Drilling automation
Improved bit and bottomhole-assembly technologies and designs have helped turn what used to be record-breaking drilling runs into routine expectations.
The project with ExxonMobil used closed-loop drilling and digital well-construction technologies.
Autonomous drilling through managed pressure drilling (MPD) at the Atlantis field has given the operator confidence to scale the method.
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Drilling automation and innovation continue as dominant trends despite market downturns and unprecedented challenges in the past year. In many ways, the drive toward new efficiencies and step changes in well-construction performance has taken on an even greater sense of urgency.
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The complete paper presents a solution that integrates a physics-based torque-and-drag (T&D) stiff/soft string model with a real-time drilling analytics system using a custom-built extract, transform, and load translator and digital-transformation applications to automate the T&D modeling work flow.
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The service companies plan to co-market an emerging well control system that can integrate with established managed-pressure-drilling components to enhance well construction safety and efficiency.
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Brazil’s national oil company details the results of 6 years of real-time drilling monitoring. The next step is to move toward optimization, then automation.
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An intelligent drilling optimization application performs as an adaptive autodriller. In the Marcellus Shale, ROP improved 61% and 39% and drilling performance, measured as hours on bottom, improved 25%.
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A real-time deep-learning model is proposed to classify the volume of cuttings from a shale shaker on an offshore drilling rig by analyzing the real-time monitoring video stream.
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The best way to know how drilling affects drill bits is to visualize the bits. A device that creates high-resolution images for precise measurements is one of three technologies being featured in a JPT series on drilling measurement innovations.
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A group of people who really care how drillers code the memos added to the daily drilling report is the data scientists—who find that the coded tags do not match the activity. A program that helps drillers code is one of three technologies featured in a JPT series on drilling measurement innovation.
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ExxonMobil’s rig automation experiment is accelerating, with plans to push the number of rigs in the system from three to nine. Drilling efficiency was improved by use of an automated pipe-handling system, which reduced the median time required for connection at one location by 20%.
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Engineering career tip of the day: If you are using Microsoft Excel at work, don’t leave it open on your computer when your boss is nearby.