Rogaland

Deepwater Operator Saves Multiple Days of Riserless Drilling Operations Using Novel Articulation Tool

Reynolds, Tyler R. (DeltaTek Global) | Cavé, Adrien (TotalEnergies E&P) | Horn, Tristam P. (DeltaTek Global)

OnePetroMay, 2023

Abstract The objective of this paper is to present a groundbreaking case study for a Novel Articulation Tool utilized by a deepwater Operator to address the significant riserless drilling operations risks associated with extreme environmental conditions off the coast of South Africa. The Luiperd prospect, located 175 kilometers off the southern coast of South Africa in 1760 m (5774 ft) of water, experiences strong prevailing surface currents and harsh weather year-round. These extreme environmental conditions required careful planning for open water operations to mitigate the associated risks for rig equipment potentially exceeding maximum bending moments or reaching fatigue life limits among other concerns. For the previously operated offset well, the Operator used drift running techniques during riserless drilling to deploy casing and drilling assemblies in open water to limit their exposure time to strong surface currents. The application of this technique in single derrick mode resulted in safe but slow and costly drilling. For the Luiperd prospect, one of the measures taken by the Operator to mitigate environmental risks was the use of a Novel Articulation Tool to minimize the bending stresses applied to the subsea wellhead running tools (WHRT) and landing string while running the conductor pipe and the surface casing. This articulation tool is based on a ball-and-socket concept which provides zero rotational stiffness up to 15 degrees in any direction while exceeding operational requirements for through-torque, tensile and working pressure ratings. The Luiperd well was successfully drilled during Q3 2020 using the Deepsea Stavanger mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU). During the well's riserless drilling operations two Novel Articulation Tools were used, one being made up just above the subsea WHRT and another being placed within the drill pipe landing string in the MODU's moon pool. Because the Novel Articulation Tool effectively eliminated the highest bending moments that would otherwise act upon the landing string and WHRT, it de-coupled the MODU from the conductor and surface casings run on the Auxiliary Well Center (AWC), enabling dual derrick operations which were not possible for the offset well. The use of this technology saved multiple drift runs and more than 10 days of rig time for the Luiperd well compared with the offset. A maximum 317 MT (700,000 lbs) of surface casing and landing string was suspended beneath the upper articulation tool. Both articulation tools were in continuous use for 75 hours with 4.3 knots of current and up to 5 m (16 ft) significant wave height (Hs). Although the Luiperd well was drilled in a unique offshore environment, similar conditions are prevalent across the world's deepwater basins, including the West of Shetland area in the UK and in the Gulf of Mexico where loop currents present a regular challenge. The subject Novel Articulation Tool can reduce operational risks and provide step change improvements in drilling performance for wells which need to contend with strong surface currents and harsh weather environments.

OnePetro

doi: 10.4043/32205-MS

OTC

OTC-32205-MS

Offshore Technology Conference

Country:

North America (1.00)
Europe > United Kingdom (1.00)
Africa > South Africa > Indian Ocean (0.54)
Europe > Norway > Rogaland > Stavanger (0.25)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

Oilfield Places:

Europe > Norway > Norwegian Sea > Vøring Basin (0.99)
Europe > Ireland > North Atlantic Ocean > Porcupine Basin > Druid Prospect (0.99)
Europe > Ireland > North Atlantic Ocean > Porcupine Basin > Dromberg Prospect (0.99)
Africa > South Africa > Indian Ocean > Outeniqua Basin > Block 11B/12B > Luiperd Field (0.99)

SPE Disciplines: Well Drilling > Drilling Equipment > Offshore drilling units (1.00)

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SPE Live: Trends in Well Construction Automation: More to Come? - SPE Energy Stream

SPE Energy StreamMarch, 2023

Drilling systems automation has made great strides in applications, with more progress coming. The question now is how the value proposition holds up and what growth is potentially in the future for automation of well completion, intervention, and P&A activities. SPE DSATS and IADC ART have organized a symposium immediately preceding the annual International Drilling Conference in Stavanger, Norway March 2023 to address these questions. As a prelude, this SPE Live touches on some of the known knowns and known unknowns to start unravelling the issues facing the future of automation in constructing oil & gas and geothermal wells.

