SPE-187447-MS

Challenges and Lessons from Implementing a Real-Time Drilling Advisory

System

Benjamin J. Spivey, Gregory S. Payette, and Lei Wang, ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company; Jeffrey R.
Bailey, ExxonMobil Development Company; Derek Sanderson, XTO Energy; Stephen W. Lai, Behtash Charkhand,
and Aaron Eddy, Pason Systems

Copyright 2017, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in San Antonio, Texas, USA, 9-11 October 2017.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
This paper discusses the technical challenges related to implementing a rig-site, real-time drilling advisory
system and current solutions to these challenges. The system uses a data-driven response surface model
based on physics-based calculations to optimize rate of penetration (ROP) while minimizing drilling
vibration dysfunction with regards to lateral (whirl) and torsional (stick-slip) vibrational modes. Minimizing
these vibrations is important to mitigate bit damage that can lead to reduced ROP and bit trips. By
incorporating drilling vibrations with ROP optimization, the system helps operations identify drilling
limiters and support the bit and BHA redesign process to improve drilling on subsequent wells.
Throughout development, the team has identified and managed challenges related to estimating drilling
performance from data, making optimization trade-offs, guiding the driller to characterize performance, and
handling formation variability. Surface sensors provide real-time drilling data measurements to an electronic
drilling recorder which converts data into Wellsite Information Transfer Specification (WITS) records.
These measurements often require filtering, averaging, and transformation with physical models to estimate
drilling performance with suitable accuracy for driller guidance. Improving drilling performance involves
a tradeoff between optimizing ROP and avoiding drilling dysfunction. The system currently uses a drilling
efficiency term, such as mechanical specific energy (MSE),to incorporate whirl and other energy losses, and
it computes an absolute estimate of bit stick-slip with the torsional severity estimate (TSE). This drilling
optimization tradeoff requires comparing relative measures of performance, such as ROP and MSE, with
an absolute measure of performance as TSE. A drill-off test involving changing the drilling parameters and
observing performance is central to create performance trends versus the drilling parameters. A method for
guiding the driller to conduct a drill-off test should accommodate driller human factors, capture sufficient
data to provide an accurate trend, and complete the drill-off test in a sufficient amount of time to use the
test results to optimize the current formation. Data-driven trends should be relevant for the formation the bit
is currently drilling. Formation changes may occur with varying magnitude and frequency, and the system
addresses aspects of formation change.
2 SPE-187447-MS

This paper discusses these drilling challenges using field and simulation data and provides results from
recent North America land operations targeting unconventional oil and gasdevelopments. Field feedback has
been incorporated for continuous improvement to algorithms. This deployment demonstrates the benefit of
using the rig-site system for real-time drilling set point decisions and post-well drillstring redesign decisions.

Introduction
Oil and gas operators and service companies are actively working projects to improve utilization of real-
time data usage to support drilling decisions through open and closed-loop drilling parameter optimization
(Riaz et. al. 2017) and through drilling data aggregation spanning the rig-site and office (Behounek et.
al. 2017), (Laurens, Kales 2014). Many of these activities influence both well construction planning and
execution phases.
The operator has conducted an on-going effort for over a decade to improve drilling performance by
designing bottom-hole assemblies and choosing real-time drilling set points to drill efficiently and to prevent
drilling dysfunction (Dupriest et. al. 2005), (Bailey et. al. 2010), (Ertas et. al. 2014). This effort has involved
software for planning and execution phases and utilized physical drillstring mechanics models and real-
time drilling data. A real-time drilling optimization system for rig site application, referred to as the Drilling
Advisory System (DAS), is one component of this effort to improve drilling efficiency (Chang et. al. 2014),
(Payette et. al. 2015), (Payette et. al. 2017).
The drilling optimization system provides the rig-site personnel (driller or directional driller) with real-
time trending and actionable guidance to understand the correlation between drilling parameters for the
auto-driller or top drive (e.g., WOB, ROP, Differential Pressure, RPM) and drilling performance variables
(ROP, MSE, TSE, etc.). Drillers have traditionally conducted drill-off tests by varying drilling set points
and observing rate of penetration changes in the strip chart data visible on the electronic drilling recorder
(EDR). Directional drillers likewise may provide drilling set point guidance. The system utilizes surface
WITS data which provides consistent, vendor-neutral data channels that are available on offshore or land
operations. Drilling performance calculations utilize the real-time surface WITS drilling data to characterize
drilling efficiency (mechanical specific energy or depth of cut divided by weight on bit), stick-slip, and an
average rate of penetration. Statistical response surface modeling captures a clear trend of these drilling
performance variables versus real-time drilling parameters and combine these trends for an overall objective
measure of performance. The surface may be utilized to identify the point at which drilling dysfunction onset
occurs, also called the founder point. The combination of physics-based calculations and statistical trending
algorithms provides drillers with open-loop feedback to support real-time drilling decisions. This approach
consolidates complex drilling performance into transparent trends that are actionable by rig-site personnel.
The drilling optimization system has been deployed by drilling operators across offshore and land rigs and
utilized by drilling rig contractors. Through a series of trials and more recent deployments, the development
teams have collected feedback and continuously improved the system to address drilling challenges.
Challenges for drilling workflow optimization and automation contain similarities and differences with
other industries, such as power generation and petrochemical indusries. Unique challenges for drilling
optimization include the following: Rigs are often located away from engineering offices; rigs are owned
and operated by contractors for the operator; drillers are responsible for other priorities including safety
integrity, environmental integrity, rig floor management, and rig equipment maintenance; and data transfer
limitations may preclude using downhole measurements. The operator and service company teams have
addressed these challenges using a combination of training, technician support, and improved utilization
of available surface data.
Many challenges for drilling optimization and automation are similar to automation in other industries
with regards to estimating performance from raw data, applying statistical modeling for operational
decisions, specifying optimization criteria, incorporating human factors design, and adapting to unmeasured
SPE-187447-MS 3

