Applied Intelligence 23, 39–53, 2005

c 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. Manufactured in The Netherlands.

A Case Based System for Oil and Gas Well Design with Risk Assessment

SIMON KRAVIS
Intology Pty Ltd, 1 Hall St., Lyneham ACT 2602, Australia
simon@intology.com.au

ROSEMARY IRRGANG
Irrgang Reservoir Management, 85A Bunarba Rd, Gymea, Sydney, NSW 2227, Australia
rosemary.@irrgang.com.au

Abstract. A case base system for a complex problem like oil field design needs to be richer than the usual case based
reasoning system. Genesis, the system described in this paper contains large heterogeneous cases with metalevel
knowledge. A multi-level indexing scheme with both preallocated and dynamically computed indexing capability
has been implemented. A user interface allows dynamic creation of similarity measures based on modelling of the
user’s intentions. Both user aiding and problem solution facilities are supported, a novel feature is that risk estimates
are also provided. Performance testing indicates that the case base produces on average, better predictions for new
well developments than company experts. Early versions of the system have been deployed into oil companies in 6
countries around the world and research is continuing on refining the system in response to industry feedback.

Keywords: case based systems, risk assessment, oil well design, knowledge sharing, information extraction

1. Introduction drilled under thousands of metres of seawater. Well tra-

Case Based Reasoning (CBR) systems store data and
knowledge as a set of cases and reuse the prior knowl-
edge to solve new problems. CBR systems can learn
by storing the results of a new problem case for future
use. Smythe [1] asserts that in the CBR literature it has
become apparent that the “single shot” CBR in which
a single case is used to solve a problem, is not adequate
for complex tasks. In design and planning tasks, mul-
tiple cases are often needed to solve different parts of
a complex real world problem. This paper documents
a new approach to multiple case reuse involving pre-
defined case decomposition and recomposition into a
synthetic new case. Statistical methods have been in-
corporated to provide both mean value and risk esti-
mates for time and cost of the operations contained in
the new case.
Optimal, safe drilling of oil and gas wells is a com-
plex operation requiring knowledge across a range of
disciplines. Wells can be 10 kilometres long or may be
jectories frequently must follow a tortuous path or track
a thin horizontal reservoir column. An example of well
trajectories drilled from a single platform is shown in
Fig. 1. Sloughing of fragments of rock from the walls
of the well after it has been drilled (borehole instabil-
ity), can lead to trapping of downhole equipment or
even loss of the well at a cost of millions of dollars.
Zones containing fluid at unexpectedly high pressures
can lead to a blowout and even loss of the rig. Drillers
learn from each well drilled in an area but with high
turnover of staff this knowledge is frequently lost to the
company.
The case based software system developed, Genesis,
was designed to capture expert drilling knowledge to
support intelligent planning of new oil and gas wells.
The core of the system is a world-wide case base of
data, information and knowledge contributed by par-
ticipating companies, in the belief that capturing and
sharing experience will lead to better well designs in
the future with significant savings in time and cost.
40 Kravis and Irrgang
Figure 1. Trajectories for a set of wells drilled from a platform.
Kolodner [2] believes that reasoning is more a pro-
cess of “remember and modify” than “decompose and
recompose”. This system can be used to retrieve well
instances and reuse them with modification. Historical
wells are stored with their operational sequences and
durations mapped into predefined atomic components.
These are then recomposed into a synthetic new well
case using a number of analogous wells or sections of
wells from the case base. The system functions both as
an assistant and a problem solver.
Kitano [3] asserts that the vast majority of case based
reasoning systems have been built as task-specific do-
main problem solvers and are detached from the main-
stream processes of a corporation. Issues that are not
addressed in such systems include:
1. Integration of the case base with existing company
database systems
2. Security Control: In real applications, cases contain
confidential data and secure access is required
3. Scalability: Collected cases can increase dramati-
cally over time and in real life applications, com-
plex multimedia data may need to be stored. Index-
ing will need to be constantly refined as the system
grows and application needs evolve.
4. Speed: Fast case retrieval and adaptation is essential
The four points noted above have been addressed
in Genesis. Firstly, the case base is stored in a re-
lational database system. While this is not ideally
suited to a case based system, it can be integrated
with existing company databases, and techniques to
add the additional indexing required for case based
retrieval. Different data access rights can be defined
for different classes of user to preserve data in-
tegrity and confidentiality. A two layer index sys-
tem has been adopted for retrieval of cases based
on text concepts. The index is created and stored
in the database. If retrieval times degrade, further
layers of the index can be added to increase the
speed.
The following section describes the case base design
process, case contents and structure. Section 3 covers
details of methods used for retrieval of cases, including
automated information extraction from text. Section 4,
on adaptation, details how cases retrieved can be used
for problem solution. Section 5 reports results of per-
formance testing, followed by discussion of research
directions.
2. Case System Design
Facilitated industry workshops were held with oil com-
panies to design a system to suit their needs. A case
based system was favoured by the participants, as most
