In 2008, the Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) was held in Denver, CO, from 21-24 September. At the Conference, Morten Irgens (Actenum), Ricardo Guzman, and Jacqueline Stamatopoulous (Saudi Aramco) presented a paper entitled “Optimization for Operational Decision Support: The Rig Fleet Management Case”. You can order this paper (SPE # 116616-MS) from the SPE eLibrary.
Exploration and Production (E&P) operations are becoming increasingly challenging to do well. Drilling operations are a good example. Planning, scheduling, and operating the rig fleet are important functions. You do not need many rigs before minimizing rig movements and costs while maximizing utilization is practically unmanageable using a manual approach.
Saudi Aramco, in collaboration with Actenum Corporation, has developed a software application named RAS, where:
- The rig schedule is optimized against multiple objectives,
- Disruptions to the schedule are quickly managed, and
- The impacts of scheduling decisions on key performance indicators are immediately displayed.
The application brings near real-time automation to a previously-manual process, supports human-computer collaborative problem solving and decision making, applies optimization technology to dynamic, mission-critical operations, and provides insight into the trade-offs between operational cost and production profile. The results show reduced planning time, reduced response time, reduction in scheduling errors, improved “what-if” abilities and decision making, reduction in transportation cost and increased Net Present Value (NPV).