The cynosure of this session centralises on the gradual metamorphosis of the industry towards an automated future, highlighting the need to progressively keep up with the demands of the Industry 4.0 revolution, of which automation forms a crucial pillar. In spite of the world’s energy appetite continuing to proliferate at an astonishing pace, more emphasis is being placed on the efficiency of the modus operandi, prompting all sectors of the industry to develop and employ innovative solutions to address the technically involuted and abstruse nature of modern-day drilling operations. Drilling automation has undoubtedly been tipped to revamp the status quo of the industry, creating the perfect amalgamation digitally to its rapidly developing drilling technologies counterpart, however, it is still at the tail end of its upstart currently, with its future of widespread adoption still obscure.

In view of its relative infancy, this session will explore the nature of this new landscape and promote discourse to surface and cognise the key factors and appurtenant focus areas necessary to propagate its successful implementation and pave the industry’s way forward in embarking on the new-fangled drilling reality. The panel will introduce and address some of the following topics: 

• Drilling systems automation: Business models making the automation case
• What barriers are impeding progress? What drivers accelerate uptake?
• Rig and service provider adaptability to automation initiatives
• What are the cooperative and competitive domains for drilling systems automation?

Participants will gain an understanding of the challenges impeding the rise of automation and direct insight from subject matter experts from operators, rig contractors, and service companies on their journeys in adopting automation within their organisations, to better help navigate their drilling automation journey.

As the world calls for more sustainable and affordable energy, the drive for higher efficiency and performance level is more imperative than ever. While drilling technology continues to contribute to the improvement needed, automation is the next how-to. This session will discuss automation methodologies and key technologies that enable the step change in efficiency and performance that were not attainable before. Case studies will demonstrate the result and value delivered as well as implementation and adoption challenges.

Related topics include:

• From automation to autonomy
• Drilling activities sequencing
• Remote operations
• Surface and downhole automation technologies
• Partnership and collaboration

Participants will gain knowledge and insights into the next step of their drilling automation journey.

Drilling automation has become the theme of our current and future drilling environment. Different operators have diverse risk appetites when come to embarking on this emerging journey, be it due to cost-conscious, system reliability, or the value proposition of adopting the automation technology. Nowadays, drilling campaigns are encountering more complex challenges for well delivery from depleted tight margin pore pressure versus fracture gradient, generation gaps of field population due to multiple cycles of a downturn during short time span and tighter well economics for a project to sanction. All these factors possess safety risks in drilling operations while at the same time putting pressure to deliver well cost reduction in a drilling campaign. When we depend excessively in human intervention, the intervention might not be on time which escalates danger to the safety and well-being of the drilling operations. With machines today becoming more reliable and power computing becoming accessible and economical, technology has evolved from machine learning to artificial intelligence and to a certain extent, cognitive computing. However, in our industry, technological adoption is lagging behind and we are highly dependent on human intervention, which in many circumstances contributed to human errors that led to major accidents.

This session will highlight and discuss the capabilities and latest technologies on the importance of understanding how changes in technology shape human cognition and how to identify critical operations where human errors could lead to accidents or potential accidents. With the implementation of automation, users will be able to reduce the risks and be more consistent and efficient in drilling operations.

Discussion topics will include:

• The concept and explanation of automation in Drilling Risk Protection and Human Error minimisation through automation
• How does big data able to assist in modelling and analysing drilling hazards
• How current technologies can deliver consistent, optimal and quality in the current drilling conditions
• How are technological solution able to address hole instability risk during operation

Technological advancement in the oil and gas industry continues to evolve along with digitalisation and automation. The rig builder and rig equipment manufacturers are keeping up the pace with new technologies to continue to develop better products as the world craves for more autonomy.

This session will focus on rig automation, and enhancing, and improving control over rig equipment. Safe operations have always been a top priority for every campaign – increased automation will help keep people from harm’s way by reducing human intervention and driving for a safer operation. With more automation introduced, the industry will strive for more consistent operations and predictable outcomes which will improve performance and increase efficiency.

This session will cover rig equipment automation, and how automation improve operations performance.

As the adoption of automation in drilling rigs continues to increase, the expectations for automated capabilities are also growing. To achieve higher levels of automation, efficient integration among multiple vendors is necessary. For example, a single automation project may require: a drilling automation platform and automated pipe handling equipment provided by one vendor; sensors for red zone management provided by a second vendor; automated functionality for ROP optimisation, downhole mitigations, and directional drilling provided by a third vendor; automated functionality for friction tests, reaming, and surge and swab tripping protection provided by a fourth vendor; and a fifth vendor for cloud and data services including performance analytics. With several vendors, the driller needs to be sure which vendor configuration is in control, avoiding different settings in different systems.

Discussion topics will include:

• Roles and responsibilities in the end-to-end third-party integration in automation projects
• Case studies of automation projects that involved the integration of multiple third parties
• Simulator integration testing: Examples, advantages, disadvantages, and opportunities
• Examples/Lessons learnt from other industries that have successfully standardised complex multi-party integrations
• Technical requirements to achieve efficient integration, which may include industry-standard protocols, open architecture, and cybersecurity

The term "Big Data," which may also be referred to as "Big Data Analytics" or "Business Analytics," is typically linked with the oil and gas industry. It does not matter how big the operator is; the amount of data that is collected throughout their operation is staggering. The large amount of data obtained all throughout "a project life cycle" is comprised of a variety of data formats, ranging from unstructured data (data that is not organised and contains a lot of text) to multi-structured data (data that includes various data formats that are the result of interaction between people and machines). On the other side, "Data-Driven" is defined as data that is properly integrated and of high quality, as well as algorithmic automation, which may include artificial intelligence (AI). In the oil and gas industry, having data of a high quality is necessary. Even so, we can't rule out the possibility of "bad" data sets having an effect, and that is not even mentioning the amount of data processing that has to be done in order to provide a high-value interpretation of the analysis. Dealing with the different kinds of data is a laborious process.

When it comes to drilling, we have access to a wide variety of data sources, some examples of which include downhole formation evaluation data, drilling dynamics, drilling control systems, and various frequencies data recording settings. It would be to the operations' great advantage to make use of past data sets and overlay them with data on drilling done in real-time. According to research, machine learning can be used to address a variety of pain points. However, a common foundation agreed upon by many is necessary to achieve a successful journey in embarking on the "Autonomous Drilling." This foundation includes strengthening security against cyber threats, introducing a centralised operation centre that monitors and optimises operations, and introducing initiatives to optimise drilling operations. This session, centred on "Drilling Automation," will explore and share ways in which we could further accelerate the adoption of drilling automation by utilising data-driven solutions.

Among the topics that will be addressed are:

• Why is cyber security so crucial?
• You cannot achieve optimal performance with suboptimal equipment. How could automating maintenance help to increase operational efficiency?
• Data are the new currency: How do you handle Big Data?
• National repository: How would organisational reorganisation benefit the operators?
• What is the status of the implementation of data-driven solutions?
• For what purpose are we using the data?
• What has been done thus far to promote data-driven drilling optimisation solutions?
• What can the future hold?