IADC Advanced Rig Technology 2023 Conference & Exhibition

07.30 Conference Registration, Coffee Service, Poster Session & Open Exhibition – Sponsored by KCA Deutag

08.30 Welcome, Introduction & Safety Briefing

08.35 Keynote Presentation: Ibrahim H. Al-Arnaout, Vice President & Chief Drilling Engineer, Saudi Aramco

08.55 Opening Presentation: t.b.n, SLB

09.15 IADC Advanced Rig Technology (ART) Update & Interactive Audience Response
ART Committee Co-Chairs & Session Chairs: Blaine Dow, Drilling Technology Leader, SLB & Sarah Kern, Senior Industry Affairs Specialist, Helmerich & Payne

ART Subcommittees have been busy all year focusing on industry issues of high priority to IADC members. This session will provide a brief update on project progress and a synopsis of future plans.

As a bonus, attendees will be asked a series of questions about drilling technology. IADC’s Automated Response system will display results in real time for all to consider and review.

• Subcommittee Data, Controls & Sensors: Nathan Moralez, Senior Rig Automation Engineer, BP & Andy Westlake, Vice President Projects and Engineering, Seadrill
• Subcommittee Energy Efficiency: Konstantin Puskarskij, Managing Director, Copenhagen Energy Partners & Mike Party, Corporate Strategy, Hess

Interactive Audience Response

10.30 Networking Break, Poster Session & Open Exhibition – Sponsored by KCA Deutag

11.00 Robotics & Rig Technology
Session Chairs: Sean Roach, Digital Drilling Automation, DrillOps Business Development, SLB & Bob Judge, Senior Vice President Products & Innovation, HMH

Utilizing Industrial Robots for Offshore Applications: John Martin, President, Offshore Robotics
The Robotic Riser system implements two industrial robots working independently that can identify and compensate for variations in parts and environment on the drillship. The system utilizes a 2D laser to provide precise bolt and riser position information, automatic tool changers that allow the robots to switch between tools, and hydraulic torque wrenches that are used to torque bolts to 18,000 ft-lbs. The two robots work asynchronously but in coordination to ensure bolts are torqued symmetrically and simultaneously.

Clear the Floor – Modular, Scalable Technology for Land Rig Floor Automation: Ashish Gupta, Vice President Engineering, Alex Kunec, Canrig Drilling Technology
Safety, capital discipline and efficiency are top priorities for the industry. We will present results which validate these new modular retrofit rig floor automation solutions clear crews from red zones where about 64% of lost time incidents occurred on US land in 2021, improved equipment reliability as equipment operates as intended, cost a fraction of the cost of a new build, and consistently deliver best-in-class performance.

Cutting-Edge, Efficient, light and Cost-Effective Modular Solution for Drilling and Workover Operations: Dennis Vollmar, Company Director, Voll Marintek Limited
The presentation will highlight the technical advantages and features of the Lean Machine. It will also provide an update on the build project for the first unit and showcase a detailed animation of the unit’s rig-up and operation. This will enable the audience to gain a comprehensive understanding of the unit’s operational parameters and capabilities.

12.15 Luncheon, Poster Session & Open Exhibition

13.45 Ensuring Innovation and Technology Provides Returns to the Contractors and Value to the Operators
Moderators: Sarah Kern, Senior Industry Affairs Specialist, Helmerich & Payne & Rodrigo Rendon, Head of Business Development, KCA Deutag

This panel will explore the opportunities and challenges that the industry has to foster development, adoption and scalability of innovation and rig technology. One side of the equation is around visibility of financial returns to the party developing the next generation of ideas; the other side has to demonstrate tangible improvements that deliver rig site efficiency in operations. How can we improve the current business model so it rewards innovation and first adoption? Developer and end-user have a responsibility to each other.

• Harald Langenes, Technology Development Champion, SLB
• Robert Houston, Director, Rig Technology & Service Delivery, Precision Drilling
• Ryan Mayo, Drilling Optimization Engineer, Ensign

14.45 Networking Break, Poster Session & Open Exhibition – Sponsored by KCA Deutag

15.15 Poster Pitch
Session Chair: Guido van den Bos, Business Development Director, NOV

A 5-minute elevator pitch of 4 posters followed by 10 minutes for Q&A from the audience.