SPE Energy Stream

europe government, norway government, risk and uncertainty assessment, risk management, Spe Dsat, spe energy stream, SPE Live, Trend, Upstream Oil & Gas, Well Construction Automation

Country: Europe > Norway > Rogaland > Stavanger (0.32)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

SPE Disciplines:

Well Drilling (1.00)
Management > Risk Management and Decision-Making > Risk, uncertainty, and risk assessment (0.69)

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Autonomous Directional Drilling Simulator Development for the Drillbotics 2021-2022 Virtual Competition

Fernandez Berrocal, Miguel (University of Stavanger, UiS) | Shashel, Alina (University of Stavanger, UiS) | Usama, Muhammad (University of Stavanger, UiS) | Hossain, Md Akber (University of Stavanger, UiS) | Baris Gocmen, Emre (University of Stavanger, UiS) | Tahir, Ali (University of Stavanger, UiS) | Sui, Dan (University of Stavanger, UiS) | Florence, Fred (Rig Operations, LLC)

OnePetroMarch, 2023

Abstract The work focuses on the drilling control algorithms as well as Artificial Intelligence (AI) technique implementation into an in-house real-time drilling simulator developed by the Drillbotics® Virtual Rig Team from the University of Stavanger, the winner of 2021-2022 Drillbotics Competition. The designed simulator consists of a topside model capable of calculating block position, surface hookload, surface torque, and bottom hole pressure. To achieve drilling efficiency, a formation-based rate of penetration (ROP) optimization module is running in real-time, where the safe-operational windows are considered to reduce/avoid drilling accidents, like stick-slip, axial vibrations, poor hole cleaning, and low efficiency etc. The obtained optimal WOB and RPM by solving such ROP optimization are used as setpoints and then fed into the rotary steerable system module (RSS module) to steer the bit following a planned path. Such path is designed with multiple Bezier curves that can pass given target coordinates and maintain low dogleg severity (DLS). Furthermore, the high-tech AI methodologies are integrated to the simulator to smartly manage downhole pressure via perceiving and interpreting the data, learning through the trial, training through given policy, and taking optimal actions offered by the AI-agent. The simulator is demonstrated to be a powerful and user-friendly tool for path design and optimization, real-time path control, and drilling performance optimization. It provides interactive and automatic operations of steering a bit passing multiple given target points and optimizing drilling behaviors to achieve high efficiency and low costs. From the results, the simulated (real-time) trajectory steered by the automatic RSS module integrating with surface drilling/control modules has small deviations from the planned trajectory. In the meanwhile, the simulator can precisely detect formation changes, accurately control the downhole pressure, and automatically optimize the drilling speed. The progress of the whole simulation can be followed through the web-based graphical user interface (GUI) remotely, where the depth-base data view, time-base data view and 3D graphical wellbore trajectories are visualized. After drilling, data analytics is conducted so that useful information from operational drilling data can be extracted and subsequently evaluated for post well-analysis.

OnePetro

doi: 10.2118/212507-MS

SPE

SPE-212507-MS

SPE/IADC International Drilling Conference and Exhibition

Country: Europe > Norway > Rogaland > Stavanger (0.25)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

Oilfield Places:

North America > United States > California > Sacramento Basin > 2 Formation (0.99)
Africa > Tanzania > Indian Ocean > K Formation (0.99)

SPE Disciplines:

Well Drilling > Well Planning > Trajectory design (1.00)
Well Drilling > Drilling Operations > Drilling optimization (1.00)
Well Drilling > Drilling Operations > Directional drilling (1.00)
Data Science & Engineering Analytics > Information Management and Systems > Artificial intelligence (1.00)

Technology:

Information Technology > Software Engineering (1.00)
Information Technology > Software (1.00)
Information Technology > Human Computer Interaction (1.00)
Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Representation & Reasoning > Optimization (0.68)

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Performance Analysis of a Downhole Regulator on Rate-Of-Penetration and Drilling Efficiency: An Autonomous Load Management at Bit

Aribowo, Arviandy G. (Eindhoven University of Technology) | Aarsnes, Ulf Jakob F. (Norwegian Research Centre, NORCE AS) | Detournay, Emmanuel (University of Minnesota) | Van de Wouw, Nathan (Eindhoven University of Technology) | Reimers, Nils (Tomax AS)