disturbances. Drillers traditionally interpret raw data to understand downhole drilling performance, but the
drilling operation is subject to many unmeasured disturbances in surface data including bit wear/damage,
bit balling, drillstring and tool vibrational dysfunction, and formation change. The system should optimally
utilize this data to produce a statistically and physically meaningful trend of drilling performance and
provide clear actionable guidance to drillers at the right time. Finally, the system should be deployed
and maintained in a commercially-sustainable manner to rigs and provide results that are accessible to
operator engineers. Collaboration with a service company continues to enable commercial deployments
with hardware and a user-interface that is appropriate for rig-site application.

Technical Overview
This section provides a background on the drilling advisory system technology as described in previous
papers (Payette et. al. 2015), (Payette et. al. 2017). The system is a rig-site software application that should
be deployed in view of the driller and/or the directional driller per the rig workflow. Fig. 1 illustrates a
driller cabin deployment.

Figure 1—Drilling advisory system deployed in the driller cabin on a North America land rig

The software contains capabilities for real-time surface drilling data acquisition, drilling performance
estimation, vibration analysis, surface trends for drilling performance, and drill-off test guidance for drilling
optimization. The system primarily serves as an open-loop advisory tool but retains capabilities for closed-
loop auto-driller and top-drive control. The user interface provides the rig-site personnel with drilling
performance surface trends (ROP, drilling efficiency, and stick-slip vibration), bit aggressiveness and depth
of cut calculations, and drilling parameter set point recommendations based on the surface trends.
Data input and output. The system operates upon one-second data provided from the electronic data
recording (EDR) equipment. Input data consists of data channels included among standard or spare WITS
Record 1 items: block height, weight on bit, rotary speed, mud flow rate, hole depth, bit depth, torque, and
differential pressure. Output data are transferred to the EDR and are made available for remote viewing by
engineering staff offsite.
Drilling performance estimation. The system filters and pre-processes the raw WITS Record 1 data
to calculate the drilling performance variables: rate of penetration, surface mechanical specific energy,
motor mechanical specific energy, depth of cut divided by weight on bit, torsional severity estimate, bit
aggressiveness, and depth of cut. The ROP, surface MSE, DOC, bit aggressiveness (μ), and TSE are defined
as follows:
4 SPE-187447-MS