• Richard Verhoef, Product Line Manager, NOV
• Nina Brattetaule, Director – IT & Digitalisation, Archer
• Brennan Goodkey, Product Champion, SLB
• Mansur Damiev, Business Development Manager, Pason Systems

15.45 IADC Bit Dull Grading System + Integration with IADC DDR Plus
Moderators: Robert van Kuilenburg, Mechanical Engineering Supervisor, Noble & Paul Pastusek, Drilling Mechanics Advisor, Exxonmobil

With the rise of better digital photo documentation, new bit designs, and the ability to automatically classify cutter damage, upgrading the IADC bit dull grading standard has become necessary. After a short explanation of the new system, the audience will participate in manually grading sample bits. The session will conclude with the presentation of the results and an in-depth overview of the integration between the bit dull grading system and the IADC DDR+ standard.

17.15 Welcoming Reception, Poster Session & Open Exhibition

07.30 Conference Registration, Coffee Service & Open Exhibition – Sponsored by Drillmec

08.30 Welcome, Introduction & Safety Briefing

08.35 Keynote Presentation: Håkon Klepsvik, CTO, Odfjell Drilling

09.00 Opening Presentation: Caroline Marie Alting, Senior Vice Presdident Operational Excellence, Noble

09.30 Market Outlook: Lars Eirik Nicolaisen, Partner and Deputy CEO, Rystad Energy

10.00 Networking Break, Poster Session & Open Exhibition – Sponsored by Drillmec

10.30 Comparison of this Year’s Interactive Audience Response with Previous Years
ART Committee Co-Chairs & Session Chairs: Blaine Dow, Drilling Technology Leader, SLB & Sarah Kern, Senior Industry Affairs Specialist, Helmerich & Payne

11.00 Pursuing Sustainable Drilling Operations
Moderators: Konstantin Puskarskij, Managing Director, Copenhagen Energy Partners & Blaine Dow, Drilling Technology Leader, SLB

More and more drilling industry players are taking onboard emission reduction initiatives pursuing long-term carbon neutrality ambitions and goals. Starting with low-hanging fruits of behavioral changes and various energy efficiency initiatives, moving on to hybrid solutions, carbon capture and storage projects, and advancing to less unchartered waters of alternative fuels such as green methanol and hydrogen. While sustainability reporting methods are being matured, we will discuss action deployable today and a path towards sustainable drilling operations.

• Feras Shadid, Director of Sales and Growth , Enerwhere Sustainable Energy
• Dieter Wijning, Product Manager, Huisman
• Mia Emborg Ollgaard, Senior Project Engineer, PhD candidate, Noble & Technical University of Denmark
• Sonny Auld, Product Manager and SME for Emissions Reduction, Helmerich & Payne

12.00 Luncheon, Poster Session & Open Exhibition 

13.30 How to Ensure that Human Operators in the Loop can Act as the Final Barrier Against Process Failures?
Moderators: Robert van Kuilenburg, Mechanical Engineering Supervisor, Noble & Andy Westlake, Vice President Projects and Engineering, Seadrill

The industry is transitioning from equipment automation to supervisory automation in remote operating centers removed from the actual process. By moving the driller (or operator) further away from the process itself the need to include human “operational” characteristics will increase. How do we avoid automation complacency resulting in the human being the single point failure in the system? The session will explore risks and opportunities related to Human Factors to improve safety, training, engagement, return on investment and efficiency.

• Ann Haugland, Director, HMH
• Kristian Solheim Teigen, Principal Engineer, IACS, digitalization and cybersecurity, Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority
• Grace Fosdick, Operations Manager, Process Automation, Nabors
• Salaheldin Elkatatny, Professor, Petroleum Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals

14.30 Case Studies
Session Chairs: Jarrod Chapman, Product Development Manager, Drilling Solutions, Ensign & Keith Ross, Global PSL Ops cordinator, Halliburton

Case History of the Development and Application of Enhanced Kick and Loss Detection (EKLD) Technology for Offshore Drilling Rigs: Per Christian Stenshorne, Vice President Innovation, Enhanced Drilling, Craig McCormick, Transocean
The first successful field implementation of a novel solution to enhanced kick and loss detection (EKLD) on a deepwater drilling rig to improve well control safety and reduce well construction costs. The system includes an instrumented inline trip tank, a pump unit, and a Coriolis flowmeter. Critical path rig time spent on flow checks is reduced while improving safety and reducing non-productive time (NPT) by identifying kicks and losses faster and more reliably than conventional methods. This industry first approach to EKLD is compatible with managed pressure drilling (MPD) technologies. This method of early kick and loss detection is an industry first. The technology successfully met the objectives of providing enhanced kick and loss detection while saving critical path rig time during its first field trial. The methodology, while designed for offshore floating rigs with a subsea blow out preventer (BOP), can also be applied to land rigs and offshore platforms with a surface BOP.

