The Drilling Performance Curve: A Yardstick for Judging Drilling Performance

Abstract

The claasic depth versus days plot was the only tool The Drilling Performance Curve (DPC) ia a being used to compare the drilling success (or simple yet powerful tool to assess the drilling per-failure) of a series of wells. Even this was relaformance in any given area where a c,;nsecutive tive to some initial subjective estimate of how long series of similar wells have been drilled. All the it should take to drill a well to a certain depth. information that is needed to perform the analysis When subsequent wells were drilled in less days than is the sequence numbers of the well and the time it the initial wells, there was a general acknowledgetakes to reach a given depth. ment that something happened to reduce the days and/or costs. This might be a better application of This paper presents some typical examples of technology, better'operations, better rigs, better DPC'S covering a study of over 30 different areas (onshore and offshore) including over 2000 wells.

Automated Closed-loop Drilling with ROP Optimization Algorithm Significantly Reduces Drilling Time and Improves Downhole Tool Reliability

“…But, human action that depends significantly upon Individual Memory is dependent not only on the availability of personnel, but also on the ability of individuals to recall that memory. The impact of Individual Memory can be seen clearly in Brett (1986) mentioned above, but also recently in crew comparisons from Andersen (2009) showing the possibility of improving well construction time by 8-15% due to different Individual Memories in the rig crews.…”

“…Factors impacting profitability also affect personnel availability and organizational stability in field operations making it difficult to retain expertise and to establish institutions of best practice for drilling wells with common complexities. Because of these issues as well as uncertainty in the drilling environment and equipment failures, the learning curve or drilling performance curve (Brett (1986); Jablonowski (2011)) for well construction within the same field does not approach the optimal quickly and does not stay at that optimal point. Brett (1986) introduced a "Forgetting Curve" for a sequence of wells drilled in the Gulf of Mexico.…”

“…Because of these issues as well as uncertainty in the drilling environment and equipment failures, the learning curve or drilling performance curve (Brett (1986); Jablonowski (2011)) for well construction within the same field does not approach the optimal quickly and does not stay at that optimal point. Brett (1986) introduced a "Forgetting Curve" for a sequence of wells drilled in the Gulf of Mexico. This curve illustrates the effect or re-learning that was required due to a stoppage that lasted seven years.…”

Modeling the time and cost to drill an offshore well

“…The time and costs to drill a development well is expected to be smaller than exploration wells because information gathered from exploration is applied in drilling. Learning economies are also well documented in development drilling [18].…”

Drilling Performance: Efficient Integration of the Entire Drilling System

“…Most importantly, knowledge of where the connections or touch points exist between the different domains is essential so that the implications of a change to the system can be rapidly assessed by the entire engineering team and service providers to help ensure the overall goals are met. The approach is novel within the industry because of the scope of the workflow, which encompasses all engineering relationships while drilling the well; whereas previous work tended to focus more on optimizing real-time behavior to respond to conditions encountered, using reservoir simulators to plan developments, or has been limited to collaboration between only two or three disciplines (Brett et al 1986;Adeleye et al 2004). …”