Structured Enterprise Architecture Approach in Transforming Well Planning & Operations Into a Digitally Enabled Business Forstering Architecture Agility Towards Future Industry Requirements
Authors: Hamzah M. Hadi , Ghazali Rohaizat , Bakar Afdzal Hizamal Abu , Azaman Dzulkarnain , Jamalludin M. Nasri 
Published: April 2024

PETRONAS Wells Integrated Operations (WIO) program intends to improve well engineer's experience delivering the day-to-day task via an integrated, collaborative "OPEN" platform enabling engineers focusing on engineering task driving better quality designs and seamless monitoring during drilling operations. It enables teams to deliver faster and better drilling program through automation of repetitive tasks and validation workflows ensuring the plan is coherent on a single digital platform which facilitates enablement of drilling automation towards OTOBOS well delivery.

Enterprise Architecture (EA) methodology assists in realizing and validating the underlying challenges with the current ecosystem where current solution covering planning and drilling operations and business processes have yet to be fully digitalized. The EA exercise based on The OPEN Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) Architecture Development Methodology (ADM) framework is utilized in identification and analysis of PETRONAS wells vision (TO-BE architecture), business capabilities and processes mapping, data architecture mapping, application, and technology landscape mapping. Gap analysis is performed through in the identification of critical pain points and prioritization is done to focus on the solutioning in alignment to the TO-BE architecture based on PETRONAS’ wells vision.

WIO program via selection of a pre-integrated petro-technical digital platform has improved end to end process of well planning and operations Process Cycle Efficiency (PCE) improvement of 30-40% which is validated via a actual drilling campaign operations. Further efficiency improvements have been identified via configuration and customization which can further add 10-20% PCE improvement. WIO program provides the potential of architecture simplification by reducing up to 30% applications with utilization of a pre-integrated petro-technical digital platform as the orchestrating layer thus resulting in total cost of ownership lowered up to 30-40% per annum. The facilitation of a digital drilling program has enabled direct use case for drilling automation which resulted in cost avoidance of protection of pack off and drilling optimization. The simplified architecture design not only enables future requirements such as emission management reporting function to be plug & play in view of industry requirement to meet net zero carbon emission targets but also simplifies integration with adjacent domain digital platforms in the organization such as exploration and production domains.

The paper narrates the ideation of WIO program which utilized a systematic approach by employing TOGAF ADM frameworks in its digital transformation journey carving a methodological map architecting the organizations vision into a digital roadmap. The use cases and methodology are a good reference for future iterations of digital transformation journey in which focuses of business value creation.

Value creation was derived based on Business Process Workflow (BPW) & Process Cycle Efficiency (PCE) situational assessment comparing value improvement between current well planning and operations processes vs. WIO based well planning and operations processes run on actual drilling campaign over a 1-year period.