Technical Sessions

Session 1: Introduction and Framing

Session Managers: David Reid, Lance Cook, Walt Aldred

Our industry has a marked increase in activity and interest around the subject ofautomation however the resistance movement still outweighs the demand for change. Have we reached a crisis moment where change and adoption of the benefits of this new technology has arrived? This opening session will look at where we are, where other industries are and what we believe our future needs will drive the use of automation towards as it becomes more inevitable every day. This session will be developing a list of questions brought to the forum around the subject of automation. The aim is to identify where the needs are and our gaps coming in to the conference.

Session 2: Barriers

Session Managers: Joop Roodenburg, Lance Cook, Sigve Hovda, Duncan Macdonald

The internal barriers we face in the use and application of automation are fundamentally Technical, Business and Cultural. Many of the technical barriers for individual components of the drilling system have been overcome. However the lack of, or inappropriate business and cultural alignment in our fragmented industry (operators, drilling contractors, equipment manufacturers and service companies) remains a significant barrier to developing and operating the holistic technical solutions that provide true business value.

This session will investigate where we see the specific obstacles in the near and longer term as defined in the context of technical, business and cultural challenges. The Industry has to either accept the crisis as it stands in the context of limited and high cost access to reserves, or act. Whether this is in an evolutionary or revolutionary approach will be discussed within the sub-groups will tackle these critical issues of where we see the challenge and how we might need to overcome them from the perspectives of the different stakeholders in the industry.

Session 3: Values and Drivers

Session Managers: Sigve Hovda, John Thorogood, Hardy Leonardo da Cunha

The industry struggles with escalating cost and increasing technical challenges within well construction. The drilling process still depends heavily on pure manual control, individual interpretation, attention, and skills; all of which is very susceptible to human errors and inconsistency.  Is automation the answer, or will it just be another turn on the cost spiral? What lessons have we learned from the introduction of remote handling technology in the 90’s? Fewer people on the rigs may improve HSE, but can it increase efficiency? Where is the value-better peak performance or more consistent performance?  Various parties involved in constructing a well will in most cases have different business models and objectives. Aligning these may be a real challenge. Is misalignment a real barrier to ‘natural’ technical evolution? Can we learn anything from other industries and avoid repeating our mistakes.

Session 4: Levels of Automation and Human factors

Session Managers: Walt Aldred, John Thorogood, Arild Austigard

Automated drilling systems will be critical in economically developing the remaining hydrocarbon reserves.  In order to be successful we must design these systems with a focus on integrating people and equipment.  Numerous examples exist where automation has failed because the designs and implementation had not been properly considered.  How do we avoid these mistakes?  Automated drilling systems will have to interact and cooperate with humans in various ways and degrees of autonomy. The degree of interaction and autonomy will depend on numerous factors associated with the complexity of the environment.  This session will consider how we design and operate these systems, not to mention raise a number of other questions.  What level of automation is appropriate to which situation?  What are the organizational issues and consequences of employing these systems?  How do we train people to operate them either manually or automatically?  Do we design manual systems which then can become automated or rather automated systems that can be manually operated?

Session 5: Hardware (software), STD and Integration

Session Managers:  Erik Zachariasen, Gregers Kudsk, David Curry, Hardy Pinto

Today, automated equipment is designed to handle only some of the elements used to construct the well. There is a “disconnect” between suppliers of well construction components (tubulars, downhole components, completions etc) and suppliers of automated rig handling equipment. This results in a number of tasks on the drill floor that are “impossible” to automate, and which must be done manually.

This is a barrier to obtaining a fully automated drill floor which would also keep people away from working under hanging load in the well enter.

Is it possible - and realistic - to create standards that will increase the number of operations that can be automated, ultimately completely eliminating manual intervention?

Also,with the development of downhole sensors, wired pipe, real time operation centers and integrated reservoir models the industry has been moving towards a need to standardise data flow from the bit to the “city office”. The WITSML standard has been developed to handle parts of the data flow with documented results. However, the industry is slow to realise possible benefits and propagation is still limited. With obvious benefits, what is holding the industry back?

Little work has been done to include data from drilling equipment into the WITSML standard. Would there be benefits from a “plug-and-play” solution for drilling equipment data?

Whatever the advancements in collecting data, little work has been done to enable remote use of data to control drilling equipment. On most rigs the main drilling parameters are still set by the driller based on instructions over the telephone.

What would it take for the industry to realise the potential of a fully integrated drilling system, Bit to RTOC (Real Time Operations Centre) – and Back?

Session 6: Site Selection

Session Managers: David Curry, Wendy Measures, Gregers Kudsk, Morten Didriksen

Our industry has tried to use automation in a range of different well construction applications.  Some have been very successful, others … not so much. 

The overall goal of this session is to draw on this experience to investigate different categories of automation and to scope out potential new applications within the overall well construction process.

The session will open with descriptions of some examples, outlining each application’s mission, environment, and degree of automation, and evaluating their success.  The delegates will then be split into groups to brainstorm, discuss and develop a vision for a number of different potential applications– what would automation look like in that case, what would be the mission, what environmental factors would need to be addressed, and
what degree of automation would be appropriate?  The potential applications discussed will come from suggestions from the delegates when they register for the forum, will be ranked according to popularity and will all be  examples of where automation holds out the prospect of improving the ways in which we currently build wells.

Session 7: The Future

Session Managers: Arild Austigard, Walt Aldred, Joop Roodenburg, Brian Darling

Crisis and challenges will shape the future of our industry and demand change. This session will brainstorm the potential environmental and operational challenges in terms of the technology and business realignment needed to respond effectively to them. We will develop future scenarios from which the participant will be challenged to paint a picture of what our future may look like and how we could get there.

Automation has a history of being simultaneously disruptive for business as well as being a catalyst to open up new opportunities. The discussions from this section should leave us pondering who will adapt to the developing needs of our business and what part will the participants play as we face the inevitable progression towards a safer, lower cost future that can reach today’s uneconomical or technically unreachable reserves.

The impact of computers to productivity and solving the mundane and the complex is inevitable, however the future system will undoubtedly be a collaboration between the man and the machine. The question remains as to where we see the right combination of the human and the machine and how that will address any looming crisis and improve our capabilities, profitability and business relationships.

Session 8: Monitoring and Modelling

Session Managers: Wendy Measures, Erik Zachariasen with help from all the all committee members

The intention of this session is to form a collective view on what has been heard so far, what has been learned, what is still unknown, and what needs to be done to make the next breakthrough?  Knowing that forum discussions will bring up ideas not thought of beforehand, this session will also provide an opportunity to discuss new topics identified during the week.  The focus will be on how to move towards an 'Automated Well Construction Factory’.

Session 9: What Does the Oil and Gas Industry Have to Offer?

Session Managers: David Reid, Sigve Hovda and Wendy Measures

This Session will be a summary of the progress, process and the activities of the forum, where we think we see opportunity and a time to wrap up the thoughts and learning’s.  Clarification or challenges to thoughts, directions, opportunities, barriers or calls to action can all be discussed and reviewed.