appropriate for the capture and reuse of drilling knowl-
edge and data. A common theme was that people be-
lieve that a case store must be active. That is, it must
contain problem solving processes in order to reuse
the knowledge for a new design. Engineers wanted ad-
ditional knowledge added to their normal design pro-
cesses, for example displayed on plots used for plan-
ning, or used for risk assessment. Genesis attempts to
capture and preserve company knowledge and to make
it available in an active, easy to use form. Some innova-
tive techniques designed to achieve these goals include:
• Modelling of user intent so that relevant aspects of
the information are retrieved and tailored to suit the
users’ plans.
• Algorithms for automated extraction of knowledge
indexes from unstructured or minimally structured
reports and from the drilling database.
• Use of Drilling Grammars to describe and recognise
complex indexing concepts.
• Machine learning to iteratively refine the concepts.
• Metadata store of generalisations of common prob-
lems and solutions.
• Techniques for information sharing while respecting
company confidentiality.
An important aspect of the design was that engi-
neers want to feel in control. They are not prepared
to allow a black box system to design their new wells
 Case Based System for Oil and Gas Well Design with Risk Assessment
with complete autonomy. Access to the original stored
information for checking is required together with the
ability to select or remove cases and add and delete
operations at any stage.
2.1. Contents of Each Case
Each oil well represents one case instance. A well has
attributes such as location, geology, maximum depth
and trajectory type (e.g. vertical or deviated), some
deviated well trajectories are shown in Fig. 1. Data
and knowledge about each well is captured and stored
in a database. Wells that have been already drilled
are stored as historic data, new designs as planned
wells. Large volumes of numeric data are stored. For
example, multiple channel electronic log data from
down-hole instruments may be recorded every centime-
tre for a 10,000 metre well. Log data is used in calcu-
lation of variables important in indexing and similarity
matching, such as rock strength and rate of penetration.
Text reports may include confidential company end
of well reports, spreadsheets, hazard checklists and
investigations into specific problems, lessons learned
and specialised reports from service companies. Pub-
lic information from government sources may also be
used in new areas of operation, journal and conference
papers may provide specific regional information or
technological assessments and experience. Images may
also be included in a case store. For example, images of
worn drilling bits are recorded for further analysis and
classification. Where information relates to a particu-
lar rock layer, or formation, this can be keyed directly
to the formation name for automatic display whenever
the formation name appears on a well plan.
Because access to oil industry experts for knowl-
edge acquisition is limited, Genesis uses automated
tools to extract knowledge and indexes for the case
base from text data. Concept definitions are stored sep-
arately from the case base indexes and are read in by
the software as part of an index creation run. Com-
panies can have concept definitions tailored to their
own requirements or can use the Genesis definitions.
This feature proved worthwhile when the system was
deployed into a Portuguese speaking company, as con-
cept definitions in the local language could be used to
generate new Portuguese indexes without any change
to the software.
When a new planned well has been designed, the
new case is incorporated into the system as a planned
case. After drilling, the actual data is stored as a new
41
historic well and can be compared to the planned well
for evaluation of the new design case. Post-analysis
graphics features are provided to highlight strengths
and weaknesses of the new case synthesis. Figure 15
compares the planned and actual depth for a well as a
function of time.
2.2. Case Structure
Three levels of case structure are implemented at
present. Level 1 is a metalevel covering groups of cases.
Knowledge relevant to a region or to a formation is
stored at this level. One index includes all wells with
borehole instability problems, and another stores the
main problems and solutions common to each region,
with links to the original wells from which the meta-
data was extracted. Level 2 indexes well attributes (e.g.
location) or groups of attributes. Level 3 indexes on a
decomposition of each well into a set of defined drilling
phases and operations.
3. Retrieving Similar Cases
Selection of the best cases for adaptation has been
found to depend on the planned user application. For
the purposes of planning a new well, the most useful
cases generally come from the same geological region,
with similar trajectories and using similar hole sizes.
However if use of a new technology is planned it may
be better to use wells with the new technology even if
they are from a remote location. Users can input de-
tails of their proposed new well such as location, final
hole size and approximate planned trajectory. Similar-
ity measures are then built dynamically using a weight-
ing derived from the user selection.
The most common retrieval method in Genesis is
based on a similarity match between the user’s new
planned well and well cases in the database. Users can
specify which features of each case are most relevant
to the new well plan or system defaults can be used. An
example is shown in Fig. 2, where the user has specified
that he would like to use cases from similar locations
and with similar well trajectories. This is done by first
clicking on the location image, then selecting an area
defined by a latitude and longitude rectangle, location
is accorded a priority of 1 in this example. Clicking
the trajectory image selects trajectory as the second
most relevant factor. A similarity metric using only the
two user selected attributes and weighted for priority
42 Kravis and Irrgang

