Core Competency, Core Business and Drilling Performance

摘要

Objective, transparent examination of actual drillingperformance data and trends is curiously lacking. This paperdefines two categories of drilling actors, risk-managementcontractors and best-efforts operators. It also defines the terms“core competency”, “core business”, and “drillingperformance”. A cardinal grading system for wells, based ongrade point averages used in schools is presented. The systemis objective, simple, and universally applicable. The total wellgrade is based on planned objectives versus actualaccomplishments, planned versus actual time, and plannedversus actual expenditures.Two sets of 50 wells each were graded. One set was drilledon a risk-management basis, the other on a best-efforts basis.On average, the risk-managed wells graded 2.66/4.00 and thebest-efforts wells graded 1.60/4.00. The composite riskmanagedwell was 1.81% over planned days and 2.03% overplanned dollars. The composite best-efforts well was 26.57%over planned days and 2.37% over planned dollars.The performance difference is analyzed. Personnel,technology, process issues, and economic theory areconsidered as root causes. It is concluded that wells drilled byorganizations whose core competence is a core business gradehigher than those drilled by organizations whose corecompetence is not a core business. The evidence also supportsthe conclusion that risk-management contractors plan and drillwells more efficiently than best-efforts operators. Finally,economic risk and reward principles explain most of theperformance differential.