OnePetroMarch, 2023

Abstract Over the last years, the use of autonomous solutions for balancing the loading on the drill-bit has increased annually. By 2021, downhole tools for this purpose have been used for more than 1,500 wells and these become possibly the fastest growing trend in drilling. Polycrystaline Diamond Compact (PDC) drill-bits represent a great potential for drilling economics when steady cutting is attainable. Deep drilling, however, typically involves long drillstring causing an array of dynamic instabilities preventing steady cutting conditions at the bit. Such behavior affects drilling performance in terms of the rate-of-penetration (ROP) and system damage and failure. This leaves a big potential for improvement of drilling performance. The first experiments with an autonomous downhole regulator constructed were completed at Ulrigg in Stavanger almost twenty years ago to tap into this potential. Several versions of similar tools have since developed using a variety of mechanical and hydraulic functions to modify and shift the forces acting on the drill-bit in order to improve drilling performance. The Norwegian operator Equinor has participated from the very start of this new automation trend. By 2020 they had deployed downhole regulators to a total of 93 well sections on the Norwegian Continental Shelf alone. In this paper, Equinor shares statistic plots from comparing these first 93 sections to well section with conventional BHA's. The data show how the continuous improvement of the regulator eventually led to gradual improvement of both ROP and footage - in addition to its initial task of reducing vibrations. By utilizing a variety of dynamic models, predictions and sensitivity analysis, it has been revealed that the downhole regulator could change the dynamic response of the bit such that the friction losses at the bit are reduced and the rock cutting efficiency is improved. In this paper, it is shown that such benefits can also be expected in real-life scenarios in which two key aspects play a role: 1) a PDC bit penetrating heterogeneous layers of rock formations, and 2) involving two frictional losses due to borehole - drillstring contact in deviated wells. This paper brings a unique insight to the fundamentals, advanced mathematical models, and statistical results from a new line of drilling technology. The autonomous regulators bring a combination of reduction in risk and time to drill that makes a significant impact on cost.

OnePetro

doi: 10.2118/212560-MS

SPE

SPE-212560-MS

SPE/IADC International Drilling Conference and Exhibition

Country:

North America > United States (0.68)
Europe > Norway > Rogaland > Stavanger (0.24)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

SPE Disciplines:

Well Drilling > Well Planning > Trajectory design (1.00)
Well Drilling > Drillstring Design > Torque and drag analysis (1.00)
Well Drilling > Drilling Operations (1.00)
(3 more...)

Technology: Information Technology > Modeling & Simulation (0.35)

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The paper deals with the design, construction and the early operation of the worldwide 1 st battery driven high-speed catamaran passenger ferry MS Medstraum. The paper elaborates on unique issues of the design process, on the superior hydrodynamic performance, on the modular construction of vessel and on the land-based electrical/charging installation. MS Medstraum was built by Fjellstrand AS and was launched in early June 2022. After successful sea trials that superseded the expectations of designers, builders and operators, achieving a maximum speed of over 27 knots, it started operations in the Stavanger/Norway area in late September 2022. The prototype character of MS Medstraum led to its selection as “Ship of the Year 2022” at the major international maritime exhibition SMM 2022 (September 2022, Hamburg). The presented research is in the frame of the H2020 funded project “TrAM – Transport: Advanced and Modular” (www.tramproject.eu).

OnePetro

doi: 10.5957/SOME-2023-005

SNAME

SNAME-SOME-2023-005

SNAME 8th International Symposium on Ship Operations, Management and Economics

Country: Europe > Norway > Rogaland > Stavanger (0.30)

Industry:

Transportation > Marine (1.00)
Transportation > Infrastructure & Services (1.00)
Energy > Energy Storage (1.00)
Government > Regional Government > Europe Government > Norway Government (0.46)

SPE Disciplines:

Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Environment > Climate change (1.00)
Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Environment > Air emissions (1.00)
Data Science & Engineering Analytics (1.00)
Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Sustainability/Social Responsibility > Sustainable development (0.93)

Technology: Information Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Representation & Reasoning > Optimization (1.00)

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Equinor Strikes Gas at Obelix Upflank

Journal of Petroleum TechnologyMarch, 2023

Equinor and partners Wintershall Dea and Petoro have made a commercial gas discovery in Production License 1128 with its Obelix Upflank well. The find is estimated to hold between 2.0 and 11.0 Bcm of recoverable gas, or about 12.6 to 69.2 million BOE. Exploration wells 6605/1-2 S&A in the Norwegian Sea were drilled by the drillship Deepsea Stavanger. The discovery was made 23 km south of the Irpa gas discovery, and 350 km west of Sandnessjøen. Equinor said this was the first discovery made on the Norwegian continental shelf in 2023, and the first wells in the Equinor-operated production license awarded in the 2020 APA round.

