effectiveness of the Remote Monitoring (the backbone of Digital Oil Field) of critical drilling operations as the actual performance is compared with predefined operation practices in terms of Rig Performance, Individual Crew Performance and Section Performance over four unknown drilling wells located within Field-X in the North Sea. The Invisible Lost Time is quantified from selected drilling activities such as tripping, drilling, running casing and flat time operations that can result in significant potential savings other than the main drilling operations. Histograms were utilized to improve rig performance which indicated that the Connection time can lead to significant days’ savings as Tripping time contributes to approximately 60% of the Invisible Lost Time (ILT). Additionally, the effect of various factors such as hole sections and well depth on potential savings was also studied. This strategy may be developed as a cost-effective technology for any drilling or workover wells, as it results in improving drilling key performance indicators (KPI's) leading to performance improvement, risk mitigation and cost efficiency in real-time drilling activities.