Autonomous Enhanced Wellbore Directional Control

Preparing the industry toward the future may prove to be the most important outcome of the application as Automation in Directional Drilling is the ability to operate a system with minimum human intervention while automating most analytical repetitive tasks. The principal approach for introducing Automation was to bring revolution in age old directional drilling practices. In this project, downhole automation was utilized with surface automation at an operating rig. The paper focuses on analyzing the results achieved, with the aim of evaluating the methodology and solution's effectiveness, performance, and its impact on drilling operations. An AI powered downhole autonomous directional drilling system was utilized to drill all zones of well plan, autonomously with minimum interruption from surface. The downhole automation system uses a goal-based approach to handle changes suggested from surface. An automation system that is integrated into the rig control system was also deployed to control the top-drive, drawworks, mud pumps, auto-driller, and downhole tools, to autonomously execute drilling activities. It focuses on two salient points, the first will be the downhole automation technology and second will be the automation system assisting rig in Drill a stand workflow. There were multiple parties involved in the execution and to make it work, every party must come on same platform for workflows to communicate with each other. Automation surpassed all the targets set before starting the project. Client believed in the system as it showed how digitization can help to enhance operational efficiency while making the process safer and smoother.