Offshore staff
STAVANGER, Norway -- Statoil aims to step up the speed and performance of its production wells on the Norwegian shelf, according to Geir Slora, senior VP for drilling and wells. The company has striven hard to increase the efficiency of its drilling and well operations over the past two years, he says.
“One of the tangible results of our efforts here is improved drilling progress and increased uptime. This has given us more than 30 extra wells in recent years. Drill progress has increased from 60 to 85 m/day [197 to 279 ft/d] since 2007, while rig utilization time has climbed from 80 to 85%, which is equivalent to two-three rig-years. And yet there is even greater potential for our improvement work.”
Slora also says there is a need to further improve the company’s operational efficiency, and the quality of its well operations. “In other words getting more for less – and making our operations more robust and standardized...but several factors influence increased efficiency. These concern modifications, upgrades and the limitations at our facilities. Greater rig and drill installation availability, as well as greater well service vessel availability, are necessary if we are to achieve our goals.
“Our efforts to increase recovery from fields over many years mean that well capacity has been used up at many of the fixed drilling installations, and we must therefore recover old wells in order to drill new ones. In addition to increasing the availability of installations, changes to and development of the choice of method and design will be necessary prior to each new well decision in order to reduce costs and increase efficiency.”
03/18/2010