Journal of Petroleum Technology

discovery, europe government, norway government, obelix upflank, Upstream Oil & Gas

Country: Europe > Norway > Rogaland > Stavanger (0.31)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

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SPE Live: Trends in Well Construction Automation: More to Come?

The Way AheadFebruary, 2023

Drilling systems automation has made great strides in applications, with more progress coming. The question now is how the value proposition holds up and what growth is potentially in the future for automation of well completion, intervention, and P&A activities. SPE DSATS and IADC ART have organized a symposium immediately preceding the annual SPE/IADC International Drilling Conference and Exhibition in Stavanger, Norway, in March to address these questions. As a prelude, this SPE Live touches on some of the known knowns and known unknowns to start unravelling the issues facing the future of automation in constructing oil and gas and geothermal wells.

The Way Ahead

director emeritus spe dsat, europe government, norway government, risk and uncertainty assessment, risk management, SPE Live, Trend, Upstream Oil & Gas, Well Construction Automation

Country: Europe > Norway > Rogaland > Stavanger (0.30)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

SPE Disciplines:

Well Drilling (1.00)
Management > Risk Management and Decision-Making > Risk, uncertainty, and risk assessment (0.66)

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Power Outages Hobble Equinor's Newly Commissioned Johan Sverdrup Phase 2

Journal of Petroleum TechnologyJanuary, 2023

Equinor's Johan Sverdrup Phase 2 development is off to an inauspicious beginning following a power outage last week that forced the operator to shut in production. The operator was able to restore power on Friday, 13 January, but told Reuters on Monday, 16 January, that an equipment fault led to another shutdown of the field's Phase 2 platform. The 4.9-billion expansion project was brought online a month ago with 28 new wells that boosted the giant field's production capacity by 185,000 B/D to a total of 720,000 B/D. Found about 90 miles offshore Stavanger, Johan Sverdrup is the largest producing oil field in the North Sea basin with an estimated 2.7 billion BOE in reserves. Equinor operates the field with a 42.6% stake and its partners include Aker BP (31.6%), "Startup of production on process platform no. 2 is now delayed due to an equipment fault that occurred when starting after a couple of days from a cold platform," Equinor said in a statement.

Journal of Petroleum Technology

cable, commissioned johan sverdrup phase 2, denmark government, equinor, europe government, johan sverdrup phase 2, netherlands government, norway government, online, operator, phase 1, platform, power outage hobble equinor, shutdown, united kingdom government, Upstream Oil & Gas

Country:

Europe > United Kingdom > North Sea (0.59)
Europe > Norway > North Sea (0.59)
Europe > Netherlands > North Sea (0.59)
(2 more...)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

Oilfield Places:

Europe > United Kingdom > North Sea > North Sea Basin (0.99)
Europe > Norway > North Sea > North Sea Basin (0.99)
Europe > Netherlands > North Sea > North Sea Basin (0.99)
Europe > Denmark > North Sea > North Sea Basin (0.99)

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A Study Suggests Geosteers Often Are Missing the Target

Rassenfoss, Stephen (JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor)