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

where the numerator in the TSE equation represents the torque swing calculated between the current time at
index i and a time in the past at index p and the denominator in the TSE equation represents the theoretical
torque swing at full stick-slip, ΔTQref, multiplied by the median RPM over the same time window used for
the numerator.
Performance averaging and modeling. The measures of drilling performance, primarily the ROP, drilling
efficiency, and stick-slip indicator, are averaged over depth-drilled to produce a mean or median value
referred to as a "response point." The depth of a response point may typically range from ½ ft to several
ft. A clustering algorithm groups these response points in the two-dimensional drilling parameter space.
The response point groups, or "calibration points," serve as estimates of the drilling set points to measure
whether the drilling parameter space is sufficiently explored to produce an accurate response surface model.
The response surface model is an advanced regression fit of the response points, and a surface exists for each
drilling performance variable. If the driller changes the two-dimensional parameter space by changing the
auto-driller control mode (e.g., WOB, ROP, DP), the system resets the history of response points, calibration
points, and response surfaces.
Optimization. An objective function merges the response surfaces of multiple performance objectives
into a single objective surface. This objective function makes a tradeoff between the rate of penetration,
drilling efficiency, and stick-slip terms. For relative measures of performance, such as the rate of penetration
and drilling efficiency, the tradeoff is linear across the parameter space. The objective function handles
an absolute measure of performance, such as the stick-slip indicator, with a custom utility function. The
stick-slip term (TSE) acts as a soft constraint and begins to debit the objective noticeably as the stick-slip
approaches a TSE of 0.8, or 80% of full stick-slip.
Drill-off test guidance. When the system is recalibrated for a new hole section or new rock formation, it
recommends a sequence of drilling set points to explore the parameter space. Once the space is sufficiently
explored for an initial trend, the system makes set point recommendations in a near-optimal direction based
on the surface to continue exploring the space. As the surface trend covers more parameter space, the
recommendations encourage the driller to exploit the near-optimum surface region.

Drilling Performance Estimation from Data

Raw surface drilling data should be filtered, cleaned, and combined within drilling performance equations
to create an estimate of drilling performance. The drilling performance measures of ROP, MSE, DOC,
DOC/WOB, and bit aggressiveness have been commonly used in the industry for viewing as strip chart
data. Additional processing can be required to utilize these measures for real-time drilling optimization:
removal of dynamic artifacts to estimate downhole performance, choice of appropriate proxy for drilling
performance, and verification that trending occurs within a stable auto-driller control mode.
SPE-187447-MS 5

A primary example of removing dynamic artifacts is correcting for pipe elasticity with a pipe
compression/stretch correction for ROP calculation. The ROP is traditionally calculated from a change in
bit depth estimated from the change in block height and filtered over a specified depth as shown in Eq. 1.
The bit depth should be corrected by adding the change in pipe length from the bit off-bottom condition
as follows in Eq. 6:
(6)
where a negative Δx|(i,s) represents compression in pipe length averaged from the starting depth index, s, to
the current ending depth index, i. The pipe compression may be estimated with a spring-damper model to
account for compression and dampen oscillatory block height movement as follows in Eq.7:

(7)

where k is an effective spring constant accounting for varying length and cross-sectional areas across
the drill string and BHA.The damping coefficient, b, may be specified as a filtering parameter. Fig. 2
showsuncorrected ROP versus corrected ROP from field data which demonstrates how the correction
eliminates artificial upward spikes when weight is applied and downward spikes when weight is removed.

Figure 2—Plot of uncorrected ROP versus corrected ROP demonstrates swings due to WOB step changes.

A second field study indicates how removal of these swings is important for developing accurate trends
of drilling performance variables versus drilling parameters. A response surface plot for ROP demonstrates
how the pipe elasticity correction improves the surface fit and shifts the maximum ROP to a higher WOB
as shown in Fig. 3.
The ROP surface without the correction appears to predict a founder point near 40 klbf; however, the
corrected ROP surface demonstrates no founder points. The artificial founder in this example occurs due
to the wider spread of data points without the correction. The comparison of ROP surfaces demonstrates
that the elasticity correction alone could influence the choice of optimal drilling parameters based on the
surface trends. The corrected ROP surface in Fig. 3 appears not to fit the response data points at lower ROP
values. These lower ROP points occurred during a formation encountered prior to the current formation. A
later section discusses how the surface adapts for formation changes.
6 SPE-187447-MS

Figure 3—ROP response surface plots (a) without the pipe elasticity correction and (b) with correction

Figure 4—MSE response plots (a) without the pipe elasticity correction and (b) with the correction

A plot of the MSE response surface without the correction versus with the correction likewise
demonstrates less scatter in response points in Fig. 4. Similar to the ROP plots, the MSE plots demonstrate
points with higher MSE due to a prior formation.
The performance measures for drilling efficiency and stick-slip may be represented with different
calculations. The MSE may be represented as a surface MSE using surface torque, TQs, and surface RPM,
RPMs, as in Eq. 8 which expands upon Eq. 2 to include motor energy. When a motor is used, MSE may also
be represented as a motor MSE (downhole MSE) using additional motor torque, ΔTQ, and additional motor
RPM, ΔRPM, as in Eq. 9. Using an alternative drilling efficiency term, such as the DOC/WOB or MSEm,
may be advantageous in deep lateral sections with significant drillstring torque.

