Integrated Work Flow Aids Data Digitization, Management for Offshore Drilling
Authors: Carpenter Chris 
Published: November 2021

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 202290, “Digital Documentation and Data Management for Offshore Drilling,” by Zhong Cheng, SPE, Xi’an Shiyou University and CNOOC, and Rongqiang Xu and Xiaolong Yu, CNOOC, et al., prepared for the 2020 SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, originally scheduled to be held in Perth, Australia, 20–22 October. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

The industry is expending significant effort into using instrumentation and software to optimize operations in all domains for exploration and production to move toward the digital oil field. The complete paper describes an integrated geological-engineering data-management project covering all aspects of well-engineering work flows, with the objective of providing a continuous improvement platform to users.

Introduction

CNOOC has spent more than 20 years on the progression of information construction. A private cloud platform was completed in 2018, and the characteristics of oil and gas data and critical storage-management technologies were studied systematically. At the same time, nearly 20 kinds of drilling- operation analysis software have been developed independently. From the perspective of engineering technology, these provide real-time monitoring, remote decision-making, technical training, and other information resource services and support for offshore drilling operations. However, the following problems restrict the efficient operation of such projects:

- Because of the lack of a unified data-integration-application platform, data sharing has not yet been realized.

- In the process of real-time monitoring and remote decision-making, more engineering information based on drilling operations lacks the support of geomechanical data.

- The knowledge base and case library to guide the prevention and handling of drilling-operation accidents have not been established.

System-Target Analysis

The design goals of the platform are embodied in three aspects: function, safety, and operability, while system performance requirements are summarized as adaptability, response speed, scalability, maintainability, and the effective-ness of failure-handling mechanisms.

According to the functional requirements of different users for offshore-drilling cloud technical services, users generally are divided into three categories: headquarters decision-making managers, drilling-operation project teams, and system-operation and maintenance-service providers.

System Construction Goals and Architecture

Construction Goals - Chief among these was to build a geological-engineering integrated data-management platform.

Another important goal was to build a case-management platform. An intelligent search engine is established to retrieve the corresponding disposal knowledge through a comprehensive information model. A knowledge-management subsystem is established, and users are linked with internal knowledge-management processes with the help of the cloud. The specific operation process is carried out in the private cloud, and the results are fed back to the user through the human/computer interface.