First of all, I would like to wish you all the best as we celebrate our professional holiday – Oilman’s Day. I hope we can all make steady progress towards the achievement of our professional goals and that our work will bring a wealth of new experiences and interesting challenges.
In 2006, TNK-BP’s drilling departments were assigned the task of enhancing drilling efficiency, with a special focus on reducing the well construction cycle. By building on their technical, technological and organizational capabilities, drilling staff have achieved an annual reduction of over 10 percent in the drilling cycle, cutting it by almost half in the past six years. Yet we continue to improve on this, as a further 9 percent decrease is expected in 2012 across the Company as a whole. We are confident of this due to our regular achievements and speed records. In July, for example, a penetration rate of 1,000 m was reached in 3.23 days while drilling to the Jurassic horizons of the Khokhryakovskoye field and the drilling cycle at Rospan International’s last gas well was comparable to the results of the “Best Сomposite Well!”
While improving drilling efficiency, we also have to continuously adapt to a shifting market environment and cope with the deteriorating economics of mature fields with depleted resources. Thus, Low Cost Access, a strategic initiative being implemented at our brownfields in West Siberia, envisages a whole range of solutions aimed at cutting costs in access to petroleum feedstock through new and more efficient well design.
The drilling department staff at TNK-BP’s subsidiaries is constantly testing new technologies to help overcome these hurdles. Thus, in the last year alone we have managed to recommend dozens of technologies for scaling-up. A Motary Steerable System (MSS) was successfully tested in the Orenburg region and oil-based drilling fluids – at VCNG.
Our experts are continuosly involved in the evaluation of some promising ventures, which include preparing and launching new projects, conducting wildcat drilling and supporting overseas operations in the Amazon rainforest and offshore drilling in Vietnam. Establishing the Drilling Support Center (DSC) under the Upstream Peer Review and Technical Support Center has produced a positive effect. DSC experts now track drilling operations at all subsidiaries in real time and by the end of the year will be able to monitor up to 80 percent of the drilling rigs operating for the Company.
While deploying new technologies, TNK-BP is also mindful of the people who make these technologies successful. This year, the fourth stream of the Drilling Young Specialists Development Program graduates joined the workforce at the Company’s target subsidiaries. Training and development of a new generation of engineers continues, and the Program itself is being constantly improved.
You can find more about our most interesting projects and achievements in the drilling sector and about the forthcoming challenges and objectives of TNK-BP’s drilling departments in this edition of Innovator.
