Remote Operations Center Applies UBD Techniques to Reduce Well Control Non-Productive Time
Authors: Smelker Keith Patrick , El Morsy Ahmed , Mota Jose Francisco , D'Amore Antoine 
Published: March 2015

As unconventional plays have grown, resources of experienced drilling personnel have become strained. Real time operations centers (RTOCs) are useful in reducing the strain on these resources by connecting technical expertise with field operations. Shell has recently developed a monitoring platform which has the flexibility to perform real time monitoring of drilling activities through a browser based platform. This paper focuses on the application of that technology in the Sichuan Basin, China to provide underbalanced drilling (UBD) and well control expertise to drilling operations, to monitor, coach, and mentor engineering and field personnel to reduce the recovery from well control events and to apply UBD techniques to this tight gas field. The UBD experts directly monitored and interacted with the engineering and field staff to effect changes in the operation. The RTOC's primary goal was to increase the safety of the operations by reducing kick volumes and kick recovery time with a secondary goal of training the onsite leadership in UBD techniques.

Through this RTOC application, the rigs showed a decrease in average kick volume, kick recovery time, and a reduction in larger well control events that had caused losses in offset wells. Through the RTOC, UBD procedures were reviewed and disseminated to the rigs. For the final 2 wells of the RTOC deployment, the wells were drilled utilizing these procedures and applying back pressure to simulate the required mud weight (MW).

This deployment of an RTOC shows that experts in a remote center can successfully optimize drilling operations. It also shows that an RTOC staffed with experts can train and coach field personnel to apply new drilling strategies remotely. The success of this operation gives operators an opportunity to leverage its unconventional experience and expertise without the need for redeployment of those staff.

Introduction

As Shell entered unconventional exploration in the Sichuan Basin, bringing best practices from other unconventional drilling experience was key to successfully drilling the wells (D'Amore 2014). One of the best practices/technologies that enabled drilling in this area was the use of UBD techniques for early kick detection and to achieve faster rates of penetration (ROP). In this case, a nine well vertical appraisal program was planned to explore a potential tight gas reservoir. Due to external constraints, the program involved five different rigs from another appraisal program that were outfitted with a UBD/MPD system. Along with this, the initial wells had high uncertainty in the pore pressure and fracture gradient profile throughout the reservoir section as well as slow ROPs. This uncertainty resulted in a multiple influxes and losses. Implementing UBD became a high priority to reduce the exposure to these issues and time spent circulating. Staffing UBD/MPD expertise for each rig appeared to be very costly because of the difficultiy in sourcing within such a short time frame. It was determined that due to timing, availability, and the number of rigs, utilizing a Real Time Operations Center (RTOC) to deploy this technology through the existing monitoring platform would overcome this issue. Setting up the center in Houston, a center of unconventional development, further reduced the execution time. The RTOC staffed with UBD/MPD experts provided monitoring, coaching, and recommendations to reduce the size, frequency, and recovery time of well control events with a secondary goal of providing support to reduce the MW in order to achieve higher ROPs. Applying these techniques remotely required highly reliable monitoring capabilities, robust description of roles, a method for reviewing recommendations, and a firm understanding of the well design.