(8)

(9)

(10)
SPE-187447-MS 7

The TSE calculation based on surface parameters represents torsional oscillations occurring at the bit
when a motor is not used or at the bottom hole assembly (BHA) when a motor is used (Chang et. al. 2014),
(Payette, 2015). The TSE may be modified to create a bit TSE as shown in Eq. 11 to estimate the TSE at
the bit when a motor is used:

(11)

A drilling optimization workflow should also consider the auto-driller control mode used for a given
period of data. Alternating periods of ROP, WOB, or DP control, as illustrated from field data in Fig. 5,
can obscure the relationship between drilling parameters and drilling performance variables.The system
described herein provides for the driller to select operation manually in WOB, ROP, or DP control modes.

Figure 5—Auto-driller control varying between ROP (blue highlight) and

WOB (orange highlight) control across a highly laminated formation

Data-Driven Adaptive Modeling and Disturbance Handling

The system employs data-driven statistical modeling by averaging current drilling inputs and outputs to
create response points and fitting a three-dimensional response surface to the response points. The surfaces
represent a trend of two drilling parameters at steady-state conditions versus a single drilling performance
variable. The two drilling parameters consists of the inferred top drive RPM set point and inferred auto-
driller set point for the current auto-driller control mode. As the system primarily focuses on real-time
drilling mechanics, the drilling performance variables include ROP, MSE, DOC, DOC/WOB, TSE, and μ.
Drilling set points must be held steady for a sufficient depth of rock drilled and sufficient time to characterize
steady-state drilling performance at the current set point.
The response surface modeling approach is chosen to be consistent with the operator'sROP management
process (Valenta et. al. 2014) which engages drilling contractors and drill teams to vary design and real-time
decisions to identify limiters. The response surfaces are visible to the driller to facilitate understanding of
the underlying statistical trends as the driller follows set point recommendations or independently explores
the drilling parameter space.
Unmeasured disturbances may significantly alter the relationship between the drilling parameters and
the drilling performance variables without indications from surface measurements, and these are a primary
challenge for creating an accurate response surface to correlate drilling parameters with performance.
Disturbances are uncontrolledchanges to the driller system which may be measured or unmeasured. For the
response surface model, mud flowis one example of a measured disturbance from surface measurements.
8 SPE-187447-MS

Primary unmeasured disturbances are rock strength variability and bit damage or wear. The system collects
a history of response points with a typical range from 250 to 750 ft in depth or 4 to 12 hr in time, with each
point typically ranging from ½ to 3 ft in depth or ½ to 3 min in time. This history of response points may
contain significant variation in these unmeasured disturbances, and the data-driven model adapts to provide
guidance in the presence of these disturbances.
One approach to manage the unmeasured disturbances is moving window filtering. A moving window
algorithm only includes data over a fixed window of time extending from the current time to the past. The
moving windowslides in time to remain anchored to the present time while ignoring data before the window
to maintain the same window length. Applying surface fitting to themoving window of response points
enables the surface to adapth gradually to varying rock strength or bit wear. Each response point falls within
acluster/calibration point in two-dimensional space (e.g., WOB, RPM), and each cluster of points should
have an upper limit for response point count per cluster to prevent over-fitting the response surface to a
particular calibration point. Fig. 6 demonstrates a moving window of seven response points for a given
calibration point with the included points having a solid outline and excluded points having a dashed outline.
The absence of response points in Fig. 6 between the third and fourth response point exists because the
system classifies data in that time period into other calibration points.The moving window algorithm works
in conjunction with an aging function to weight more recent response points higher than less recent response
points.

Figure 6—Moving window of seven response points at 30 klbf WOB and 80 RPM

A field example from a North America land operation demonstrates how the system adapts to varying
rock formations. A plot of drilling performance variables of 180 ft demonstrates a formation change near
21:05 in Fig. 7. The drilling assembly encounters a harder formation as demonstrated by the increase in
MSE and decreases in DOC/WOB and ROP.
The ROP and MSE response surfaces are plotted with all drilling data over the 180 ft in memory. The
plots are created both with and without using the moving window algorithm. As shown in Fig. 8a and Fig.
9a, the ROP and MSE surfaces without the moving window are averaging data over the two formations.
The MSE surface is fit approximately halfway between MSE values for each of the two formations. Both
ROP and MSE surfaces suggest an optimal WOB less than 35 klbf. When the moving window algorithm
is applied in Fig. 8b and Fig. 9b, the ROP and MSE surfaces fit primarily the second formation response
points, and the optimal WOB is closer to 45 klbf. The first formation points with higher ROP and lower
MSE are primarily ignored for the fit.
SPE-187447-MS 9

Figure 7—Drilling performance variables indicate formation change after 21:05.

