Sustaining Business Resilience - AI Driven Drilling Automation as the Catalyst for Consistent
Authors: Khazali-Rosli K. , Jamal J. , Murad M. , Mokhti M. A , Zurhan M. , Mat Noh N. , Kereshanan M. , Rashid K. Abdul , Ting S. , Cheng C. , Herrera C. 
Published: October 2023

Today's demand for sustainable and affordable energy in volatile business environment is challenging the conventional manual drilling operation. Digital drilling and automation open the possibility to achieve higher levels of operational efficiency enabling sustainable and affordable energy. To realize this, for the first time in Asia Pacific, a technology collaboration project was initiated to deploy an automation system that could be integrated into an operating rig. This, together with another automation application complements the overall drill a stand workflow.

An automation system that is integrated into the rig control system to control the top-drive, drawworks, mud pumps, and auto-driller to autonomously execute drilling activities was introduced in this project. Using its artificial intelligence (AI) engine, the system automatically mapped and executed the required activities such as rate of penetration (ROP) optimization, stick & slip mitigation, shocks & vibration, stringer mitigation and telemetry downlinks to achieve the user requested goals.

This paper focuses on two salient points, the first will be the technology employed and its integration with another digital provider and an OEM, its impact on processes and user adoption, procedural adherence, and its role in improving operational efficiency and performance.

As this is the first of its kind, the second focus point will be the continuous process and technology enhancements introduced during the project based on the result and user feedback e.g., reducing multiple handovers between different applications, adapting the functionality of automated workflows to the operator's and user's needs, integrating new functionality through the collaboration of the automation platform to facilitate system's use.

After 10 months of operation, this delivery exceeded its improvement targets. High levels of adoption have been the catalyst for continuous improvements in procedural adherence and operational efficiency in the project. Ultimately, this has contributed to an increase in operational safety & an overall 20-30% ROP improvement was observed throughout the operation.

The successful implementation of these drilling workflows also demonstrated high utilization by the drillers, with 96% of distance drilled using automation in majority of the sections. Overall, more than 14000m were drilled with automation, over 400 auto-downlinks executed autonomously and more than 70 hours in rig time was saved. The results achieved will be exhibited to communicate the specific areas for amelioration and to highlight the various potentials that drilling automation can for open-up to explore new possibilities for the industry.

This is the first drilling automation project in Asia Pacific and the first integrated automation system in the world between 2 digital providers and one OEM in the world. This project showcases innovative systems and process integration for solution deployment and continuous product enhancement in a new way of working and collaborating.