Case Studies and Results from 2.5 Years of Using Targeted Machine Learning Models to Predict Stuck Pipe Incidents: Jan Kåre Igland, Principal Product Manager, Tim Robinson, Olav Revheim, Exebenus
Several projects over the last years have aimed to utilize ML and AI technologies to improve drilling performance. They show promising results as well as challenges related to data availability, generalization, data quality and real-time enabling of the models. The objective of the presented study is to prove and demonstrate the adaptiveness to real-time data and agnosticism to well types, BHAs, mud types, lithologies or any other specific well characteristics for a set of targeted ML models predicting stuck pipe events. The models support out-of-the-box usage, which enables scalability to large numbers of wells.  The technology’s performance was successfully verified in live operations and post-drill studies on historical data on over 300 wells worldwide during the past 2.5 years, with mean recall and precision metrics of 0.986 ± 0.050 and 0.712 ± 0.181 respectively across historical test wells, and significantly reduced occurrence rates of stuck pipe.

15.10 Networking Break, Poster Session & Open Exhibition – Sponsored by Drillmec

15.40 Human Factors & Safety
Session Chairs: Karma Slusarchuk, MEAP Business Development Director, Parker Wellbore & Michael Lynch, Senior Rig Automation Engineer, BP

Human Factors Influence the Success of Energy Efficiency and Automation: Johnathan Dady, Director of Technical Services, Seadrill
This presentation explores the living case study of vessel that was upgraded to be the most technologically advanced rig in the Seadrill fleet. This vessel was enhanced with energy efficiency and automation upgrades with the intent of boosting the performance and energy efficiency of the rig. The journey from installation to operations is explored. The results of this case study prove without a doubt that the human factors influencing the success of these ambitious initiatives are just as important as the technology that is installed. The balance of machine and human performance is key to the success of any such initiative. Planning for this and focusing more resources on training, adoption, and collaboration between all parties, is a critical component of the project as a whole. This presentation shows the learnings of a real project. Learning from these complex and large-scale initiatives will help us all work towards achieving operational excellence.

Leveraging Real-Time Location Monitoring Solutions to Enhance Personnel Safety and Procedural Adherence During Drill Floor Operations: Diego Reixach, Marketing Manager, Transocean, Travis McGuire, John Large, Thomas Lemoine, Salunda
HaloGuard provides intelligent drillfloor access control and automatic personnel recognition to moving equipment, virtually eliminating potential human/machine clashes. The system tracks the position of personnel on the drill floor and key drill floor equipment while operating and differentiates authorized versus non-authorized personnel, providing a step change in control access to the drillfloor while also capable of stopping the equipment if needed to avoid a human/machine clash.

16.20 Poster Pitch
Session Chair: Scott Boone, Vice President Downhole Technology, Nabors

A 5-minute elevator pitch of 4 posters followed by 10 minutes for Q&A from the audience.

• Arima Ayanambakkam, Senior Engineering Manager, Nabors
• Karel Roozen, CEO, Next Ocean
• David Lobdell, Competence Manager, BP
• Kai Kostøl, Senior Performance Engineer, HMH

16.50 Recap & Adjournment

Poster Pitch Session & Unassigned Papers of Note:

The following paper proposals are presented as posters and will be included in the conference during the poster pitch sessions. If a scheduled paper becomes unavailable, then the posters will be included in the conference as a paper. In addition, these presentations will be made available in the IADC conference proceedings, should the author so desire.

Assessment of Eye Tracking Technology in Well Control Operations: David Lobdell, Competence Manager, Matthew Souvertjis, BP, Steve Jarvis, Jarvis Bagshaw
The presentation will cover the basic theory of eye tracking and safety improvements in other industries. The background of the study and the results of the study as found in IOGP report 656 which will describe the results of testing eye tracking on a drilling simulator. Some initial observations as well as potential for deeper research and cooperation with equipment designers to optimize display and equipment layout.