Figure 8—ROP response surfaces (a) without the moving window and (b) with the moving window from data in Fig. 7

Figure 9—MSE response surfaces (a) without the moving window and (b) with the moving window from data in Fig. 7

The response surfaces with the moving window demonstrate trends consistent with drilling mechanics
theory for a single formation in Fig. 8b and Fig. 9b. In this case, increasing WOB correlates with
continuously increasing ROP, while the MSE surface is relatively flat in the WOB and RPM dimensions.
These figures demonstrate how the surfacescan automatically adjust for formation change using the moving
windowmethod. Fig. 8 and 9 also demonstrate the potential for clustering drilling data into groups having
more homogenous formation properties than the larger data set. Such clustering may be used to update
10 SPE-187447-MS

the model accordingly. An ongoing effort exists to upgrade the algorithm to detect and react to formation
change.

Optimization Objectives
The drilling advisory system performs drilling optimization by balancing the objectives of increasing ROP
and avoiding lateral and torsional drilling vibrations. A drilling efficiency response surface, either surface
MSE, motor MSE, or DOC/WOB, serves as a proxy for lateral vibrations versus drilling parameters. The
TSE response surface quantifies the effect of parameters on stick-slip torsional vibrations.
A key challenge for balancing these objectives is comparing terms with relative importance such as ROP
and drilling efficiency versus a term with absolute importance such as TSE. ROP and drilling efficiency
have relative importance because optimal values for these are relative to the rock strength. The TSE has an
absolute importance such that any TSE value equal to or greater than 1.0 indicates that the bit rotary speed
drops to zero RPM momentarilyduring the stick-slip cycle.
The system handles objective terms with relative importance, ROP and drilling efficiency terms, by
normalizing and scaling the surfaces with respect to the relative slope of the surfaces. The terms are first
normalized between 0 and 1. The normalized surface is used directly if the term should be maximized, or
the normalized surface is subtracted from one if the term should be minimized. Examples of both cases are
shown in Eq. 12 and 13:

(12)

(13)

With the surfaces normalized to the same scale, the surfaces are then scaled with regards to the relative
slope of each surface. The scaling is an adaptive parameter that estimates the relative slope by calculating
either the standard deviation of surface points for surface i, σi, or range of surface points and normalizing
these by the mean or median, of the surface as the surface adapts as shown in Eq. 14 and 15:

(14)

(15)

The scaling parameter, ωi, acts as an adaptive weight which governs the importance of each objective
term in the objective function. The parameter up weights relative objective terms that show high variance
with respect to the drilling parameters and vice versa.
The TSE term is normalized and scaled differently from the relative terms since the TSE term is an
absolute measure of drilling performance. A utility function transforms the TSE surface and simultaneously
performs normalization and scaling to produce a transformed TSE surface, that is comparable versus
the transformed ROP and drilling efficiency relative terms. The utility function may take any form such
as a sigmoid, exponential, or parabolic function. An example of a utility function is the sigmoid functions
shown in Eq. 16 to 18 where the function,g3, acts as a fuzzy logic transition between functions g1 and g2,
and βj and wj are sigmoid tuning parameters.

(16)

(17)

(18)
SPE-187447-MS 11

The transformed TSE surface, and with the relative surfaces for ROP, and drilling efficiency,
may be combined together in the any manner, f4, such that the final objective function need not
distinguish between relative and absolute terms. The objective function algorithm steps are demonstrated
in Fig. 10 where the normalization and scaling converts the Response Surfaces to Transformed Surfaces.
An example from a North America land operation demonstrated the effect of drilling parameters on
vibrational dysfunction as shown in Fig. 11. The ROP signal is sufficiently steady following 17:30 to indicate
a relatively homogeneous formation. As the WOB decreases and RPM increases, the TSE increases from
an average below 1.5 to an average greater than 2 from near 19:00 to 21:00 and again after 21:35. The MSE
also trends downward as the WOB is decreased which may indicate the presence of lateral vibrations that
may be coupled to stick-slip.

Figure 10—Flow diagram for objective function algorithm

12 SPE-187447-MS

Figure 11—Drilling performance data from a North America land operation indicates vibration dysfunction.

