In the last week of May 2022, six experienced drilling engineers from Neptune met with Thomas Selbekk and Andreas Strømhaug from Oliasoft to apply Oliasoft WellDesign (OWD) on two actual wells. The workshop was a mutual initiative to strengthen competence transfer between Oliasoft and Neptune and was mutually successful in providing valuable insight.
The full capacity of Oliasoft WellDesign (OWD) demonstrated and verified on two ongoing well planning projects at Neptune Energy
In March 2022, Neptune Energy and its partners encountered hydrocarbons on the Hamlet exploration well in the North Sea and two horizontal gas and oil producers are currently being planned.
Neptune Energy Norge and partners OKEA, Vår Energi and ConocoPhillips Skandinavia are planning a vertical exploration well, with a potential sidetrack at the Calypso prospect close to Draugen in the southern part of the Norwegian Sea. These wells were the center of attention during Oliasofts two-day visit to Neptune Energy.
Execution of comprehensive well design and subject review
The OWD software aims to cover all tasks, calculations and simulations required to plan wells in one single well planning software application. A range of functionalities was demonstrated, tested, and verified for the Calypso and Hamlet wells:
- Trajectory design with slot/well placement iterations/optimization
- Casing design with automated design features
- Drilling mechanics (Torque and drag)
- Relief well design
- Blowout and kill simulations with sensitivity runs and analysis
In addition, the project hierarchy and libraries on formations, drilling fluids, pipes and equipment were demonstrated. The workshop was interactive as participants worked on their own laptops while the Oliasoft engineers were showcasing the software on one screen and presenting theory on another.
Oliasoft had received data on the wells in advance and several sandbox environments were set up for the engineers to explore as Oliasoft`s envoys explained how to do basic design, perform well calculations and simulations on everything from casing loads to temperature and production, and even automated casing design.
The slot wizard demonstrated surprisingly effective methods of reaching target areas
The slot optimization wizard received a great deal of attention. Based on several targets, the slot wizard will scan the area, and recommend an optimized slot location based on minimizing the length of the wells required to reach each target. In time, automated optimization features like this will consider a range of parameters and rule sets. A senior drilling engineer at Neptune appreciated the quickness of this analysis tool as the last time he worked on a similar challenge, it took several weeks to decide the optimal slot location, now reduced to a matter of minutes.
Execution of comprehensive well design and subject review
The OWD software aims to cover all tasks, calculations and simulations required to plan wells in one single well planning software application. A range of functionalities was demonstrated, tested, and verified for the Calypso and Hamlet wells:
- Trajectory design with slot/well placement iterations/optimization
- Casing design with automated design features
- Drilling mechanics (Torque and drag)
- Relief well design
- Blowout and kill simulations with sensitivity runs and analysis
In addition, the project hierarchy and libraries on formations, drilling fluids, pipes and equipment were demonstrated. The workshop was interactive as participants worked on their own laptops while the Oliasoft engineers were showcasing the software on one screen and presenting theory on another.
Oliasoft had received data on the wells in advance and several sandbox environments were set up for the engineers to explore as Oliasoft`s envoys explained how to do basic design, perform well calculations and simulations on everything from casing loads to temperature and production, and even automated casing design.
The slot wizard demonstrated surprisingly effective methods of reaching target areas
The slot optimization wizard received a great deal of attention. Based on several targets, the slot wizard will scan the area, and recommend an optimized slot location based on minimizing the length of the wells required to reach each target. In time, automated optimization features like this will consider a range of parameters and rule sets. A senior drilling engineer at Neptune appreciated the quickness of this analysis tool as the last time he worked on a similar challenge, it took several weeks to decide the optimal slot location, now reduced to a matter of minutes.
Builds on previously proven properties for integration and scaling
Neptune and Oliasoft have previously worked together on the unique integration capabilities of OWD, including seamless communication with 3rd party applications. Neptune is known for being at the forefront of digitalization within O&G, for instance, their commitment to integration projects like OSDU and OWD presented on DigEX22, were importing data directly from G&G software such as Petrel to OWD via OSDU was thoroughly demonstrated.
This ability shows the cross-domain gains and benefits available in the digital era of cloud engineering and automation. Modern software saves time and is overall more efficient but optimal field development and well placement are the areas that make investing time and money into digitalization worthwhile, according to Therese Rannem (G&G digitalization).
OWD have calculation engines for drilling mechanics such as torque and drag. The feedback from the engineers were that the interface was very intuitive. Not only will the engineers save time, but they will get less frustrated in their everyday work.
Oliasoft WellDesign is intuitive and fast, a complete well planning software able to integrate and automate design choices and calculations. Out of the box we can free up time for engineers which means more focus on important tasks such as optimizing well placement and performance. Throughout the software it is possible to run many iterations on several scenarios and include sensitivity analysis, this will help Neptune make better choices
Improved quality assurance with integrated sensitivity analysis on blowout and kill simulations
Detailed explanations and demonstrations on how to set up company-specific rule sets for the automation capabilities in OWD were much appreciated by the Neptune drilling engineers. Finally, a full set of the blowout and kill simulations with sensitivity runs were performed, showing the benefits of having these options as an integrated module, always updated on the latest change in well design and input parameters. Testing and validating the relief well design wizard was part of the validation scope.
A fully functional relief well design adhering to all industry guidelines and requirements was designed in a matter of minutes. Gas producers are known for challenging kill requirements due to the fluid characteristics.
On the Hamlet case the Neptune engineers learned how OWD can be used to very effectively iterate a large number of kill scenarios to achieve a satisfying kill plan. The relief well wizard functionality, customizing the pumping schedule and running “staged kill operations”, and optimizing the relief well design for a challenging gas blowout was effectively demonstrated for the engineers.
Application to actual cases increases mutual learning which in turn benefits development and users
It is mutually beneficial to Oliasoft and Neptune to conduct workshop sessions like this. For Neptune, the engineers will get a flying start into the functionality and possibilities in the application, and Oliasoft can work on real well planning projects, and get valuable feedback on usability and ideas for new functionality and automations.
As OWD is built on a modern cloud software architecture using rest-APIs, the application is set up for machine-to-machine communication and updates and improvements are continually introduced throughout the application without the need of any local installation.