Figure 2. User interface for case selection. The requirement is similar location (1st priority) and trajectory (2nd priority).

choice is used to find the 10 wells most similar to the w = weighting factor, derived from the user selection.
new planned well. Results of the search are shown in SF = scaling factor.
the list box: Pothos #1 is the most similar stored well
in this example.
User modelling is used for the weightings which are
calculated to sum to 1. The scaling factor SF is re-
3.1. Similarity Metrics for Numeric Data quired to compensate for the vastly differing numeric
ranges of variables used in the similarity metric. Dis-
All numeric attributes are scaled to lie in the range tances between wells can be many kilometres, whereas
0 to 1, and may be generated using higher-level rea- the numbers used for trajectory similarity measures
soning rather than simply scaling or application of a are generally ratios such as TVD/MD (Total Vertical
user-defined function. Some rules and simple drilling Depth/Measured Depth) and range between 0 and 1.
knowledge are applied when generating each compo- Weighting factors are derived from the user profile se-
nent of the metric. For example, relevant geology re- lection. In the example shown in Fig. 2 there are only
quires that retrieved wells are in the same area as the 2 weights, with location weight = 2/3 and trajectory
planned well. Filtering on attributes is also available, weight = 1/3.
for example the search can be restricted to a region Similarity matching can also be done in Genesis with
such as the Cooper Basin. For n numeric attributes, user-defined fuzzy set classifications of database at-
an n-dimensional weighted distance metric of the form tributes. This method gives more flexibility, but at the
below is used: cost of greater interface complexity.