The ROPsurface is plotted in two diagrams to demonstrate the trends versus WOB and RPM as shown
in Fig. 12. The ROP surface has a lower relative slope compared to the MSE surface which indicates that
the ROP is less sensitive to parameter variation than MSE.The objective function is more heavily weighted
by the MSE with an MSE scaling parameter, ωMSE, equal to 1.00 versus an ROP scaling parameter value,
ωROP, equal to 0.09.

Figure 12—ROP response surface demonstrates variation of 2 ft/hr over an average ROP near 22 ft/hr.

The MSE and TSE response surfaces indicate trends in both WOB and RPM dimensions as shown in
Fig. 13. These surfaces are consistent with the real-time data trends which show that lowering the WOB in
concert with raising the RPM correlated with reduced stick-slip and reduced mechanical specific energy.
The second increase in TSE after 21:35 also correlates with the WOB and RPM step changes.
SPE-187447-MS 13

Figure 13—MSE and TSE response surfaces demonstrate variation in both WOB and RPM dimensions.

The objective function algorithm combines the objectives of increasing ROP with reducing drilling
dysfunction by scaling each objective uniquely depending on whether they are relative or absolute measures
of performance. The objective function surface shown in Fig. 14 is consistent with the MSE and TSE
surfaces with an optimal WOB near 30 klbf and optimal RPM near 70 RPM. The optimal drilling parameters
based on the ROP surface alone are near 35 klbf and 60 RPM. In this example, the objective function based
on minimizing dysfunction (MSE and TSE) yielded a different result than one based on maximizing ROP.
This suggests that one could drill with higher ROP but more dysfunction, which in some wells has led to the
need to trip early to replace a damaged bit or drilling tool. This conclusion is consistent with the operator's
ROP management process which recommends drilling at the highest achievable ROP without dysfunction.

Figure 14—Objective response surface demonstrates the two-dimensional trend display to the driller.
14 SPE-187447-MS

Explore-Exploit Tradeoff
The system poses drilling optimization as an explore-exploit problem and utilizes a data-driven response
surface model to visualize the explore-exploit tradeoff. This tradeoff involves choosing when to vary
parameters to learn the data-driven model and when to choose parameters to exploit the optimal point.
A key objective of the system is to identify improved or near-optimal drilling performance relevant for
the current formation by analyzing trends. The drilling set points should be varied at a sufficient frequency
to ensure that the trend remains relevant for current drilling operations. This drilling set point variation is
also known as conducting a drill-off test. The response surfaces interpolate drilling performance between
the varied set points, and the surface and recommendations guide drillers via set point recommendations.
Once the driller explores a sufficient space during the drill-off test, the recommendation remains in the
vicinity of a near-optimal point given steady drilling conditions.
The current system uses two recommendation workflows: one for explore phase and one for exploit phase.
The explore phase recommendation workflow begins by estimating drilling performance at the current
drilling parameters. The next two recommendations guide the driller to change the auto-driller set point
(WOB/ROP/DP) once and the top-drive set point (RPM) once. Next, the system balances the exploit-explore
tradeoff to continue expanding the surface area while making near-optimal recommendations based on the
surface trend. Fig. 15 demonstrates these steps.
Identifying a fit-for-purpose approach to guide the drill-off test and to identify the near-optimal drilling
set points has motivatediterative improvments for both the human machine interface (HMI) and algorithm
accuracy. Primary human factors improvements are listed as follows: guiding the driller to choose set
points to move out of dysfunction or away from constraints, providing driller guidance at an acceptable
frequency to follow the set point recommendations, and providing recommendations that are consistent
with the objective surface trend. The remainder of this section discusses how the system addresses these
challenges.

Figure 15—System follows changes in drilling parameter set points to build a response surface model.

Operating Near Dysfunction or Constraints

Experience from trials indicated that drillers may step drilling parameters systematically even without the
system but did not always recognize the need to respond to dysfunction or parameter constraints while
stepping parameters. As an example in a North America land operation, the drillers increased the WOB with
5 klbf steps to approximately 30 klbf at a period of 2.5 min per step prior to using the system. Throughout
the steps the torque swings increased monotonically through the final step as shown in Fig. 16.
SPE-187447-MS 15

Figure 16—Driller steps WOB set points with a new bit without using the system.

