Nabors and Corva announce digital and automated drilling solution

By connecting Corva’s App Store and Dev Center to Nabors’ universal rig controls and automation platforms, SmartROS^® and RigCLOUD^®, the players aim to bring a new level of intelligence and performance to drilling rigs.

Consistent, efficient and automated

The companies’ initial focus is to achieve cost reduction per foot of drilling by employing an artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) based rate-of-penetration (ROP) optimiser while reducing dysfunctions.

Named ‘predictive drilling’, the technology enables remote control of rig site auto driller setpoints through a cloud-to-cloud connection, without the need for any additional rig devices.

“We chose to start with predictive drilling as we wanted an integrated product that could bring value to our customers as soon as possible, while also being a disruptive game-changer to our market,” said Tatiana Borges, Senior Product Development Manager at Nabors Industries. “Since Corva had already developed a model that worked in advisory mode and Nabors has experience integrating other ROP Optimiser tools, this seemed to be the most efficient way to combine our expertise and deliver value to customers.”

“Corva has been developing and field-testing AI solutions to optimise rotary drilling cost per foot since 2018. We proved the technical viability of our cloud-based advisory system in multiple basins but we were missing one key piece to deliver maximum value to operators,” said Curtis Cheatham, Vice President of Research & Development at Corva. “That piece has been accomplished through our partnership with Nabors using their SmartROS platform to provide real-time, closed-loop control of the rig auto driller to optimise ROP, and reduce vibration and drilling dysfunction. The results are delivering faster ROP, lower vibration, and are reducing thousands of distractions per well for drillers.”

The predictive drilling solution is available on all SmartROS enabled rigs, from Nabors and other drilling contractors.

Ease of adoption

A Delaware basin operator recently deployed predictive drilling on four wells, increasing average ROP by 36% and decreasing average vibration by 9.7%.

The ROP results were in some regards outshined by the ease of deployment and integration into the drillers’ workflow. To have field utilisation of predictive drilling increase to 80% of lateral footage drilled on the first pad speaks volumes of the design which simplified the drillers’, drill site managers’ and directional drillers’ workflows.

These early yet promising results equate to increases in savings and efficiency.

Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/product-news/06092023/nabors-and-corva-announce-digital-and-automated-drilling-solution/