OnePetroDecember, 2022

Horizontal drilling makes it possible to drill through the most-productive rock, but based on the following charts, oil companies may often be missing that opportunity. The heavy black bars show the most-productive rock in two producing wells—one unconventional onshore and, the other, offshore and conventional. The tangle of thin, colored lines on and around it are the well paths chosen by 329 competitors in a geosteering contest showing that many of them got lost on the way. The charts are from a paper that analyzed 10,000 geosteering decisions made during the 2021 Rogii Geosteering World Cup, an annual competition started by the maker of geosteering software. The work by Rogii and a team of Norwegian researchers studying drilling decision making was presented at this year’s Unconventional Resources Technical Conference (URTeC 3722510). The results showed about half the contestants earned scores of 30% or less based on the percentage of the well in the target zone—weighted 75%—and their rate of penetration—25%. Only 14 of the 329 participants scored 60% or more, with the balance somewhere in between. To some extent, this dim view of geosteering is a product of the contest rules. Competitors were asked to geosteer two difficult wells at breakneck speed—a decision every 2 minutes based on data from the last 100 m drilled—with minimal information upfront about the wells chosen because they were difficult to steer. In the contest, there was no professional downside for poor performance. Still, it is the rare public attempt to measure how well drillers do at adjusting well plans to maintain contact with the most-productive rock. While the nature of the competition suggests it is not trying to replicate actual drilling conditions, it does raise questions about how well oil companies are doing at maximizing reservoir contact. They observed that some top performers in one well did poorly on the next, and luck played a significant role in some of the results. “The inconsistent performances of players in the two rounds/poor average scores/and significantly different well trajectories planned by geosteerers represent a lack of unified guidelines for stratigraphic-based steering,” Yasaman Cheraghi, a PhD fellow in computational engineering at the University of Stavanger, wrote in an email. Geography was not a good predictor of performance. While 40% of the participants were working in North America, where the greatest number of horizontal wells have been drilled, their results were not better despite their experience. Those involved in the geosteering simulations, based on wells in the Duverney shale in Western Canada and the Xihu Sub-Basin (Yuquan discovery) of the East China Sea, would say they were using a standard method—stratigraphic-based steering. That approach uses the data gathered while drilling and other data about the formation to predict how the layers of rock in the reservoir—the stratigraphy—are likely to change ahead of the steering.

OnePetro

doi: 10.2118/1222-0024-JPT

SPE

SPE-1222-0024-JPT

Journal of Petroleum Technology

Country:

North America > Canada (0.54)
Europe > Norway > Rogaland > Stavanger (0.26)

Genre: Research Report > New Finding (0.34)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

Oilfield Places:

Europe > Norway > North Sea > Northern North Sea > North Viking Graben > PL 054 > Block 31/6 > Troll Field > Sognefjord Formation (0.99)
Europe > Norway > North Sea > Northern North Sea > North Viking Graben > PL 054 > Block 31/6 > Troll Field > Heather Formation (0.99)
Europe > Norway > North Sea > Northern North Sea > North Viking Graben > PL 054 > Block 31/6 > Troll Field > Fensfjord Formation (0.99)
(9 more...)

SPE Disciplines: Well Drilling > Drilling Operations > Geosteering / reservoir navigation (1.00)

Technology: Information Technology (1.00)

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Climate-Change and Safety Metrics - SPE Energy Stream

SPE Energy StreamOctober, 2022

Matthias Beer with BMO Global Asset Management talks about the climate-change and safety metrics and key performance indicators requested by investors and how these measurements are being interpreted beyond the original questions asked. Presented at the 2016 International Conference on Health, Safety, Security, Environment, and Social Responsibility held in Stavanger, Norway.

SPE Energy Stream

benchmarking, climate change, HSSE reporting, performance indicator, safety metric, spe energy stream, strategic planning and management

Country: Europe > Norway > Rogaland > Stavanger (0.43)

SPE Disciplines:

Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Safety (1.00)
Management > Strategic Planning and Management > Benchmarking and performance indicators (0.91)
Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > HSSE & Social Responsibility Management > HSSE reporting (0.79)
Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Environment > Climate change (0.79)

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Collaborating Authors

Deepwater Operator Saves Multiple Days of Riserless Drilling Operations Using Novel Articulation Tool

SPE Live: Trends in Well Construction Automation: More to Come? - SPE Energy Stream

Autonomous Directional Drilling Simulator Development for the Drillbotics 2021-2022 Virtual Competition

Performance Analysis of a Downhole Regulator on Rate-Of-Penetration and Drilling Efficiency: An Autonomous Load Management at Bit

Medstraum: Design and Operation of the First Zero-Emission Fast Catamaran

Equinor Strikes Gas at Obelix Upflank

SPE Live: Trends in Well Construction Automation: More to Come?

Power Outages Hobble Equinor's Newly Commissioned Johan Sverdrup Phase 2

A Study Suggests Geosteers Often Are Missing the Target

Climate-Change and Safety Metrics - SPE Energy Stream

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Rogaland