While the driller initially reduced WOB when returning on-bottom at 2:52, they return the WOB set
point to 30 klbf after 3:00, and the torque swings resumed at high levels. On some occasions, the driller
would re-enter a dysfunctional modeand continue to run with the same parameters despite indications of
high downhole stick-slip. These cases demonstrate the need for the system (1) to guide drilling operation
out of dysfunction as possible if the driller starts exploring in dysfunction and (2) to notify the driller when
dysfunction persists for an extended time period.
To guide the driller away from dysfunction during exploration, the algorithm takes real-time stick-slip
measurements into account when providing drill-off test guidance. In general, higher WOB and RPMare
desirable as most drillers prefer to start exploration at relatively conservative/low WOB and RPM values.
However, this sequence is not desirable in cases where a high level of stick-slip is detected. Increasing the
WOB further exacerbates the stick-slip condition and increases the likelihood of bit damage. In general, the
stick-slip severity can be reduced by reducing the weight applied to the bit or increasing the rotary speed.
Taking these considerations into account, the system executes the recommendation sequence illustrated in
Fig. 17. As shown, increasing WOB and increasing RPM are default actions if TSE is low. However, if TSE
is high, increasing RPM and decreasing WOB are the favored actions for exploring the parameter space.
To avoid bit damage due to operating in dysfunction for long periods of time, the HMI provides a series
of prominent alerts whenever excessive levels of TSE are detected. The additional features included the
following:

• High Stick-Slip Alert: A red box alert appears in the UI when TSE is greater than a threshold with
0.8 as the default.
• High Stick-Slip Shutdown: If an alert condition is sustained for 10 min, DAS ceases to provide
recommendations and the driller is instructed to lower WOB or raise RPM.
16 SPE-187447-MS

Figure 17—Recommendation sequence for explore phase.

The high stick-slip alert, shown in Fig. 18, is intended to notify the driller when TSE reaches an excessive
level. In this case, the alarm threshold is set to 0.8. When TSE is at 1.0, the drillstring will likely be in
full stick-slip, and the bit may stop rotating for portions of the oscillation cycle. Torque oscillations near or
greater than full stick-slip have been shown to induce bit damage. To prevent such an event from occurring
unintentionally, a high stick-slip shutdown is initiated if the alert is sustained for longer than 10 min. As
shown in Fig. 19, the driller is notified that stick-slip has exceeded specified thresholds and DAS ceases to
provide recommendations for any drilling parameters. The driller is advised to decrease WOB and increase
RPM to exit the stick-slip condition. When the stick-slip condition no longer exists, the system resumes
normal operation.

Figure 18—High stick-slip alert.

SPE-187447-MS 17

Figure 19—High stick-slip shutdown.

Field trials indicated that drillers will sometimes remain at the recommendations on the constraints
without exploring elsewhere to complete the exploration phase. The driller may remain at the constraint
despite being in dysfunction as in the above Fig. 16. During the explore phase (drill-off test), the algorithm
reflects recommendations away from constraints to guide the driller to sample a sufficient number of set
points within the constraints as shown in Fig. 20.

Figure 20—System makes recommendations (star) away from constraints to complete a drill-off test.

Recommendation Frequency
Trials indicated the importance of making recommendations to drillers with a sufficient time period between
recommendations to demonstrate stability and allow the driller to follow recommendations while managing
drilling operations. Experience indicated that drillers were willing to continue making set point changes with
a minimum period of 5 min. Results from a deployment at a North America land operation demonstrates
drillers updating recommendations in this time range in Fig. 21.
18 SPE-187447-MS

Figure 21—Driller sets the WOB and RPM (blue) to match recommendations (red) at a 5 min frequency.

The system holds recommendations constant during the explore phase to provide a steady set point for
building the initial surface. During the exploit phase, the recommendation update period is tunable by the
driller and was set as 5 min in Fig. 21. During the latter phase, the raw recommendations follow the optimal
surface points as the surface updates with each response point. These recommendations shown to the driller
are then filtered using an exponentially weighted moving average filter as shown in Eq. 19 where α is the
smoothing factor.
(19)

Consistent Driller Guidance

Feedback from trials indicated the need to provide the drillers a surface trend from the beginning of
the explore phase. Early trials used response points instead of response surfaces to make explore phase
recommendations, and the recommendationscould differ from the optimal direction per the surface. Driller
feedback indicated the need to ensure all system guidance is consistent and that explore recommendations
are made based on the surface trend. A new algorithm was developed to provide explore phase
recommendations consistent with the surface based on projecting an optimal vector from the surface
centroid. The algorithm involves the following steps which are illustrated in Fig. 22:
1. Select a subset of near-optimal drilling parameters along the response surface boundary (region shaded
in blue), and identify the drilling parameters at the surface centroid.
2. Project potential recommendations from the centroid through the optimal parameters (shown as two
dotted lines and one solid line) and only keep projected recommendations that remain within the
constraints.
3. Identify the most optimal projected recommendation (solid line) among remaining options based on
domain knowledge.

