Realtime monitoring and control of the drilling process

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Real-time monitoring and control of the drilling
process

• WITSML SIG, Paris May 2007

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Well construction operation challenges

• 15 to 30 of drilling operations is spent in non
  productive time
• Small problems can escalate in very costly
  situations (formation fracturing ? mud losses ?
  cannot run casing ? technical sidetrack)

DrillScene
Drilltronics
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Drilltronics Summary

• Objective
• reduce non-productive time during drilling
  operations by avoiding influx from formation,
  formation fracturing and collapse, poor hole
  cleaning, drill-string damage
• Principle
• it is a drilling control system based on
  Cyberbase from National Oilwell Varco (NOV) which
  controls actively the draw-work, top-drive and
  mud pumps to account for the dynamic behavior of
  the well during drilling operations
• Usage
• Used by the driller and assistant driller at the
  rig site
• Project
• Started in 2003 and sponsored by Statoil and ENI
  and realized by IRIS and NOV
• Status
• All functionalities have been successfully tested
  on a test rig (Ullrigg) in May 2006
• Will be tested on Statfjord C (North Sea) Sept
  2007

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Drilltronics Functionalities
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Drilltronics drillstring velocity limits

• Objective
• Limit acceleration/deceleration and velocity
  during tripping operations to avoid damaging open
  hole section due to swab/surge effects.
• Principle
• Define a top and bottom limits for hook movement
  (typically from 1m to 30m)
• Use at any time the minimum of the machine limits
  and the well limits for the acceleration/decelerat
  ion and velocity
• The well limits are calculated in real-time by
  Drilltronics and varies with the mud condition
  and the bit depth.
• Function
• Activated via key pad (Trip limits on)
• Normal use of joystick (but acceleration/decelerat
  ion and velocity controlled by maximum limits)

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Drilltronics Pump startup

• Objective
• Progressive startup of mud pump accounting for
  gel, temperature and fracturing pressure in open
  hole.
• Principle
• If air in drill-pipe, use fill pipe function
  until a maximum SPP is reached.
• Increase pump rate in a stepwise way with
  guaranteed minimum waiting time between each
  plateau. Two startup modes
• Stepwise used to start pump by increments when
  final flowrate is not yet decided
• Resume used to start pump to a pre-defined flow
  rate
• Function
• Key pad activated (additional options to standard
  pump control functions)

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Drilltronics Architecture (next version)

• WITSML
• OPC
• SOAP, WSDL

Drilltronics core system

Drilling Performance Calculation
Pump Startup Calculations
Tripping limits Calculation
3.rd party GUI Client
Dedicated WITSML server
Web Service
3.rd party Models
3.rd party Data
Machine Control System
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DrillScene Summary

• Objective
• Continuous assessment of drilling performance
  and risks.
• Early warning in real-time to support drilling
  operations.
• Principle
• Use a WITSML server as the source of real-time
  data
• Continuous modeling of the mechanical and
  hydraulic situation in the complete wellbore and
  drill-string
• Continuous calibration of mechanical and
  hydraulic models to match measurements
• Alarm generation when hole conditions closed to
  or exceeding limits
• Usage
• Used by drilling engineers, operation geologists
• Project
• Started in 2005 and funded by Norsk Hydro and
  ENI
• Status
• Tested at Norsk Hydro on Grane (North Sea),
  January - February 2007

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DrillScene Architecture
Database
Rig data
WITSML client
Web service
Well response modeling and calibration (1s)
Forecast estimation (15 to 30 min)
Drilling operation margin calculations (2min)
Server
Clients
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DrillScene Functionalities

• Complete and continuous description of hydraulic
  regime in wellbore and drillstring
• Calibration of hydraulic model based on pump
  pressure and downhole ECD
• Monitoring of open hole ECD with regards to
  geo-pressure margins
• Monitoring of tank volume to detect gain or loss
• Continuous calculation of thermal exchange and
  effects on wellbore stability
• Monitoring of torque/drag limits along
  drillstring at any time
• Account for hydraulic effects on mechanical
  results
• Calibration of mechanical model when bit is off
  bottom
• Monitoring of mechanical friction evolution has
  an indicator of poor hole cleaning

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DrillScene test at Norsk Hydro Grane
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Summary
Use WITSML as a transfer protocol