Ever challenging field developments now ask for efficiencies that, despite vast improvements in technology and operational efficiency, the industry still cannot deliver. That is not to say that the industry cannot provide these solutions, but it does mean that cooperation and collaboration will be required to innovate through these challenges. To see the impossible become possible, one needs only to look back at previous drilling challenges the industry has overcome in the past.

Managed pressure drilling, ultra-deep water, the dawn of rapid batch drilling for horizontal wells, extreme ERD, and the technologies that have opened up unconventional gas economics were all industry frontiers at one time. Many of these hurdles have been tackled incrementally, pushing through the technical limit step by step. But if cost is the ultimate driver, the question is, “Can any more cost be squeezed out of the current model, or is it time to adopt new models? Should each drilling component be made more efficient, or should the complete drilling process be addressed?” Sitting at the center the new efficiency model for these challenges is the opportunity to develop industry drilling controls to be linked to, and guided by live feedback in the well.

Drilling controls are the gateway to this macro-innovation, and this technological shift will be rooted in improvements in rapid communication and the new host of tools becoming available in automation. To become more effective in manufacturing a hole in the ground, all the parts of the whole need to work in concert and talk to each other more than they talk to multiple users. Instead of the “too many chefs in the kitchen” paradigm, the industry is looking at an overworked chef who is asked to cook an overly complicated meal before the restaurant closes. The restaurant has to stay open, so is tossing the chef a better soup recipe really going to alleviate the problem?

The next step in innovation

In April 2010, the SPE hosted a Workshop in Galveston, Texas, to discuss the next step in drilling efficiencies centered in automation technology. The debate was lively, but the consensus was that there are key drivers common to our mutual success as an industry:

The ability to make automated systems a reality exists if there is willingness and a financial incentive;

Automated processes proved to be far more reliable than originally perceived, and there are proven methodologies in place to ensure the anticipated levels of efficiencies could be achieved;

Common control language is available from other industries where the standards have already been established;

Business models that reward innovation have the ability to drive automation; but the industry has historically shown reluctance to employ these models; and

An “automation road map” identified low-hanging fruit opportunities to justify taking the leap toward automating. The most striking event of the forum was the announcement made by a major operator’s software developer that the company had gone from start to finish in developing an automated drilling process on a low budget within eight months. In response, a prominent service company Phd commented, “That was always our fear. This might just be simple.” Participants have been discovering collectively since Galveston that very reality. The key for success sits in developing a platform that facilitates more development without the heavy customization that has caused severe problems for many drilling contractors and operators.

Engineering a new puzzle

The Automation Forum has marked a significant turning point in an industry-led automation conversation that has lasted nearly four decades. All of the initial investments have been incremental, and many of the investments have ranged from failing to meet expectations to simply getting a concept to work. However, this recent acceleration of drilling automation has seen both a marked influx of capital and a powerful need to significantly lower costs. In response, new technologies have been rolled out to match these trends, but they have delivered incremental improvements similar to previous efforts. So the question that has to be asked is, “How much more engineering can a puzzle piece take before we decide it is time to engineer a new puzzle?” The new technologies that directly impact operational efficiencies are all completely external inputs to the drilling system from the BHA or the drilling controls. Many important drilling advisers exist as do automated down-linking pulse controls, drilling break automation, speed management systems for the top drive to mitigate stick slip, hoisting and lowering envelope controls, mud pump ramping and synchronizing software, RFID maintenance and asset management, condition monitoring and health check systems, ROP “sweet-spot” identification through closed loop software, closed loop fluids management, downhole string pressure and temperature measurements, logging while drilling, and the list goes on. These are all puzzle pieces, not a new puzzle. They all are external to the main drilling machine. An opportunity exists for the drilling machines of the future to be designed to facilitate a new era of development.

Traditionally, much of the incremental automation work of the past has been done in isolation, but recently some strong strides have been taken with the help and encouragement of work done by the SPE’s Drilling Systems Automation Technical Section (DSATS) and the IADC’s Advanced Rig Technology (ART) committee. It has been these efforts that have prompted significant behind-the-scenes work leading to new technological development, much of which is currently being tested in the field. This is being lead solely by industry-leading companies that have caused the current buzz to keep growing.

Automated solutions

One of the promising solutions on the horizon is in furthering integrated drilling controls deeper into the system, taking full advantage of the high bandwidth available from Intelli-Serv’s wired pipe, creating a new connectivity to the well and the drilling machinery that has never been supplied without a number of software engineers holding the effort hostage.

The new system will allow users to bring their drilling performance models to the rig with their smart downhole tools and enter a new era of optimizing drilling performance live. The progression of this system is the nirvana of closed loop drilling processes. This very positive move forward will help the industry get out of the customized software game on the rig and into the well manufacturing game. The hope is that the drilling rig system will remain standard and free from becoming a complex software playground and to create a new standardized platform for all of the world’s entrepreneurs to work on new performance capabilities expressed in drilling software and specialized downhole tools. Future efforts will go into developing and testing software on a drilling machine that is designed to provide open access to all parties who wish to improve anything from supply chain and maintenance on the rig to dynamic closed loop drilling automation. But the evolution does not stop there. Open access has the ability to enable the industry to fully realize the efficiencies that it has been working toward and the severe market models the society at large is beginning to demand. It is within the grasp of the industry to once again rise to the challenge and prove that the impossible is collectively very possible.

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