Real-Time Optimization of the Drilling Process—Challenges in Industrialization

Abstract

Abstract Recently, a successful Offshore Field test in the North Sea of a new drilling control system for real-time optimization and automation control was performed. This system has been developed in an ongoing research project, which will now enter an industrialization phase with focus on improved user friendliness, sensor quality/reliability, work process and training. The system, which is based on application of advanced real-time process models for calculation of both hydraulic and mechanical forces, requires an extensive set of input data. Results from the calculation modules are applied directly in the drilling control system, affecting parameters such as pipe acceleration, velocity and deceleration, and the pump startup profile. Subsequently, it is of major importance that the data entered as input are correct and of high quality. Both system setup data and measurements from real-time sensors have to be validated before they can be applied. Here we give an overview of lessons learned from the field test, and discuss how the most important challenges revealed during the test can be solved. We also discuss how such a system may benefit from emerging new technology in moving towards a higher degree of automation. Automation of the drilling process has for a long time been a widely discussed topic. Despite the enormous focus, the limited number of successful solutions available to the industry today is a strong indication that applying automation to the drilling process is a very complicated and compound challenge. The authors believe that resolving the generic challenges experienced in industrialization of the described system constitutes an important step towards extended automation of the drilling process. Extensions of the system are already on the drawing-board in an extension of the original research project which led to the development of this technology. Although there are still challenges to be resolved for the existing system, we are confident that these are manageable and that automation has a bright future within drilling.