Collaborative Drilling

World wide drilling activity has been on a steep increase in the past several years and continues at around 100,000 wells per year.

Of all the processes in the lifecycle of an oil and gas asset, drilling is one of the most expensive and certainly one of the most critical.

Companies drill exploration wells to define prospects. These wells also provide information (logs, core samples, etc.) that is used in conjunction with seismic and other data to better understand the subsurface for optimal placement of production wells. 

Development drilling focuses on wells that will be used to produce the hydrocarbons in existing or new fields.  In the current environment, there has been a significant shift to development wells (versus exploration wells) as oil companies try to maximize production from existing reservoirs.

In all cases, the drilling program includes carefully designed well plans that benefit from a sound understanding of the geology, geophysics and fluid flow characteristics of the asset to be produced.  Increasingly complex earth models – which incorporate all the data known about the prospect – form the basis of the drilling program.  Integration of information and models from a variety of sources (as supported by PetrisWINDS Enterprise  ) are the basis of the earth models that are drilled ‘electronically’ prior to, or in conjunction with, drilling operations.

Not to be left out, conventional wells in well-established plays can benefit from the same up-front planning as do more complex deep water or non-vertical wells.

The PetrisWINDS DrillNET software is an integrated suite of drilling software applications that is based on the world-class and widely used Maurer drilling applications. DrillNET is an advanced engineering and completion package used across well-planning workflows to make key predictive and remedial calculations during drilling operations.

Current measurement while drilling (MWD) and logging while drilling (LWD) capabilities give the drilling team the data they need – along with available earth models – to modify the drilling program and to steer the bit as needed from the drilling console. 

New standards (such as WITSML™) for communicating information from the rig to the back office – or to analytical tools on the rig - help the team monitor and control the drilling process.  Current operational data is also used in analysis tools to predict potential problems (casing wear, pore pressure ahead of the bit) and to investigate possible remedies to avoid costly activities that may not be necessary.

It is estimated that $USD 8 billion each year can be attributed to non-productive time (NPT) related to drilling.  Therefore, there is a significant prize for the industry to reduce this level of NPT. Well-designed drilling plans based on accurate earth models and careful monitoring and control during drilling operations work together – not only to save time and money, but to drill wells that are placed and sized to support optimum production operations.

DrillNET’s computational modules can be combined with operational data to provide valuable assists to the drilling engineer and the drilling team.  When a problem arises, the team needs information and tools to help them investigate the problem thoroughly and to propose possible remedial actions.

DrillNET can be resident at the rig as a component of the drilling team’s arsenal of analytical tools for understanding and dealing with such problems. Through DrillNET’s connection to operational data ( via WITSML )  and its comprehensive drilling data base, the modules will be loaded with current data so that DrillNET is always ready to carry out a series of diagnostic and ‘what if’?’ calculations – complete with graphical and tabular reports – to identify problems and potential solutions.

The ability to run sensitivity analyses over a range of key variables gives the team a powerful capability to understand and then to take action – all this from a high powered set of engineering applications, connected to operational data, and  driven by the drilling engineer through an easy to use user interface.

As it is unlikely that any single software suite will include all the applications that a particular drilling team will want to use – DrillNET has been designed for extensibility. DrillNET customers can easily add their own computational routines to DrillNET’s innovative framework.

Today’s pace of drilling requires flexible and powerful analytic tools that are easy to use -  at the rig, in the office, with static data or connected to dynamic data – for planning and operational analysis. PetrisWINDS DrillNET fills this bill.

DrillNET’s unique framework lets users add engineering modules as needed to support specific drilling activities. Its built-in flexibility means that companies may purchase as many or as few of the modules as they need, or add them later as drilling projects change.

All DrillNET application modules are available in English, Spanish, Russian and Chinese.