Since 2010, TNK-BP has been involved in implementing a program for automating the entire drilling process cycle, which ranges from design to data collection and analysis. This work is performed as part of the large-scale IT project ‘Smart Field’. The program objectives are to shorten drilling time, reduce process breaches, prevent emergencies at rig sites, enhance contractor performance control and create a single information environment for drilling organizations.
Prior to 2010, TNK-BP’s drilling design process were marked by a low degree of automation, while data collection and processing, as well as report preparation were carried out on a manual basis. Microsoft Excel functions were used to process and store information, which sometimes resulted in significant delays and errors in calculations and analysis. The lack of a single database made it impossible to perform comprehensive drilling process analysis, while limited opportunities for real-time remote monitoring at the level of the Corporate Center (CC) and Target Subsidiaries (TS) hindered rapid intervention in the process in case of abnormal situations.
All of this, combined with the lack of a mechanism for checking the accuracy of information received from rig sites, complicated the drilling control process, as a result of which potential drilling optimization benefits remained untapped.
The task of automating and integrating the drilling processes fell to the Upstream Drilling Department, Metrology, Automation, Communications and IT Department, while a number of employees were also brought in from the IT Division, Drilling Support Center and Subsidiary Drilling Departments and IT. The efforts of this team made it possible to fashion a unique process tool tailor-made to fit the Company’s business processes (Fig. 1) based on the best worldclass multi-modular software packages (Landmark, WellOnline). The program modules in use are fully integrated with each other and act as a single mechanism for drilling process planning, monitoring and control and emergency prevention. The flexibility of our technical solution enables its integration with geological software packages so that real-time data from the rig sites can be used to build and update geological models during the drilling process.