A variety of functions are used to define fuzzy set
 n  
 f (X k,i − X j,i ) membership for attributes. An example of a 3-class
Sim k, j = 1 −  wi (1) function applied for classifying the well database at-
i=1
SF
tribute drilling rate is shown in Fig. 3 and a single class
inverse distance function with threshold in Fig. 4. The
where similarity value between a planned well and any his-
toric well is defined by:
X = selected attribute in the planned and stored wells.
i = the attribute index. NClasses
k = new planned well index. min(PH i , PPi )
Similarity = NClasses
i=1
j = case base index . i=1 max(PH i , PPi )
 Case Based System for Oil and Gas Well Design with Risk Assessment
Figure 3. 3-class fuzzy classification for drilling rate case attribute
with data from 16 historical cases . Well 3 has a membership of
0.85 in class Slow, 0.15 in class Medium and 0 in class Fast. For
a planned case with a rate of 100 ft/hr (Slow membership = 0,
Medium membership = 1, Fast membership = 0), the similarity
would be (Min(0.85,0) + Min(0.15,1) + Min(0,0)) / (Max(0.85,0),
+ max(0.15,1) + Max(0,0)) = 0.15/1.85 = 0.081.
Figure 4. Single-class fuzzy classification using inverse distance
function for distance between planned and historical wells. In this
case, membership translates directly into similarity. Class parameters
P1 and P2 (the distance at which similarity drops to 10%) are user
editable.
where
PH i = membership value for historical case H in class
i 3. Information extraction approach
PPi = membership value for planned case P in class i
Similarities for different attributes can be combined
to obtain a single similarity value by averaging as
shown in Fig. 5. Similarities for different groups of
attributes can be defined as required. Similarity for text
atttributes is measured using trigram matching [4] and
43
similarity results can be combined with numeric simi-
larity as shown in Fig. 6.
An alternative approach to selection is to use an iter-
ative approach where data from planned and historical
cases can be sorted by the attribute of interest, a selec-
tion made and then the results sorted by other attributes
and further selections made. The process does not rely
on similarity measures but simply on the ranking of at-
tributes and is illustrated in Fig. 7. As long as the data
sets are not too large this method is very effective.
Complex atttributes such as electric logs may be
readily assessable by inspection but similarity esti-
mates are difficult to derive numerically. An example is
the degree to which a borehole section becomes carrot-
shaped due to borehole instability acting for long peri-
ods of time on sections of borehole exposed to drilling
fluids for long periods of time. Logs recording the bore-
hole diameter and the time for which the borehole is
exposed to drilling fluid are shown in Fig. 8.
3.2. Retrieval Based on Natural Language Query
Complex non-numeric concepts require a higher level
of abstraction and similarity matching. As an example,
users may want to know what were the main prob-
lems found in a region, and select cases solving similar
problems. An example is shown in Fig. 9. The user asks
questions and the system searches for known indexing
concepts in the word string to use for retrieval of appro-
priate cases. The system has an automated high level
indexing system based on concepts of interest to engi-
neers drilling oil and gas wells. Information on main
problems, for example is extracted automatically from
reports.
Information Extraction
Glasgow et al. [5] state that analysis of free-form text
has been pursued mainly from 3 viewpoints:
1. Keyword approach
2. In-depth natural language approach
An information extraction approach is regarded as
suitable for an application in which the interest is fo-
cused on some parts of the text but not necessarily on
all. The input text is skimmed for specific information
relevant to the particular decision to be made. This is
an ongoing area of natural language research where the
44 Kravis and Irrgang
Figure 5. Example of combination of similarities for various attributes to obtain an overall similarity between planned and historical cases.
The planned case is shown at the top.
focus is on real working systems [6, 7]. Knowledge en-
gineering or machine learning is used to identify the
concepts contained in the texts and to form a frame-
work of these concepts. Glasgow et al. [5] also cite
rigorous performance evaluations conducted by the US
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in which
the 5 top performing systems were all pattern matching
information extraction systems.
Drilling Grammars
Domain and company specific concepts can be defined
for any higher level definition relevant to the drilling
or corporate knowledge extraction process. An exam-
