This paper (SPE 51181) was revised for publication from paper SPE 35077, first presented at the 1996 IADC/SPE Drilling Conference held in New Orleans, 12-15 March. Original manuscript received for review 12 June 1996. Revised manuscript received 30 April 1997. Paper peer approved 17 April 1998. Summary This paper presents an alternative planning approach to the drilling and completion process, technical limit, which has resulted in a step change in Woodside's performance. Three new wells and six subsea completions were finished 20% under budget with this tool and with a simple philosophy characterized by the following questions.What is current performance?What is possible?What is needed to get there? The target was to drill a directional well in 20 days when the previous best time was 42 days. A target of 12 days was set on subsea completions, although a conventional approach had previously been 20+ days. The methodology was to ask what would be possible if everything went perfectly on every operation making up the well time. This is not the usual trouble free time but a well time built up of individual components, with each component representing its theoretical best performance. Details of how the approach was used to plan, and operational data that confirm that the technical limit can be approached are presented. As a result, the well construction performance delivered step change improvement when managed against the technical limit. P. 197
Step Change Improvement and High Rate Learning are Delivered by Targeting Technical Limits on Sub-Sea Wells. SPE Members Abstract This paper presents an alternative approach to the drilling and sub-sea completion process, the Technical Limit, which has resulted in a "Step Change" in Woodside's performance. Using a simple philosophy characterised by the questions:–Where are we now?–What is possible?–How do we get there? and applying this tool, three new wells and six subsea completions were completed 20% under budget. Our target was to drill a directional well in 20 days when the previous best was 42 days. On subsea completions a target of 12 days was set when a conventional approach had previously set 20+ days. The approach was to ask what would be possible if everything went perfectly with every operation making up the well time. This isn't the usual trouble free time but a well time built up of individual components, with each component performing it's theoretical best performance. Presented is operational data which confirms that the Technical Limit can be approached. As a result the well construction performance when managed against the Technical Limit delivered step change performance improvement with high rate of learning. Introduction Woodside's drilling performance offshore on the North West Shelf of Australia from 1968 to 1992 was erratic. A simple plot of time versus total depth (Figure 1), showed unacceptable scatter and a high average drilling time, particularly when benchmarked against published data (Noerager et al). The authors believed the well construction process was not in control. When faced with an upcoming development project (Wanaea and Cossack developments) we undertook to remedy this. To get the desired performance an aggressive target setting and planning methodology was developed based on the question "What is possible?" rather than the question "How can we improve?" Our approach was greatly influenced by achievements in other parts of the world. During the late 70s/early 80s, as documented by Shute et al, Conoco UK Ltd set some drilling operations standards in the North Sea which in our opinion endure today as world class. A major factor claimed in the success of this work came from time analysis which rigorously pursued the identification and removal of drilling problems. The application of this approach was extremely successful. Work by Huber et al also in the North Sea, took a similar approach which, likewise produced excellent results. Latterly Unocal in Thailand have apparently been setting standards in the Far East few can match. Unfortunately, Unocal has published very little on how this high level performance has been achieved. We understand that necessity and aggression drove their improvements. The high level objective for the Wanaea and Cossack projects the requirement for highly productive wells and low construction cost. P. 299
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