Trends in Monitoring: How to Use Real-Time Data Effectively

Abstract

Management Real-time data is not about well control, it is about well control avoidance. Recent catastrophic blowouts have underscored the value of real-time data and, more importantly, they have also underscored the value of having the right kind of experience to understand well data interpretation in real time. What is the well telling us? How do we use real-time data to ensure a stable wellbore? Real-time monitoring integrated with rigorous total well control analysis is required to embrace and achieve continuous improvement and ensure the safest possible environment. Next generation monitoring requires a step change that includes hazards avoidance as a precursor to drilling optimization. Real-time data can be used effectively to avoid, minimize, and better manage drilling and completion operations. They can also provide the foundational support to improve training in the industry as well as develop hands-on simulators for hazards avoidance. The fundamental definition of process safety is that of ensuring containment. In the case of drilling and completion operations, that means well control. Process safety management (PSM), a regulation promulgated by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is an analytical tool focused on preventing release of any substance defined as “highly hazardous.” This concept can be extended to oil and gas well operations within the context of ensuring that the well is constantly under control. The industry has pursued personal safety, which resulted in significant improvement in preventing accidents commonly referred to as “slips, trips, and falls.” Though this is a notable accomplishment, it had no influence on well control episodes, and blowouts remained a frequent occurrence. As well complexity increases, well control events increase disproportionally. Even the term well control, which should be related to the performance of oil well operations in a controlled manner, became more associated with the operations necessary to fix a situation once control was already lost. Often, the industry depends on blowout preventers as execution tools rather than the fail-safe tools they were designed as. If a driver constantly slams on the brakes of a car at high speed, eventually the brakes fail, or at the least, fail to operate in a timely manner or accurately. Real-time data offers the ability to ensure process safety. Fig. 1 shows the relationship between real-time data and its impact on operational outcomes.