Schlumberger has introduced its Autonomous Directional Drilling tool, which includes solutions to steer autonomously through any section of the wellbore, the company said on Aug. 17.
Leveraging an intelligent and dynamic downhole automated control system that instantly interprets and acts on data, Schlumberger continues to advance its digital offering enhancing well construction performance.
“Autonomous Directional Drilling is a significant leap forward for the industry digital transformation, helping our customers achieve new levels of well construction efficiency, consistency and sustainability,” Jesus Lamas, president of well construction at Schlumberger, said. “Our autonomous vision continues to evolve, with the latest technological innovations enabling a self-steering bottomhole assembly (BHA) capable of drilling through any well section.”
Schlumberger Autonomous Directional Drilling solutions are built upon four distinct pillars: intelligent planning, intelligent execution, surface automation, and downhole automation. To achieve downhole automation, Schlumberger has introduced a downhole automated control system—an advanced and intelligent closed-loop control unit— that acquires, interprets and acts upon data to drill better wells, faster. The system performs corrections immediately. This ensures drilling trajectory accuracy and removes data-to-surface delays to improve decision latency—resulting in greater overall directional drilling efficiency. Current Autonomous Directional Drilling applications include auto-vertical, auto-tangent, and auto-curve.
In the Middle East, an operator used Schlumberger’s Autonomous Directional Drilling to drill curves on four wells. The combined solution enabled the operator to reduce downlinks to the rotary steerable system by 49% as compared to offset wells drilled in manual mode, while achieving a 37% increase in ROP. In the Permian Basin, an operator used a similar solution to autonomously drill the curve and lateral sections for seven wells. The operator reduced downlinks by 42% for all curve sections, while increasing ROP by 39%.
“As one of the four pillars of Autonomous Directional Drilling, downhole automation capabilities drive steering adjustments as conditions are encountered to significantly increase rates of penetration (ROP) and improve borehole quality, which leads to greater production potential and emissions reduction,” Lamas said.
Recommended Reading
Tech Trends: SLB's Autonomous Tech Used for Drilling Operations
2024-02-06 - SLB says autonomous drilling operations increased ROP at a deepwater field offshore Brazil by 60% over the course of a five-well program.
Well Logging Could Get a Makeover
2024-02-27 - Aramco’s KASHF robot, expected to deploy in 2025, will be able to operate in both vertical and horizontal segments of wellbores.
Tech Trends: Halliburton’s Carbon Capturing Cement Solution
2024-02-20 - Halliburton’s new CorrosaLock cement solution provides chemical resistance to CO2 and minimizes the impact of cyclic loading on the cement barrier.
Sinopec Brings West Sichuan Gas Field Onstream
2024-03-14 - The 100 Bcm sour gas onshore field, West Sichuan Gas Field, is expected to produce 2 Bcm per year.
E&P Highlights: March 15, 2024
2024-03-15 - Here’s a roundup of the latest E&P headlines, including a new discovery and offshore contract awards.