Combining Peak Power Shaving by Flywheel Energy Storage System and a DC Grid System Lower Drilling Rig Emissions by Taking Generators Offline for Most Operations: Richard Verhoef, Product Line Manager, NOV
Energy storage systems enable peak power shaving on the drawworks during drilling and tripping operations. The DC grid system enables rigs to safely perform closed bus-tie operations whereby one generator can distribute power over three or more splits (busses), this decreases the number of generators online, increases the loading on the generator and reduces the specific fuel oil consumption (SFOC), drastically lowering emissions.

Digitalising Well Plan Information and Operation Workflows – a Case Study: Nina Brattetaule, Director – IT & Digitalisation, Archer, Esben Thorup, Horizon56
This paper introduces new ways of working through digitalisation of key operation workflows that replaces current, legacy paper based processes, and bridges gap between well planning and execution and opens possibility of further digitalisation and integration.

Optimizing Drilling Automation for Sustainability and Performance through the Power of Artificial Intelligence: Brennan Goodkey, Product Champion, Carlos Herrera, Nurfitrah Mat Noh, SLB
The drilling automation system has been consistently used with continuous feedback to enable more features and expand the capacity for optimization. The implementation relied on optimization and dysfunction mitigation algorithms to add value while operating within the operator’s standard operating procedures BHA limitations, and recommendations. Over the course of several wells drilled since deployment, a very high usage of the system has been a catalyst for continuous improvements in procedural adherence and operational efficiency in the project. Ultimately, this has contributed to an increase in operational safety, rate of penetration (ROP) and an increase in downlinking efficiency and drillers’ time utilization. The results achieved will be exhibited to communicate the specific areas for amelioration and to highlight the potential that drilling automation can unlock for the industry.

Drilling Optimization Software Helps to Maximize ROP with Reduced Vibrations: Mansur Damiev, Business Development Manager, Pason Systems
Software solutions for drilling optimization have become an essential part for maximizing drilling efficiency while minimizing costs in the oil and gas industry. This paper focuses on a drilling optimization software that has been tested in unconventional drilling in North America and has proven to be effective in maximizing the rate of penetration (ROP) and mitigating drilling vibrations in real-time. The software uses advanced algorithms that enable real-time decision-making to increase drilling speeds, save money on downhole equipment repairs, and produce a higher quality wellbore. It continuously evaluates bit-to-rock interaction using data such as ROP and mechanical specific energy (MSE), resulting in faster drilling, reduced number of trips, and improved wellbore quality.

Role of the Rig Operating System in the Journey towards Autonomous Drilling Rigs: Arima Ayanambakkam, Senior Engineering Manager, Amin Ramezanifar, Nabors
A rig operating system can greatly enhance the rig’s ability for automation. The platform gives an operator the ability to quickly execute an automated workflow and is built in a way to include standardized best practices which result in a greater improvement in performance. In addition, fully automated control of these processes will help produce consistent and repeatable performance across the wells.

Real time prediction of extreme waves and motion response onboard offshore drilling rigs and its effect on safety and operability: Karel Roozen, CEO, Raghu Paravastu, Peter Naaijen, Next Ocean
Waves and wave induced motions strongly affect operability of offshore drilling and associated operations. A system is presented based on remote sensing of the surrounding wave field by means of radar, that provides real-time prediction of wave induced rig motions in the upcoming minutes, thus enabling crew to anticipate. We will report on field experience from application on several offshore drilling rigs.

Using Data Analytics to Close the Gap towards Technical Limit: Kai Kostøl, Senior Performance Engineer, HMH
In this presentation we will show how we have improved the performance on a fleet of rigs to close the gap towards technical limits, by using HMHs data-driven optimization service. Detailed rig-data is continuously streamed from rig to shore, where advanced algorithms report abnormalities and gives insightful understanding of the rig’s operation, including activities, equipment’s, and crews. Dedicated expert resources identifies deviations and potentials and proactively act by implementing the correct level of coaching or recommendations for enhancement. Examples and experience of using the DRILLPerform service to optimize performance will be shared, as well as highlights of performance and ROI.