Figure 22—Projected recommendations during the explore phase

SPE-187447-MS 19

Through a series of updates among field trials, the current system provides new recommendations at
a frequency that is tunable by the driller. The recommendations are consistent with the surface, and the
recommendations ensure a full explore phase within user-specified constraints.

Field Results
The technical challenges and solutions previously discussed were implemented prior to a deployment in the
Permian Basin. Field trial experience prior to the deployment was important to develop a system capable
of being utilized continuously on a rig and capable of improving drilling performance with minimal on-
going technical support.
The drilling advisory system has been deployed on a rig in the Permian Basin since Q3 2016. Previously
reported results demonstrated drilling cost savings by using the system in Q3 2016 (Payette, 2017). More
recent results indicate a continuation of the reduced drilling costs for the rig (Test Rig) in comparison to
average fleet rigs as shown in Fig. 23.

Figure 23—Normalized intermediate hole drilling costs for the fleet and system test rig. Table from Sanderson et. al. 2017.

Fig. 23 displays a summary of normalized quarterly intermediate hole section drilling costs from Q3
through Q4 2016. The Q1 2016 and Q2 2016 costs for the rig were incurred prior to using the system. The
cost comparison demonstrates a reduction in the rig drilling costs versus prior rig drilling costs starting in
Q3 2016. The comparison also demonstrates a reduction in costs versus the fleet rig drilling costs through
Q4 2016.
Fig. 24 provides a detailed breakdown for the cost savings during 2H 2016 compared to 1H 2016. Savings
labeled "DAS" are the result of real-time management of drilling parameters. The "Design Improvments"
20 SPE-187447-MS

savings are due to BHA redesign motivated by the system identifying opportunities to increase WOB. The
"Drilling Mechanics Practices"resulted from changes to drilling parameter management practices. A "Hole
Size Change" accounts for cost savings from reducing the hole section diameter from 12 ½" to 10 5/8".
Ongoing usage of the advisory system is necessary to maintain the savings component labeled "DAS." The
drilling mechanics practices and BHA redesign learning are step changes to the drilling workflows that
remain for future wells apart from the system usage.

Figure 24—Breakdown of components of cost savings for the test

rig between 1H and 2H 2016. Table from Sanderson et. al. 2017.

Conclusion
Development and deployment of a drilling advisory system based on surface data involveschallenges and
solutions that can be unique to drilling operations. Dynamic drilling dysfunction may be mitigated with
proper selection of steady-state set points, and steady-state modeling based on surface drilling data has
proven to be effective for multivariable drilling optimization. The algorithm uses surface drilling dataas
a low cost, vendor-neutral data source to estimate operation at the drilling assembly which may be miles
downhole from the surface well site. Model-based estimation of downhole drilling performance provides
a proxy for downhole dynamics which are not measurable directly from the surface. Adaptive data-driven
modeling enablesgradual relearning as unmeasured disturbances, formation or bit condition changes, alter
the relationship between drilling parameters and performance. The objective function proves capable of
making a tradeoff between relative measures of performance, ROP and drilling efficiency, and an absolute
measured of performance, TSE.
Human factors are an important consideration as with any operator guidance system. The advisory
system should provide consistent guidance to build operator trust and provide guidance at a reasonable
frequency for the driller to consider and respond to feedback. It should help the driller understand the need
SPE-187447-MS 21

for sufficient sampling of the drilling parameters for current drilling conditions before recommending near-
optimal drilling parameters.
Field results from the Permian basin demonstrate how the system can enable a step-improvement
in drilling performance. The deployment demonstrated how the drilling improvement results from a
combination of engineering redesign and drilling mechanics changes in combination with real-time drilling
parameter management.

Acknowledgements
The authors thank the many field and office personnel who have supported the testing and development
of the drilling advisory system described in this paper. We give special thanks to the following: Jeff Moss,
Darren Pais, Paul Pastusek, and Tony Bautista from ExxonMobil; Mark Mengers, Nathan Hilsendager, and
Daniel Go from XTO Energy; Mariano Calvo, Vincent Dansereau, Nicholas Hutniak, Sergey Khromov,
Ryan Kong, James Ng, Lars Olesen, Dan Paslawski, Mark Pawson, Ed Quan, Steven Sheldon, Subodh
Shrestha, and Terry Yee from Pason Systems.

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