Benchmarking offshore drilling: methodology and case study

Abstract Oil exploration is complex and very expensive, presenting long-term returns and considerable risks of accidents. Saving time is the guideline of any optimization method to reduce drilling costs and CO2 emissions. Highly variable performances are found in any oilfield, even in similar depth ranges, due to multiple interactions between the many factors involved in the drilling operations. Understanding such gaps is complex, as different technologies and levels of energy are used in each bit run along an exploration campaign, affecting in different ways their performances. The objective of the methodology presented in this article is to provide tools to identify which are the factors and how they affect the productive time used to drill oilwells, allowing to measure the contributions of each factor in increasing the efficiency of the drilling operations. A case study analyzes a 35-year exploratory campaign offshore Brazil, where data of the 109 wells drilled in an oilfield is used to benchmark different performances, demonstrating the advantages of the methodology in oilwell planning and in finding the paths for reducing drilling costs and CO2 emissions. As drilling for O&G, CCUS and geothermal wells is expected to continue yet for decades, the learnings and the economic benefits for the operators will extended in the long terms to the whole society.