ple of some of the pattern matching part of a drilling
concept representing borehole instability is given be-
low. In the example, each set of words enclosed by
square brackets indicates a pattern that might indicate
that the text discusses hole instability. Word stemming
(%p) and word order or contiguity can be set as manda-
tory. Note that the words “Borehole” and “Instability”
need not be included in a pattern. Concepts can include
previously defined concepts.
“BOREHOLE => [hole + cave,caving]&
INSTABILITY” => [hole + tight + fill]&
=> [UG hole]&
=> [wash + ream + fill]&
=> [tag + fill]&
=> [borehole + instability]&
=> [%p(caving), %p(caved)
+ %p(shales) ]&
=> [breakout + of
+ %p(stressed)
+ %p(shales) ]&
=> [%p(tectonically)
+ %p(stressed)]&
Facilities are provided in Genesis for users to edit and
test grammars. Although users may have clear ideas on
which words and patterns represent problems, they tend
to underestimate the number of different ways in which
concepts might be expressed. Recall and precision ex-
periments are necessary to refine the concepts.
Automated Information Extraction
Text pattern matching techniques are used to find rel-
evant information in these reports. One criterion for
the concept “main problems” for example, is that a
relatively large amount of time is wasted because of
the problem. In the example in Fig. 9, the uninten-
tional sidetrack problem described (unplanned branch-
ing of the well when re-drilling a section of it) was
responsible for 114.2 hours of trouble time. Extraction
of time and depth information is also automatic based
on depth and time pattern matching definitions. Higher
level concepts can be combined with numeric similarity
 Case Based System for Oil and Gas Well Design with Risk Assessment
Figure 6. Example of similarity calculation using trigram match-
ing for text data and single class fuzzy classification for numeric
data.
matching to retrieve similar wells. Once we have found
cases showing particular problems for example, then
from this subset, we can search for the most similar
cases using the methods described earlier.
In drilling, depth is always a key parameter and
most data contains a depth reference. If depth infor-
mation can be automatically extracted from text doc-
uments, this information can be used to reason about
depth related problems which usually correspond to a
particular geological formation. Problem warnings can
45
be added as knowledge attachments to screen displays
used as part of the well planning process. Further de-
tails of the text extraction methods can be found in
[8].
Currently the key extraction requirement is the iden-
tification of the depth range or depth point location
for events described in well completion reports. Com-
monly these reports contain comments such as “drilled
from 1500 ft. to 2700” or “drilled from 7 inch shoe to
target”. As database records are indexed on depth, once
this can be found, the information extraction process
can use all the database information in combination
with reports to produce drilling summaries and guide-
lines. For example we can find in the database, the best
and worst drilling rate of penetration (ROP) in a basin
for a particular formation, and attach notes from the re-
ports explaining problems encountered, how these were
handled and why. Problems are found automatically in
the reports using a list of drilling grammar problem
concepts such as “Borehole Instability”. Once report
sections about problems are found, text before and af-
ter the problem section can be scrolled by the drilling
engineer to home in on the problem cause. An example
is shown in Fig. 10.
If we know the depth range for report sections, auto-
mated concept identification can also be improved dra-
matically. For example the system may surmise that a
report paragraph is discussing drilling through a highly
abrasive formation. The depth link to the database al-
lows checking that ROP rates have decreased and gives
access to the lithology types and gamma ray log infor-
mation, all giving additional evidence about the forma-
tion type.
A fallback index is implemented for use where no
predefined concept can be found in a natural language
question. This index is not based on domain knowl-
edge but uses ngrams or groups of contiguous let-
ters [4]. This matching method allows for approximate
matching of text strings, which provides some robust-
ness against spelling errors and different representa-
tions of names, such as that shown in Fig. 6. Spelling
errors are very common in geological formation
names.
3.3. Experimental Results of Information Extraction
Studies of the validity of information extraction using
the drilling grammars with End of Well reports have
been carried out. Drilling Grammars derived using the
46 Kravis and Irrgang

