Reducing rig personnel requirements with standards-based real-time data streaming

Abstract

Cost reductions have become an essential response to lower oil and gas prices. Drilling rigs operate in distant and sometimes hostile environments, so relocating rig-based experts to remote control centres saves costs and improves health, safety and environment (HSE). Key staff can work in an improved environment and movements to-and-from the rig are fewer, lowering transport-related costs and risks. The offsite experts can apply their expertise to the operations of multiple drilling rigs from a single location. To make this a reality, data from thousands of sensors on the rig and from measurement devices such as logging while drilling must be fed to the control room instantaneously and continuously. Legacy systems that poll rig-based devices for new data consume significant bandwidth and deliver data in a discontinuous manner with delays of 15 s or more. This does not meet the criteria for safe and reliable remote control of a rig and has been the reason why many roles have remained rig-based. This paper describes a new set of protocols that establish a continuous stream of data from devices on the rig to the control room with sub-second lag time. The new protocol also uses an order of magnitude less bandwidth, thus allowing more data to be carried in less time. Associated with industry-standard well-site information transfer standard mark-up language data transfer formats, the process operates with numerous service providers and software systems transparently. This paper includes a case-study to which the new protocol is applied, resulting in fewer permanent staff on a North Sea rig and fewer visits by an intervention contractor to the rig, with clear cost savings and HSE risk mitigation.