Drilling advances

	Vol. 230 No. 11
JIM REDDEN, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Is technology the cure-all for NPT?

Question of the month: Is the industry relying too heavily on new technologies to cure all its downhole woes while doing little to improve fundamental drilling practices?

I pose that query because there are those who say just that, especially at a time when everyone seems to be scratching their heads over how to reduce Non-Productive Time (NPT), which operators say is costing them a combined $1 billion a year in the Gulf of Mexico alone. Of course, we’re referring specifically to the time and money spent addressing downhole problems and not those unproductive periods when Mother Nature decides to throw a tizzy. As for well construction troubles, many observers contend that lost circulation, unstable wellbores, well control issues and other difficulties that put the kibosh on making new hole could be resolved if the industry would spend more effort concentrating on the basics. In other words, adhere to good drilling practices or, as one industry executive said, “listen to your well.”

I interrupt this column briefly in the interest of full disclosure. While I’ve been on more than my share of offshore and onshore drilling rigs over the past three-plus decades, it always has been as an observer, a chronicler, if you will. I have never modified the rheological properties of a mud system on location, changed out a bit, or sat in a driller’s console and had to make a snap decision on whether to increase rpm or weight-on-bit.

I have, however, spent most of my working life visiting with industry folks and collecting their thoughts on the various issues and challenges they face every day in the field. That said, one of the theories I hear more and more today is that the industry is treating new technology as the Holy Grail, at the expense of enhancing wellsite engineering practices.

Age-old quandary. The economics of today’s industry, especially offshore, have put NPT squarely in the center of the target. In fact, NPT is considered so intractable that many operators routinely add 10–25% on a well Authorization For Expenditure (AFE) to account for drilling problems.

However, the tension between reliance on new technology and improvements in wellsite engineering practices certainly is not a new experience for drilling engineers. Indeed, this is a question that appears to be nearly as old as the industry itself. In compiling his definitive 1,500-page History of Oil Well Drilling back in 1955, J. E. Brantley wrote that the rotary drilling practices of 1928 differed only very slightly from those employed universally at the turn of that century. While Brantley gave due credit to a number of new innovations at the time, including mud weighting agents, the rolling cutter bit, casing cementing and others, he maintained that little attention was afforded to actually improving the efficiency of the drilling operation.

“With a few exceptions, there had been no concerted efforts on the part of engineers, whether practically or formally trained, to improve the efficiency of well drilling operations and the tools employed in them,” he wrote. “It is true that new tools and new useful items of equipment were developed during that quarter century, but they were generally presented to the industry by inventive minds that were not, nor had they ever been, actively engaged in the mechanical processes of drilling wells. Nor were they developed by engineers or technical men assigned to the problem of increasing the efficiency of boring holes in the earth.”

It must, of course, be emphasized that the industry to which Brantley referred was not drilling in 10,000 ft of water with very narrow fracture gradients, constructing seven-mile extended-reach wells or trying to handle bottomhole temperatures of nearly 500°F. Then again, the problems facing those pioneers with the technology available at the time might have appeared just as daunting by comparison.

Creating a balance. Another brief pause. Before every R&D organization in the industry yells foul, I wish to emphasize that I am continually fascinated with the industry-changing technologies that have been developed over the years. After all, we would not be in the position to pinpoint comparatively dime-sized subsalt targets in 6,000 ft of water or, for that matter, even complete and produce blistering Haynesville wells without all these sophisticated technologies.

The point is, while continual technological development is the lifeblood of our industry and always will be, it must be balanced with efficient rigsite engineering. Patrick York, Weatherford International director of commercialization and marketing, drove that point home during this year’s Offshore Technology Conference. During a drilling technology session, he advised the industry to focus more on employing common sense rather than relying exclusively on new technologies to combat downhole troubles. For instance, he said 41% of total NPT is attributable directly to wellbore instability that often can be avoided with relatively simple drilling practice modifications.

“What we’ve observed is that as much as 50% of all nonproductive time could be cured with better drilling practices,” he said. “We still have not grasped many of the lessons we have learned over the years. A lot of these things aren’t super-sexy and are basically very elementary. Many times, it’s just a matter of listening to your well.”

An executive of one of the major service companies—a technology development guru, no less—basically agreed, telling me recently that operational missteps in the field addressed long ago are now raising their heads once again.

“I think there’s a lot of frustration that maybe some of the things we saw 10 years ago are being repeated now. It all goes back to knowledge transfer within the industry, and not just by the service companies, but by the operators and contractors as well,” he said.

Perhaps therein lies some of the problem. As the industry justifiably devotes more of its resources to the development of game-changing technologies, maybe it’s time to devote an equal amount of time and effort to their efficient application.