New Methods for Improving Drilling Performance: The Power of Digital Workflows

Abstract

Abstract After 10 years of Brazilian presalt exploration and development, the carbonate reservoirs continue to pose drilling challenges, leading to unwanted bottomhole assembly (BHA) trips due to severe shock and vibration, low rates of penetration (ROP), and premature drill-bit cutting structure damage. Today, industry efforts to improve the performance in the Brazilian presalt carbonates are driven by trial and error, which is very costly in the ultradeepwater drilling environment. The adoption of a collaborative mindset since 2012 between a service provider and operator with the desire to bring about a step change in drilling efficiency on the Brazilian presalt cluster enabled a systematic learning framework to capture, evaluate, and reuse knowledge from drilling dynamics, geological, and petrophysical aspects. The innovation of this work is the implementation of an improved, fully digital bit design workflow, integrating calibrated 4D dynamic simulation model and petrotechnical expertise from drilling engineering, geomechanics, geology, and petrophysics groups to continue to push the drilling performance envelope in the challenging Brazilian presalt application.