How IT services increase efficiency in the construction of oil and gas wells
Russia and the Persian Gulf states occupy leading positions in the hydrocarbon production market. Well drilling is one of the most complex and multifaceted areas of the upstream oil and gas industry, the development of which is inextricably linked to the development of digital engineering systems. Today, a solution has appeared on the drilling engineering market — the WellPro automated calculation system. Sukhrab Khadiev, General Director of Avangard Nefteservice LLC, talked with the developers about how to reduce the cost of processes using the effects of digitalization and eliminate the effects of the human factor.

Sukhrab Khadiev
General Director of Avangard Nefteservice LLC

In an era of high competition and constant growth of capital costs for drilling, it is especially important to optimize drilling, as they are a kind of Kaizen in drilling and allow for a continuous significant reduction in the cost of the process, to prevent emergencies and accidents in the well. The economic effect during the year can approach 25-30%, and when scaled to neighboring fields, as well as best practices, amounts to tens of millions of dollars.

Russia and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf are the leading countries in the production of hydrocarbons. To maximize profits, it is necessary to reduce the cost of well construction and repair. The main problems that arise during the construction of wells are low drilling speeds, frequent complications and accidents during work, and as a result, a high proportion of unproductive
time, increasing
the cost.
Various techniques and technologies, including information technology, are used to reduce the cost. Since the initial period of oil and gas field development, drilling has been continuously digitized, obtaining all the necessary effects to increase the depth / extent of drilling, increase the specific efficiency of work while complicating the structures
and trajectories of wells.
To date, the degree of digitalization has reached a level where its results in their purest form begin to overload decision-makers both in terms of volume and the required speed of reaction to the situation. All this leads to the neutralization of the advantages of digitalization by the disadvantages of the human factor effect (poor quality of analytics, speed of response to the problem, etc.).
Today, our company offers the drilling engineering market a solution to this problem — the WellPro automated engineering calculation system, the implementation of which makes it possible to eliminate the effects of the human factor and enhance the effects of pure digitalization. We are creating a system that allows us not only to make projects, programs and drilling models, but also to obtain calculated data as close to the real situation as possible by constantly verifying data with actual values of physical sensors. This makes it possible to effectively carry out a constant reassessment of the current situation, recommend the necessary optimization options, and warn about possible problems with the drilling process in a single integration with the Automated Control System of the drilling rig. This will reduce decision-making time, increase the speed of work and improve production safety by preventing accidents.

Thus, the use of WellPro is possible in two ways.:

1. The standard application is to perform offline calculations, for example, in an engineer’s office or drilling control center during well construction planning and model adjustments.
2. Non-standard application due to the imperfection of the primary drilling program and the presence of significant geological uncertainties, which creates the risk of drilling the well on time, with an increased likelihood of complications and accidents, which in turn leads to additional costs. This problem is solved by making calculations online. Online calculations are performed by connecting the drilling rig measurement system to the Wellpro core and updating key parameters for the well in real time.

We propose to receive GTI data every second, process it in our core and transfer updated safe corridors for work, real downhole conditions, and the current picture of hydraulic analysis and well cleaning, taking into account reservoir leaks, to the drilling or repair service. That is, everything that is relevant at the moment of drilling and important for decision-making.
A separate step in the future application of WellPro is integration with automatic drilling systems, which will allow most routine operations to be transferred to a strict system without additional risks. In addition, this tandem of systems will minimize the loss of valuable time for operational analysis and decision-making, which is critically important in conditions of complex geology and unstable
borehole walls.

Frakjet-Volga LLC, a Russian multidisciplinary oilfield services group of companies that provides high—tech services and a wide range of scientific and technical services to oil and gas industry leaders in Russia and abroad, is actively supporting WellPro’s digitalization of drilling and well repair industry partners.

To solve such a difficult and complex task, we immersed ourselves in the goal-setting philosophy at one of the first stages, which allowed us to identify three truly significant principles of drilling digitalization.:

1. Security. The system must ensure the highest level of process safety (calculate and establish safe corridors for changing operating mode parameters in real time, assess the risks of complications and accidents, and generate timely notifications and recommendations).
2. Balance. The system should provide the possibility of continuous optimization of the drilling process and the diagnosis of factors that prevent this.
3. Visibility. The system should demonstrate in real time what is currently happening in the well, providing a complete reproduction of the drilling picture with the necessary infographics in 3D dynamics based on measurements and calculations.

There is no doubt that such a system can change the paradigm of the drilling process and, in general, radically change the degree of involvement of key personnel, which will definitely ensure in the medium term the disclosure of significant technical and economic potential and its scaling under
the auspices of the inexhaustible force of the digitalization trend.
WellPro’s key online module is an optimization algorithm responsible for increasing drilling efficiency. Its main task is to use the method of «tracking» optimization, using and taking into account current and trend changes in various parameters, to determine the highest drilling speed at the lowest energy
cost.
An algorithm for determining complications and other deviations from the normal technological process works in parallel with the optimization algorithm.
With the help of the interrelated influence of key parameters, abnormal changes in the system are identified, which allows them to be classified for timely decision-making on their elimination.

The use of WellPro will allow for high-level system integration in real time.:
— To determine the optimal and safe parameters of the modes of technological operations;
— Identify the risks of tool failure and loss of control over the borehole, as well as the risks of complications during drilling using machine learning;
— Provide high-quality control of reservoir opening with absorption fixation
;
— Provide performance forecasts based on a verified digital twin of the well;

As a result, we plan to get the following effects:
— Increasing the mechanical speed of penetration due to continuous optimization of modes using an optimization algorithm;
— Minimizing the risks of complications and accidents with the instrument (the area of error and human factors is reduced to a minimum);
— Ensuring continuous monitoring of the performance of the actual downhole drilling modes set in the drilling program, as we count and transmit them every second.

Obviously, these technological effects directly and positively affect the cost of well construction, speeding up the work cycle and minimizing the risks of unproductive time, complications and accidents.

The use of WellPro will allow for high-level system integration in real time.