Artificial intelligence has grown beyond its initial use in equipment diagnostics and now influences a much broader range of operations, experts at leading oilfield service companies say.

Panelist touched on U-turn wells, the future of refracturing and ever-longer lateral wells at on Nov. 20 at Hart Energy’s DUG Executive Oil Conference in Midland. But the scope of predictions using AI is broadening beyond predictive maintenance to “push-button” fracs, longer laterals and drilling and completions optimization.

Jeff Beach, NexTier’s vice president of reservoir performance, highlighted the company’s adoption of machine learning (ML) to enhance equipment health monitoring. He said the technology has been particularly beneficial in predicting failures and improving operations.

“Our roadmap has been the implementation of ML,” he said. “A lot of that has initially been with machine health or equipment health, looking to predict failures in our equipment. Now we’re leveraging that in wider data sets, leveraging across our wider company with the drilling contracting business, the directional business and the completion side.”

At Halliburton, AI is making a substantial difference in drilling and completions, said Steven Jolley, the company’s Permian Basin technology manager. The new Octiv Auto Frac has delivered a quick return on investment by saving time and improving consistency, he said.

“Auto Frac is, in simple terms, a push-button frac,” he said. “You can come in push a button and let it pump the design as intended without any human intervention. And customers are able to access that from an app-based platform and make changes based on what they see as well.”

AI is helping ChampionX and its customers make better and faster decisions about well design and choking back production, said Ricky Kostner, Permian Basin regional manager. That’s been a major concern of late for operators as Waha prices  frequently dip into negative territory. Kostner said shutting in wells can lead to complications including microbial growth and chemical imbalances that degrade well performance.

The panelists also discussed the growing potential of refracturing. Beach expects it to become more widespread even with areas in plays such as the Wolfcamp D, Barnett and Woodford basins to explore first.

“We’re looking at developing technologies and right-sizing operating units to make the most economically viable refrac for an operator,” he said. “Finding that right balance will determine everything.”

Permian operators are extending the boundaries of well spacing and lateral lengths, making it even more important to find the right balance of optimizing fracture complexity and improving well performance. Jolley explained that recent advances in fiber optic monitoring, like Halliburton’s Sensori offering, have been key in this area.

“A lot of articles have come out in the past several months about operators upsizing their spacing to really take advantage of their fracture complexity and it seems to be bearing the fruit, especially in some of the core acreages of the Delaware,” he said.

More U-turn well designs could help optimize spacing, according to the panelists. In these wells, the U-shape optimizes reservoir contact. Beach said the wells present no significant technical barriers, although it’s important to monitor the fracture network and stage sequencing.

“It’s approached like any other operation but [with] special consideration … if you complete the bottom piece of the U,” he said.

Another avenue for increased production that is slightly more popular and ambitious: increasing the length of lateral wells.

“If you would have asked me two or three years ago [about drilling a four-mile lateral well], I would’ve said there’s probably no way. But we continue to push the limits, innovate with technology and go beyond four miles, but you’re taking on quite a bit of risk,” Jolley said. “You got to have a lot of things going for you to take a step out like that and have an appetite for the risk because not only do you have to push drill pipe that far, but the casing connections have got to last through that torque and force to get it to that length as well.”

Kostner said equipment limitations will become more pronounced as laterals get longer.

“I think there’s going to have to be a lot of technological innovations that come along to meet those demands,” he said. “I don’t know that operators are going to stop drilling longer laterals because of the limitations of the equipment. I think they’ll turn that back to the service companies to go innovate around the operation.”

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