Figure 7. Example of iterative sort and select process used to find the three wells which took the least amount of time drilled by rig CapStar1
within 5000 m of the planned well. The first iteration (a) displays all wells sorted by distance from the planned well, with those less then 5000
m away selected. The second iteration (b) shows all wells drilled by rig CapStar 1 selected and the third (c) shows the three fastest wells to drill.
The interface allows movement back to earlier stages in the iteration. Numerical attributes for the planned well can be shown in their ordinal
position in sorted historical data as shown in (d).

End of Well reports from two onshore and two off-
shore wells, were tested on 8 other reports, including
a large best drilling practices report from the USA [9]
Each well report contained about 200 paragraphs, and
the drilling practices report about 1000. Tests on recall
and precision rates attained in response to drilling engi-
neer’s queries were carried out on a set of 12 concepts
defined as most relevant by the Australian companies.
Recall rates varied between 80 and 95% while precision
was over 70% in all cases using the concepts. This com-
pares favorably with results below of 50% reported by
other authors such as Rama [10]. Testing was also per-
formed on the accuracy of information extraction based
on a number of key concepts related to depth, casing
and hole size. Results for two concepts regarded as es-
sential for automated information extraction are given
in Fig. 11 using End of Well reports from 7 other wells
(3 offshore, 4 onshore), and another Best Drilling Prac-
tices report. The results for DEPTH RANGE show al-
most perfect precision, indicating that this concept can
be used automatically, virtually without error. The re-
sults shown in Fig. 11 are representative of the range
of accuracy found during all the information extraction
tests.
 Case Based System for Oil and Gas Well Design with Risk Assessment 47

Figure 8. An example of a log display where selection would be by inspection. The log CA GRAT (ratio of hole diameter to drill bit diameter)
shows a correlation with the Open Hole Time log CA OHT for well 1, between 1200 and 3500 m, but well 1A does not show the same behaviour,
as its maximum open hole time is much less. Well 2 does not have data present for the same interval.

Figure 9. Result of a natural language retrieval. Concept “main problems” used.

48 Kravis and Irrgang

Figure 10. Visualisation of the time distribution of categorised activities during the drilling of 7 wells. Light green lines show the actual depths
achieved as a function of time and dark green lines show the planned time versus depth. Detailed descriptions of activities can be obtained by
clicking on the time of interest. The activity for that time and for times around it, are shown in the box above, together with the drillers notes
for these activities. The time range for which data is displayed is shown by the white rectangle, which can be scrolled up and down in the text
window.

