Improving Northwest Louisiana Drilling Operations Using Advanced Drilling Optimizer.

摘要

Oil and gas companies' main goal is to increase the rate of penetration and reduce the associated costs in all drilling operations. With the rising demand for oil and gas, drilling operations have continued to increase in pre-existing fields. The ability to optimize drilling procedures and economics involves simulation to understand the effects operational parameters and equipment design have on the rate of penetration. An analysis applying drilling performance modeling to optimize drilling operations has been conducted to address this issue.;This study shows how optimum operational parameters and equipment can be predicted by simulating drilling operations of pre-existing wells in a field in Northwest Louisiana. The dominant lithologies in this field include sandstone, shale, and limestone from Cretaceous to Jurassic in age. Reference well data was gathered and processed to predict the "drillability" of the formations encountered by inverting bit specific ROP models to solve for rock strength. The output data generated for the reference well was formatted to simulate upcoming wells. A comparative analysis was conducted between the predicted results and the actual results to show the accuracy of the simulation. A significantly higher accuracy is shown between the simulated and actual drilling results as more wells are included in the reference data.;Once simulations were validated, optimum drilling parameters and equipment specifications were found by varying different combinations of weight on bit, rotary speed, hydraulics, and bit specifications until the highest drilling rate is achieved for each well. A qualitative and quantitative analysis of the optimized results was conducted to assess the potential operational and economic benefits on drilling operations. The results show a significant reduction in time spent drilling and associated costs by utilizing drilling performance modeling and offset well data to optimize upcoming wells.