Tight-hole Triumph - Executing Operational Efficiency in a Secure Data Environment

Background

A global, independent operator with successful operations in geopolitically unstable areas sought support to manage a new team and deliver multiple wells remotely from more than 3,000 miles away. Notoriously difficult well conditions and complex legal remits around cybersecurity, reporting to stakeholders and data access added significant challenges to team integration and ultimately to the success of the project.

Highly experienced Operations Geologists would be tasked with assimilating and understanding the well story, while simultaneously managing a rig team and reporting to global stakeholders through scheduled formal channels and informally at peak operational milestone and events.

The operations geology team looked to software technology to see if it could streamline reporting duties and enable them to concentrate on core well delivery decisions.

Challenges and Opportunities

Global stakeholders across three timezones would require updates on well progress, while engineering personnel would need aggregated information and geological context to make timely decisions for successful well delivery. A small subsurface team would be required to manage this across 3 concurrent rigs at the height of the project.

Existing systems did not provide the granular access to data required under the companies tight-hole procedures. Moreover the onboarding of new personnel required requests to 3rd party system owners to action, which introduced delays and increased the administrative effort required to maintain access.

For the project to be compliant it would have to align with tight hole procedures as governed by the AIM listed company’s board.

Primary requirements for a software solution

• Onboard new personnel rapidly into a fast-paced drilling environment, with folder specific access relevant to their role.
• Provide self-service, on-demand access to a full library of well information.
• Automated operational status and progress in easy to consume dashboard for immediate orientation for stakeholders.
• Easily capture the drilling campaign knowledge library for local, long-term storage and asset development.

Solution

Having previously used Geologix software technology for log authoring, analysis and reporting workflows, the operator’s subsurface team, selected Geologix’s WellXP Operations Dashboard hosted on Amazon’s cloud to support these objectives. Using WellXP, all global stakeholders were able to review automated well progress displays on-demand, reducing ad-hoc communications with operations staff monitoring 3 rigs at a time. Trust and information security was delivered by WellXP’s secure role-based access system, providing granular, tailored access managed and controlled by the operations geologists. The resulting improvements included

• Operations Geologists able to move away from the time-consuming distribution of reports and updates to communicating directly with rig personnel.
• Timely, up to depth ops information transparent to all levels of the operation and its partners.
• New personnel, including wireline QC and pore pressure contractors could be onboarded with no IT delays offering immediate integration into time-sensitive workflows.
• Growing library of reports, logs, data files and documents were built under a curated online structure delivering clarity and speed across the well timeline.

Post well, the online library of reports, logs and files made a significant impact on the ability of the team to author and finalise the end of well report, as well as provide a wealth of information once archived offline. The Operations Geologist on the project commented that “WellXP saves everyone emailing reports, stops people saving them all over the server. (WellXP) helps with “Tight Hole” implementations, sharing to partner database and being able to go straight to reports and QC prior to partner submission”.

Outcome

Thanks to the experience and high organisational skills of the Operations Geology team, Geologix was able to implement the solution quickly and efficiently into the teams work patterns. WellXP was deployed and configured in a matter of hours, with simple, rapid onboarding, saving costs and speeding time to value.

The discipline leads within the operator had ready access to the latest information which streamlined the decision timeline. They spent less time gathering data for team meetings and from individuals, allowing more time to focus on interpretation, troubleshooting and leading a remote rig team. High level assessments calculate a saving of 10-person days each well not spent on these tasks, where overall the six wells reached Total Depth in significantly less time than the previous operators in the play.

WellXP’s document sync feature allowed Partners to localize the WellXP report library for internal distribution reducing duplicate effort and streamlining stakeholder communications.

The consultant Operations Geology team were able to fast-track end of well report authoring because everything was structured and easy to access. The legacy of this 2-year project of success in a tough environment, was seamlessly left with the operator for future asset development.

Samit Sengupta, Managing Director of Geologix, is delighted by the outcome of the project. “WellXP is a real-time monitoring solution specifically for drilling operations in the oil and gas industry, where operators and remote specialists can monitor the progress of drilling activities” he says. “In this particular context the ability to provide secure, role-based access to reports and logs to all stakeholders any where in the world across the asset was key to the success of the project”.

Next Steps

To learn more about how Geologix technologies can reduce internal IT burden and empower operations’ leads to optimise information delivery for faster decision-making in your next well project, request a call with an expert here.