Press: Digital Drilling Has Improved Process Efficiency and Made Workers' Labour Easier

In a few days, it will be the two-year anniversary since the launch of the first automated well drilling system at the Yuzhno-Priobskoye oil field of Gazpromneft. The innovative technology was developed by Digital Drilling, a subsidiary of NaftaGaz. Much water (and oil) has flown under the bridges since then, and time has only confirmed the correctness of the course towards the digitalization of oilfield services.

There are many reasons for this, and each of them is a good one. Let's start with the fact that the raw materials at many fields explored back in the last century are coming to an end, and the oil that used to be easy to extract is turning into an HTR - hard-to-recover reserve. Extracting it has become not only more difficult, but also costlier.

The geography of new oil production is shifting to the north, east and northeast of the country, including the Arctic shelf and permafrost zones, which requires not only more durable hardware for equipment, but also more advanced drilling technologies, which will simultaneously help reduce the costs of oilfield service companies and ensure the efficiency and safety of the process.

In general, the companies were right when placing a stake on the use of artificial intelligence in well construction. After all, AI not only allows drilling in automatic mode, independently adjusting all penetration parameters depending on geological conditions, but also generally allows to control all stages of well construction, transmitting data on the state of rock layers to the operator, etc.

Of course, investments in the digitalization of the drilling process are serious, but the results are also impressive. Only at the first stage of pilot tests, the penetration rate increased by a quarter, due to which the well construction time was reduced by two days with the same cost of work as with the traditional technology, and impeccable compliance with all safety measures.

At NaftaGaz, the course towards the digitalization of drilling has been identified as a priority: here the wishes of the company's strategic customer, Gazpromneft, coincided with the company’s own plans to improve business efficiency and ensure accident-free operation. Recently, at the end of July, at a technological session with the participation of partners, NaftaGaz specialists summed up the interim results of the implementation of the Digital Drilling Rig project, which, as we have already said, started in the fall of 2021.

The volume of investments in the project exceeded 200 million rubles, while 70 new jobs were created.

Much has been achieved in less than two years. All drilling rigs of the company are equipped with ADS (automated drilling systems), and operators of the IT company “Digital Drilling” work at 27 oil production facilities. With the help of the ADS, 300 wells have already been drilled, and the total length of penetration has exceeded one million meters! At the same time, the mechanical speed increased by an average of a quarter, saving the customer 7 percent of time, or about 300 days of drilling.

The company has also made a record: in the spring, in April, the NaftaGaz drilling team at the Tazovskoye oil and gas condensate field managed to achieve a unique penetration rate when drilling well No.5112: 95 meters per hour (average 80 meters per hour). Such high performance, according to the company's top managers, became possible due to the intensive and continuous use of oscillation and damping modules by the drilling crew, which reduce the longitudinal resistance of the rock and bit vibrations.

With the help of the ADS, 300 wells with a length of more than a million meters have already been drilled

Digitalization is designed not only to increase the efficiency and safety of the production process, but also to facilitate the work of the drilling crew and reduce the psychological burden on people.

“Digital drilling is a problem solver, a reliable partner for the drillers, which facilitates their daily work,” says Dmitry Chernetsky, drilling foreman at NaftaGaz. “Based on the specified parameters, the Automatic Bit Feeding (ABF) technology selects the optimal drilling mode, thereby increasing the penetration rate. The team regularly uses the new technology in the construction of wells. At great depths, the oscillation mode helps to avoid sidewall sticking. Accurate data obtained from directional drilling engineers (telemetry) is recorded on a digital screen, which allows you to drill as accurately as possible in slide mode (directional drilling). Prior to implementation, we were trained, details were explained to us, and now we work very closely with a software engineer to automate drilling at each well. It's a good development, I don't know how to work without it."
So far, 3-4 companies in our country use digital drilling, but over time, this technology, of course, will be adopted by most industry-specific companies, because, working in the old-fashioned way, it will be impossible to withstand competition in the oilfield service market.
The technology itself will certainly develop. Thus, the specialists of NaftaGaz and Digital Drilling have already discussed the tasks of optimizing some parameters of the ADS, which should increase the efficiency and safety of the well drilling process.

Tural Kerimov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of NaftaGaz:
- The implementation of digital projects in drilling is already a common component of the well construction process in the work of NaftaGaz specialists. Technologies help in solving problems to optimize costs in the extraction of natural resources, to minimize the impact of the human factor on the efficiency of companies.” In September, it will be two years since the company began the implementation of the Digital Drilling Rig project, which has already been installed at all facilities of NaftaGaz. Drilling automation allows you to collect data on the construction process, give accurate recommendations, control and react to the ongoing processes. “The use of our systems to a large extent allows us to stop using imported technologies, such as rotary steerable systems, and today this is more than relevant. We have an increase in mechanical speed, an economic effect, and an increase in the level of safety. I believe that the project has already moved to our system functionality and we are ready to enter the market.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Special issue: Oil & Gas, No.196(9141)