Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/216771630
READS
131
1 author:
Bertrand du Castel
Schlumberger Limited
36 PUBLICATIONS 26 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
I. FOREWORD
HE HISTORY
2
the asset, then to the base and the office, and back. In time,
operations go from delineation to characterization to
development and then to production and abandonment. For
each of these activities in space and time, it is possible to
outline areas of automation. First, I will paint a picture of the
value brought by human-centered automation geographically,
projecting into the future.
Subsurface: Downhole information and control is available
through high-bandwidth communication channels throughout
well construction, completion, and production. Installation of
completion hardware is predictable and reliable. Flexible,
semi-autonomous, bandwidth-optimized, and context-aware
systems reduce the need for human intervention while making
it more effective when it is required.
Surface: Surface systems can be controlled locally and
remotely. Automation drives efficiency, safety, and
economics. The surface environment is safe and attractive.
Dangerous, unpleasant, and inefficient tasks, as well as tasks
prone to human error, are automated. Well-trained technicians
operate surface equipment with input from remote experts.
Asset: Multivendor asset equipment is fully networked from
downhole (to seabed) to surface. Information about the
performance of the asset and the levels of uncertainty in future
performance is constantly updated and displayed for
surveillance and alarms. Automation plays a key role in a
rolling simulation, uncertainty analysis, and optimization of
asset exploitation.
Base: Field locations have the benefits of local autonomy
with logistics and resources optimized across the company.
Local staff has access to expertise through automated systems,
particularly in case of breakdown. Work schedules are
attractive because of the elasticity of response created by
automation and access to multiple remote experts.
Office: Expertise is distributed around the world in and
between companies. It is enhanced by automation in data
management,
simulation,
uncertainty
management,
surveillance, and prognostics. Experts facilitate decisions and
are part of the continuous improvement process.
Administration is guided by logistics automated through
network services, computerized as well as assisted by humans.
Phases in time of the asset life-cycle can be similarly
brought to light.
Delineation: From basin modeling to gravimetry,
automation takes the form of software tools and practices as
well as equipment. In seismics, the logistics of surveys and
sensor positioning is dynamic, and the processing of results is
fully informed by the entire knowledge environment. The
process is driven by engineers relying on extensive networks
of experience.
Characterization: Visualization techniques assembling all
data available in composite pictures are routine, while the
underlying model supports simulation runs that allow
immediate corrections in the field. The introduction of
stochastic evaluations puts forward risk perspectives that
guide economic decisions. Experts drive the overall process
basing their judgment on global business considerations.
Development: Infill drilling is supported by prediction
3
VI. DRILLING AUTOMATION
According to Steve Holditch, Schlumberger Fellow, pastPresident of the SPE, and now Head of the Texas A&M
Petroleum Engineering department, drilling can be 60% of
upstream expenditures for a company [2]. Drilling is an
expensive and time-consuming operation that involves
operations marked by an unforgiving environment, a science
in development, and techniques that are necessarily
conservative in the face of the cost of failures, both human and
material. Surface operations of drilling are surprisingly at the
same time very manual and very efficient. The crews are
remarkably specialized and operate at levels of performance
that are tough challenges for automation. I refer the reader for
example to the multiple videos of drilling on the web; the
swiftness of rig operators is astonishing.
When researchers were faced with the different challenge of
building autonomous cars, an important part of the solution
was the development of better sensors, for example laser
ranges that take multiple measurements at various angles and
inclinations, providing, in some cases, better information than
can be obtained by eye since waves can penetrate otherwise
opaque surfaces. Unfortunately, in drilling, we must satisfy
ourselves primarily with four surface measurements as regards
the basic operation of drilling: position of the drilling block,
hook load, torque, and pressure. While it would seem easy to
add other sensors to the rig, the reality is that the industry is
extremely wary of changing existing practices at the critical
core of the wellsite. A business case must be made that
overwhelms cost, cultural, physical, safety, training, and other
considerations, while extending to a majority of rigs [3].
Any measurement beyond the four fundamentals is,
therefore, at the present, gravy or a substitute (for example,
rotation can add to or substitute for torque), but it is not
possible to count supplemental measurements as mandatory
requirements for processing. Even more challenging is the fact
that in some cases, some of the four surface measurements are
absent, and useful information needs to be computed from yet
a smaller input base, a subject that is of interest but that I will
not go into in this article. So, automation of surface operations
relies on these four measurements, not necessarily precise at
that, presenting a task that is so difficult that it is only recently
that progress has been made thanks to new mathematical
techniques allowing for contextual understanding, such as
those that I will discuss here. Now that I have answered the
question of why we are so limited in input information, the
obvious question is: Why try to analyze such a sparse input?
The reason is that we want to understand what drillers
actually do in a way that does not rely solely on people sitting
and observing them, at the drilling site or remotely. Drilling
jobs last weeks and even months, and only a computer is
patient enough to gather information coming at 3 to 5 seconds
sampling during this time. Only a computer can sift through
all these data to determine what are the productive phases
(e.g., making hole) and the unproductive ones (e.g., sitting
idle). And only a computer is capable of making the necessary
calculations to cross-reference many jobs to find patterns of
possible improvement and places where the driller could be
4
assisted in making more informed decisions for better business
results. Finally, to end on a very positive note, there are
patterns, for example of early kick-in detection, that a
computer is sometimes capable of finding earlier than humans,
leading to immediate prognostics that can improve the safety
and reliability of drilling. However, for those patterns to be
detected in the right context, it is necessary to understand from
the surface measurements at which state of drilling the rig
stands, so that the algorithms do not get distracted by artifacts
outside of their scope, a key requirement of human-centered
drilling automation.