Figure 11. Precision and recall of Depth Range and Depth Point concepts in End of Well reports from onshore and offshore wells and a GRI
Best Drilling Practices Study. A score of 1 indicates 100% correct. For the Depth-Range concept, there was high precision but recall was lower
for the Offshore and USA Study. For the Depth Point concept, recall was more consistent but precision was lower.
 Case Based System for Oil and Gas Well Design with Risk Assessment
3.4. Machine Learning to Refine Retrieval Concepts
Techniques to automatically refine the drilling concepts
with user feedback using CART [11] algorithms have
been implemented. Users can select natural language
retrieval text and rate it as relevant, irrelevant or not
sure. The information is stored and run periodically to
refine existing concepts. Results so far are promising
but have highlighted the need to add context and more
complex drilling knowledge to the existing simple con-
cept definitions, to improve retrieval rates much above
the 75% currently achieved [8].
4. Case Adaptation
4.1. Adaptation with User Modeling
Adaptation of retrieved well information to the new
planned well case is also a function of the user applica-
tion. An example is estimation of formation tops for a
new planned well. The system selects the three closest
wells and then does planar interpolation of common
Figure 12. Geology interpolation between 3 offset wells.
49
formation tops. Although this interpolation method is
of limited geological validity, more general interpo-
lation methods are available and could be used if re-
quired. Figure 12 shows a simple example of forma-
tions interpolated using three offset wells to a new well
“Example Onshore 1”.
Adaptation for well costing is far more complex and
generally requires normalisation techniques to allow
for differences in the geometries of planned and his-
toric wells. Commonly at least 60% of the cost of
a well is time-dependent and timings for operations
comprising the planned well are calculated from oper-
ation times in corresponding sections of historic wells.
The times for some operations (such as testing surface
equipment) is independent of the current depth of the
well, but for other operations normalisation needs to
be applied to allow for differences in the lengths or
depths of the planned well sections compared to the
historic wells. Well sections can be chosen based on
the degree of similarity of historical well sections to
the planned well sections using the methods described
in Section 3. Times for operations in the planned
well are estimated from matched operations in the
50 Kravis and Irrgang
Figure 13. Estimated Time versus Depth curve for a new planned well based on 54 historical wells, showing upper and lower ranges and mean
values of the expected curves in solid purple, green and blue respectively. 5th and 95th percentile times are shown dotted purple and dotted green
respectively. Grey curves are input data.
historical wells. If a sufficient number of historical
operations are available, estimates of the variation in
operation time can be made from the input data and
used in Monte-Carlo modelling of the total well con-
struction time. An example of results from this mod-
elling are shown in Fig. 13. Users may input values
directly for planned operations if no matching his-
torical operations are found, or use company-defined
values.
4.2. Model Based Adaptation
Engineering models such as casing design [12] are
available for model based adaptation. For example, a
new casing design system is incorporated to facilitate
design of wells with a large ratio of horizontal extent to
vertical depth. A user can select similar wells based on
possible casing and trajectory similarities to assist with
his design, then recalculate safety parameters such as
burst and collapse pressures for the new situation. Cas-
ing costs can also be recalculated using the company’s
own casing database.
4.3. Engineer Driven Adaptation
Adaptation is one area of case-based reasoning in
which humans can be far superior to any current auto-
mated reasoning system. Engineers can generally im-
prove on any plan produced by a computer. However,
the computer is providing a valuable service just by re-
trieving useful past experiences, performing complex
calculations and extracting data summaries and graph-
ics relevant to the new plan. An example is casing de-
sign. During drilling, sections of the well have to be
sealed off using casing pipes to protect the formation.
Sections of casing with decreasing diameter are run
into the hole at intervals. The size decreases because
each new pipe section must pass through the casing
above. Figure 14 shows a set of 3 casings. The number
of casings required depends on borehole depth, pore
pressure and fracture gradient profiles in the forma-
tions, and stability of the rock. Complex calculations
such as casing design optimisation are best achieved
using a computer, but the human can still modify the
final design based on his experience. Companies us-
ing the program now have access to a database of
 Case Based System for Oil and Gas Well Design with Risk Assessment
Figure 14. Schematic from [14] showing surface, intermediate and
production casing phases.
Figure 15. Time versus depth plot showing well curve predicted
by Genesis (blue) and actual well (grey dots). The red curve is the
company prediction. Best (magenta) and worst (green) predictions
and P10 and P90 curves are also displayed.
successfully drilled extended reach (very long horizon-
tal) wells. Study of previous wells can also provide re-
assurance that there is no need to over-engineer casing.
Some companies have also reported considerable cost
savings just in the area of casing design for extended
reach wells.
Although cases can be retrieved for single case reuse
with modification, the most popular feature of the sys-
tem is adaptation via decomposition of multiple cases
and recomposition to produce a risked complete new
51
planned well instance. Time and costs for the new well
are also estimated based on data from similar well
components. These feed automatically into an Autho-
rization for Expenditure (AFE) spreadsheet. Feedback
studies during project development and deployment
into industry have consistently indicated that engineers
don’t have time to browse through cases and would like
the system to deliver information as part of their nor-
mal work flow. Ideally the system can automate existing
tasks such as well cost estimation and AFE production.
5. Results of Performance Testing for Well Time
and Cost Prediction
Performance testing of a case based system requires
some benchmark performance for comparison. A key
output from the system is a risked prediction of time and
costs for a new planned well based on relevant case base
information from stored historical and planned well
cases, this output was chosen for performance valida-
tion, further information on this process can be found in
[13]. Prior predictions by company experts of time and
costs for a group of new wells was available and this
data was used to compare Genesis predictions for the
same wells based on cases available before commence-
ment date of the new planned wells. Table 1 shows a
summary of results from a comparison of Genesis and
company estimates. Means have been calculated for
the Genesis and company predicted—actual time es-
timates. P10 (10% of wells take less time than this)
and P90 (90% of wells take less time), best and worst
curves are also calculated. Best curves are synthesized
from the best of each operation, worst curves from the
worst operations.
Results show that Genesis has underestimated times
by a mean of 3.6 days, the companies by 19 days. To
compare the percentage error, standard deviations were
calculated for both Genesis and company estimates,
the ratio (Genesis SD/Company SD) is calculated. The
result 0.66 indicates a 34% improvement in uncertainty
could be gained using the Genesis predictions as well
as removing most of the systematic underestimation
bias. Further details of the performance tests can be
found in [13].
6. Research Direction: Creative Case Reasoning
A criticism of case based systems is that most tend
to adapt and reuse old solutions in routine ways,
52 Kravis and Irrgang

