Novel Approach to Well Threat Response Drills at the Rigsite - Experiences from the Middle East

Abstract

Abstract The current traditional method of well control drills has several weaknesses. It is highly reactive and essentially only focuses on the right-hand side of a BowTie risk assessment. The method's assumption is that we must focus our drill efforts on personnel responses when the top event (on a BowTie) presents itself. Little or no action focuses on conducting threat response drills to address the full spectrum of the proactive left-hand side of the BowTie risk assessment. Additionally, because effective wellsite risk management requires active collaboration among parties, existing well control drills lack a holistic approach. They tend to be limited to the involvement of operators and drilling contractors with little or no participation from service providers that deliver the critical products and services at the wellsite. Service providers play a vital role in detecting weak signals and precursor events on the left-hand-side of the BowTie. These insufficiencies are further exacerbated by the transitory nature of crews, as well as products and services being delivered at the wellsite. Changing market conditions, dwindling capital expenditure and budgets, and the ever-increasing complexity of exploring and recovering hydrocarbons call to question our reliance on traditional safety approaches. Industry incidents continue to demonstrate that the traditional way of thinking and managing wellsite risks may not be sufficiently comprehensive. So, the question is: How can we ensure that transitory local crews will effectively respond to threats that pose an imminent risk to loss of well control? How do we validate operational readiness and optimize crew performance/response times? This paper represents the authors’ work continuation on the issues raised in their last year's paper, SPE-183462-MS "Proactive Learning from Process Safety Events to Prevent Process Safety Events in an Oilfield Services Provider". The deep-dive into the lessons learnt from the Upstream Process Safety incidents indicated that collaboration, coordination between the different stakeholders (operators, drilling contractors, and service providers) and their mutual well barrier understanding are critical in ensuring well integrity during operational execution. Certain pathways were identified as a necessity to develop a spirit of interdependence for collaborative barriers management. This paper aims at presenting one such pathway, developed to create a new approach for conducting collaborative drills at the right time, the right location, and with the right personnel to maximize the likelihood that we can effectively respond in a timely manner to major disruptions. This new approach proactively manages risk, drives operational and safety assurance. It develops a collaborative approach in managing threats at the wellsite, and optimizes the performance of local crews while minimizing human errors. The experiences in the Middle East of performing this novel approach to threats/major disruptions that can escalate into a loss of well control will be shared.