Deepwater Success Through Predictable and Distinctive Drilling andCompletion Performance

摘要

Benchmarked results on well construction projects show thatmany projects incurred significant cost over runs. Half of themega projects since 1993 have been disasters resulting in adestruction of capital for oil companies. Insufficient drillingfront-end loading and inadequate team organization have beenidentified as preventable causes of these over runs.Deepwater projects involve multiple challenges of newtechnology, geological uncertainty and, often, a fast trackapproach. The wells’ portion of the total project cost oftenexceeds 50%. The huge price for intervention activities later inthe life of these wells requires that the initial completionremain in place and function as planned for a long time.Predictable and distinctive drilling and completionperformance is a must for the high cost projects thattypify deepwater.This paper will describe a methodology that has beensuccessfully applied with repeatable best in class results in theNorth Sea and Gulf of Mexico. This methodology addressesthe need that teams are organized to fit the project (not theother way around) and that systems integration is treated as ahigh priority. The results typically achieved with thismethodology are in the range 20 – 23 days per 10,000 ft – bestin class in both regions and 35% better than the averagedrilling time – with commensurate improvements inproduction and data acquisition. Short case histories ofdeepwater exploration and development wells are described –including a horizontal development well.The paper describes:- how the projects were organized,- how the teams were aligned to their objectiveand goals,- the processes that support these successful teams,- how the teams were motivated to perform,- how web based support can function to create colocationthrough the virtual world.The paper also contrasts this methodology withtraditional operations.