The downturn of 2014-15 brought transformational changes to the offshore industry, with widespread acceptance of the benefits of digitalization. This year’s price crash will test how successfully operators and service companies have embedded digital solutions in all aspects of their operations.
One area where automation can deliver clear benefits is in well construction and well delivery. Gaining better visibility and control over the entire process is a constant challenge for operators and their drilling contractors. Relying on time-intensive, end-of-well reporting systems that are open to human error can only provide a partial view of drilling data at any one time.
However, major advances in cloud technology are allowing better use to be made of well data, delivering greater efficiency, and speeding up knowledge transfer in drilling programs and reporting. Traditionally, each discipline and contractor has stored critical well project data separately, causing engineers to waste precious time searching for and verifying data.
With a single digital platform, all project data is stored, verified, and standardized. In addition, both internal and external parties can access data that spans the entire life cycle, from the workflow for the initial well selection, through operations, to the final well report. Everyone is aligned around one data hub with the emphasis on widening access to information, with improved transfer of experience and project control. Teams can access real-time and historic data at the click of a button rather than spending hours sifting through different systems and spreadsheets.
Currently, too many companies still prepare End of Well reports using Microsoft Word or other applications such as the Daily Drilling Reporting system. While this allows authors to alter individual templates, it also increases the risk of siloed information and complexity through having to work with multiple document versions. With a digital solution, the workload of the various project participants is distributed so that repetition of data insertion is minimized, enabling End of Well Reports to be generated largely automatically and shared within days. The pre-inserted content can be complemented by adding documents, files, and data during the operational phase.
Historically, tracking and managing well delivery data has been overly manual and labor-intensive, with the process open to human error as data is copied from one system to another. Through OpenAPI, systems can be synchronized to collate and verify data from multiple internal and external source data systems. This allows teams offshore and onshore to operate with the same data and consistent presentation of content in the final report and the Daily Drilling system.
Another benefit of digitalization is improved collaboration. Having a single platform that spans the entire life cycle of the project improves co-operation between internal and external project teams. Tasks can be assigned easily so that individual roles and responsibilities are not only clear but auditable. This results in a more insightful and efficiently produced drilling program, well montage, and End of Well Report.
Edvard Grieg drilling review
Specialist cloud-based solutions are facilitating the transition to digitalization with a minimal operational impact. With drilling projects at risk globally in the current climate, operators and drilling contractors are under ever more pressure to deliver greater efficiencies. Digital well delivery offers an easy win, because the technology increasingly automates and simplifies the reporting process.
Recently AGR Software delivered its first automated End of Well report for Lundin Energy Norway on an exploration well in the Edvard Grieg area of the Norwegian North Sea. Lundin chose AGR’s iQx D2 reporting application, which provides an in-depth view of operations and lessons learned across all stages of well design and operations. Lundin’s chief concerns were to achieve improved transfer of experiences and to reduce the likelihood of human error. The company also sought to reduce the time spent on creating End of Well Reports while increasing the level of collaboration between internal and external project members.
The company has since reported that the system has the potential to reduce onshore engineers’ time by a minimum of 50% when creating the End of Well Report, as section summaries can now be completed offshore. Using the intuitive Task Manager feature allows the project manager to assign tasks while operations are still in progress. Through Open API, the application is integrated with Lundin’s daily drilling reporting systems allowing automated data insertion into the report and providing confidence that the project-specific data is consistent and reliable. Lundin now plans to implement the software across all its future well reporting activity, targeting a more straightforward, accurate and less time-consuming work method for its drilling organization.
Other Norwegian operators implementing the software in their regulatory reporting have also welcomed the application.
AGR Software’s iQx software platform includes the following applications:
P1- Probabilistic well time and cost estimation
CT- Actual time and cost tracking
Ex- Knowledge sharing with lessons learned
D2- Collaboration platform for generation of automated drilling program, well montage, and End of Well Report
OA- Offset well analysis to capitalize on the successes and explore commercial opportunities.
