Real-time monitoring and control of the
drilling process
WITSML SIG, Paris May 2007
Well construction operation challenges
• 15% to 30% of drilling operations is spent in non productive time
• Small problems can escalate in very costly situations (formation fracturing
 mud losses  cannot run casing  technical sidetrack)
At the well site:
• avoid generating problems by enforcing
drilling operations within safe guards
Drilltronics
Support organization:
• detect and diagnose potential problems
as early as possible
DrillScene
Drilltronics Summary
• Objective:
–reduce non-productive time during drilling operations by
avoiding influx from formation, formation fracturing and
collapse, poor hole cleaning, drill-string damage
• Principle:
–it is a drilling control system based on Cyberbase from
National Oilwell Varco (NOV) which controls actively the
draw-work, top-drive and mud pumps to account for the
dynamic behavior of the well during drilling operations
• Usage:
–Used by the driller and assistant driller at the rig site
• Project:
–Started in 2003 and sponsored by Statoil and ENI and
realized by IRIS and NOV
• Status:
–All functionalities have been successfully tested on a test
rig (Ullrigg) in May 2006
–Will be tested on Statfjord C (North Sea) Sept 2007
Drilltronics Functionalities
Drilltronics drillstring velocity limits
Objective:
– Limit acceleration/deceleration and velocity
during tripping operations to avoid damaging
open hole section due to swab/surge effects.
Principle:
– Define a top and bottom limits for hook
movement (typically from 1m to 30m)
– Use at any time the minimum of the machine
limits and the well limits for the
acceleration/deceleration and velocity
– The well limits are calculated in real-time by
Drilltronics and varies with the mud condition
and the bit depth.
Function:
– Activated via key pad (Trip limits on)
– Normal use of joystick (but
acceleration/deceleration and velocity
controlled by maximum limits)
Drilltronics Pump startup
• Objective:
– Progressive startup of mud pump accounting for
gel, temperature and fracturing pressure in
open hole.
• Principle:
– If air in drill-pipe, use fill pipe function until a
maximum SPP is reached.
– Increase pump rate in a stepwise way with
guaranteed minimum waiting time between
each plateau. Two startup modes:
• Stepwise: used to start pump by increments
when final flowrate is not yet decided
• Resume: used to start pump to a predefined flow rate
• Function:
– Key pad activated (additional options to
standard pump control functions)
Drilltronics Architecture (next version)
•WITSML
Drilltronics core system
•OPC
•
SOAP, WSDL
Drilling
Tripping limits
Calculation
Dedicated
WITSML
server
Pump Startup
Calculations
Performance
Calculation
Web
Service
3.rd party
GUI
Client
3.rd party
Models
3.rd party
Data
Machine Control
System
DrillScene Summary
• Objective:
– Continuous assessment of drilling performance and risks.
– Early warning in real-time to support drilling operations.
• Principle:
– Use a WITSML server as the source of real-time data
– Continuous modeling of the mechanical and hydraulic
situation in the complete wellbore and drill-string
– Continuous calibration of mechanical and hydraulic
models to match measurements
– Alarm generation when hole conditions closed to or
exceeding limits
• Usage:
– Used by drilling engineers, operation geologists
•Project:
– Started in 2005 and funded by Norsk Hydro and ENI
• Status:
– Tested at Norsk Hydro on Grane (North Sea), January February 2007
DrillScene Architecture
Database
Rig data
WITSML client
Web service
Well response
modeling and
calibration (1s)
Drilling
operation margin
calculations
(2min)
Server
Forecast
estimation
(15 to 30 min)
Clients
DrillScene Functionalities
• Complete and continuous description of hydraulic
regime in wellbore and drillstring
• Calibration of hydraulic model based on pump
pressure and downhole ECD
• Monitoring of open hole ECD with regards to geopressure margins
• Monitoring of tank volume to detect gain or loss
• Continuous calculation of thermal exchange and
effects on wellbore stability
• Monitoring of torque/drag limits along drillstring at
any time
• Account for hydraulic effects on mechanical results
• Calibration of mechanical model when bit is off
bottom
• Monitoring of mechanical friction evolution has an
indicator of poor hole cleaning
Downhole ECD
Measurement
Downhole ECD
Modeled In annulus
DrillScene test at Norsk Hydro: Grane
Head Quarter’s
WITSML Server
Kongsberg
Intellifield
Head Quarter’s
DrillScene
Server for Grane
Grane’s
WITSML Server
Inteq
DrillScene on Grane’s engineers
desktops (7 users)
Summary
Transform data into dynamic safe guards
to control drilling machineries at the rig site
Drilltronics
Use WITSML as a transfer protocol
Transform data into dynamic alarms to
support decision making for the support
organization
DrillScene