Table 1. Comparison of genesis and company time predictions.

Time in Days

Genesis Genesis Genesis Genesis Company Genesis Company

Well Actual Plan P10 mean P90 mean-actual plan-actual % error % error

NWS-8 15.83 9.38 13.25 13.88 14.29 −1.96 −6.46 −12.37 −40.79
NWS-9 25.83 17.08 20.83 27.92 35.42 2.08 −8.75 8.06 −33.87
NWS-18 15.08 16.76 13.67 14.50 16.33 −0.58 1.68 −3.87 11.12
NWS-20 9.67 11.33 10.33 10.92 12.50 1.25 1.67 12.93 17.24
NWS-21 10.63 10.75 7.29 8.96 10.42 −1.67 0.13 −15.69 1.18
NWH-B 43.67 20.83 24.58 42.50 62.08 −1.17 −22.83 −2.67 −52.29
ME-68 150.00 62.92 87.92 98.33 119.17 −51.67 −87.08 −34.44 −58.06
ME-69 57.50 43.75 46.67 68.33 97.92 10.83 −13.75 18.84 −23.91
ME-70 72.50 40.00 62.00 83.00 107.00 10.50 −32.50 14.48 −44.83
Mean differences −3.60 −19
Mean absolute differences 9.07 19.43
Std Dev 18.69 28.15
Ratio of Genesis to Company Std Dev 0.66

producing robust but uninspired results. Engineers have
also expressed concern that Genesis contains only tech-
nology from the past while rapid developments in new
technology may provide better solutions to new prob-
lems. Two main initiatives are underway to address this
problem. Collection of data from leading edge compa-
nies working at the technical limit of drilling is one such
initiative. Companies viewing analogous wells that use
advanced technology may more easily be persuaded to
try the new devices or operations on their own wells.
A common situation for drilling engineers is to decide
whether to use a more expensive bit which may be able
to drill an entire phase if it does not encounter a par-
ticular type of rock or fail prematurely. A case base of
performance and problems with this type of bit will add
valuable support for this decision. Cases can be syn-
thesized to show predicted well times and costs using
new technology, and also highlighting increased risks
where these are significant. Another project is directed
towards the automated production of summary infor-
mation from recent papers and industry publications
highlighting technologies or new solutions that could
be substituted for old methods contained in historic
cases.
7. Conclusion
A rich case based system has been produced for oil
and gas well design. Cases contain heterogeneous in-
formation at varying levels of abstraction. Unlike many
conventional CBR methods, problems are not solved
by single case adaptation but can use multiple cases
at varying levels of generalisation and decomposition.
A novel feature is that the use of multiple cases also
allows risk estimates to be calculated. Automated in-
dexing of text reports and documents allows addition
of high-level knowledge to the system with low main-
tenance. Companies using Genesis report large reduc-
tions in well design time as a new well can now be
designed in hours rather than days. Empirical testing
showed that the case system also outperformed com-
pany experts in predicting the time taken to drill new
wells.
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Simon Kravis has worked as a geophysicist on seismic data process-

ing, and as a researcher on scientific visualization and data analysis,