Hook load is in dark blue. In green are typical patterns of inslips situations (i.e., situations in which the drilling string is at
rest, hanging on slips at the rig floor). In pink are patterns
which are quite close but whose identification as in-slips
patterns would be erroneous, something that we know from
having a full record of the job.
Figure 6: Drillstring contraction explanation for the apparent position of the drill bit below the bottom of the hole.
driller switches off the rotary (torque goes to zero) and lifts the
block up. From the gray pattern Max to Min, the driller
8
without being weighing, which forces the computer to be very
discriminative. All of those difficulties can be surmounted,
though, and I give some indication of how later in this paper.
So for the time being, assume that it is possible to discern the
difference between low and high position, so that rules can be
presented that handle the two cases discussed.
The situation in which the pump is cut and the apparent
depth is below the total depth is handled by the two rules of
Figure 8. The first rule (pump_cut) defines the context in
which the dip pattern occurs. The second rule (hook_zero)
recognizes the said pattern within that context. The rule is
probabilistic, in that it says that the pattern occurs in 40% of
cases in a high position of the block while in slips and in 60%
of cases in a low position. Of course, the combination of the
two rules applies in the broader context of other rules which
are not shown here. In particular, the immediate rule above
pump_cut is drill_operation, and this situates the two rules
shown in yet a broader context, that of operations occurring
while making hole. The *10 part of each rule name means
that the operation may last about 10 samples, although the
distribution around that can be quite large, a statement that
cannot be fully grasped without the introduction to stochastic
grammars that appears later in this article.
removing the drilling line from the drum, which means that
the block position sensor does not measure the position of the
block anymore, but rather the travel of the line while it is
worked on.
10
In Figure 12, I will focus on drilling states 13, 14, 15, and
16, which correspond to the rules discussed earlier regarding
the pattern of drillstring contraction. What state 15 indicates,
In plain English, rules (1) and (2) say A blue bird is a bird,
and so is a red bird; rules (3) and (4) say that blue birds have
three feathers as do red birds; rules (5) and (6) say that the
feathers of a blue bird are blue, while the feathers of a red bird
are red. If we apply all the rules of the grammar, we see that it
allows only for two combinations of feathers:
(i)
(ii)
11
This grammar is far more detailed. Rules (1) and (2) say
that there are about the same number of blue and red birds.
Rules (3) and (4) say that those birds have typically 3 feathers.
Rules (5) and (6) say that the feathers of the blue bird are blue
in 80% of the cases, 20% otherwise. Rules (7) and (8) say that
the feathers of the red bird are red in 70% of the cases, and
blue in 30% of the cases. So now, instead of just two
possibilities, we have eight. For each possibility, the grammar
can derive from the rules a top probability:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
(vi)
(vii)
(viii)
For example, if the feathers found are all blue, which is case
(i), the bird is most likely a blue bird (95%), since the
probability of a red bird having only blue feathers is low
indeed. If all the feathers are red, which is case (viii), the
probability is even stronger that is it a red bird (98%), because
the probability of a blue bird having a red feather is lower than
the probability of the red bird having a blue feather, so red is
less likely to be found on blue birds. All intermediate cases
can be similarly computed.
The computations are essentially matrix manipulations. In
short, first we list all the possible states of the grammar:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
That just says that feathers can be blue and red, and can
belong to either a blue bird or a red bird. The matrix showing
this has coefficients expressing that considering a blue feather
12
in absence of context, I would not know if thats the feather of
a blue bird or of a red bird, so I would make it a toss between
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Now, in the context of looking for blue and red birds and
finding several feathers, I can examine each feather in turn. I
want to know, starting from the beginning, how much I learn
each time I find a new feather, until I have reviewed all the
feathers. We express this by means of a transition matrix
Start
BlueBird BlueBirdFeather
Blue (1)
BlueBird BlueBirdFeather
Red (2)
RedBird RedBirdFeather
Blue (3)
RedBird RedBirdFeather
Red (4)
.5
.5
(formally, a hidden Markov model generated from the
stochastic grammar). We add the states Start and Finish to the
matrix, in order to get a complete representation of the
situation, from beginning to end:
BlueBird
BlueBirdFeather
Blue (1)
.4
BlueBird
BlueBirdFeather
Red (2)
.1
.57
.14
.28
.57
.14
.28
RedBird
RedBirdFeather
Red (4)
.35
Finish
.21
.50
.28
.21
.50
.28
RedBird
RedBirdFeather
Blue (3)
.15
13
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
14
context through numerous discussions that we transformed
into internal and external presentations that I used extensively
for the introductory part of this article. LeAnn Rushing of
Schlumberger Drilling and Measurements and Eric Schoen of
Schlumberger Information Solutions thoroughly reviewed this
paper which is much better for it. Opinion and errors are
strictly mine. Data samples are from Schlumberger Integrated
Project Management and Schlumberger Drilling and
Measurements.
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
Bertrand du Castel is a Schlumberger Fellow. Past director and vicechairman of the Petroleum Open Software Consortium, now Energistics, and
other organizations, Bertrand was awarded in 2005 the visionary award of
Card Technology magazine for pioneering the Java Card, by 2007 the most
sold computer in the world. He is the author with Timothy M. Jurgensen of
Computer Theology (Midori Press, 2008) and of publications in artificial
intelligence, computer security, linguistics, logic, software engineering, and
oilfield and geothermal technology. Bertrand has a PhD in Computer Science
from the University of Paris and an Engineer Diploma from cole
Polytechnique, France. He joined Schlumberger in 1978 and is based in Sugar
Land, Texas.