DrillPlan is a digital planning solution that includes a comprehensive set of engineering and project management workflows, to enable engineers to collaboratively design and plan wells.
The product has 4 core values:
- Collaboration
- Coherency
- Automation
- Validation
Each of these will be elaborated in further detail in the following section.
Users working within DrillPlan do not work in isolation; instead DrillPlan's "collaboration model" allows users to seamlessly work together on a live well design. The collaboration model is the constructed of several layers. At the top we have the "Project" which contains some global settings and properties for the well, e.g. well name, elevation reference, anti-collision rules etc. then within a project we can have one or many "plans". These plans are used to hold the majority of the well design data e.g. wellbores, sections, drilling runs, wellbore geometry, trajectory and so on. Allowing multiple plans per project means that alternative well designs can easily be created and compared.
The data within a plan is organized in "objects" e.g. the trajectory. Plan objects, such as the trajectory, are edited in object editors in the application. When an edit is made by a particular user, a draft is generated. This draft is initially only available to the user who created it, but all of the engineering validations (explained in further detail below) will utilize the draft data, allowing them to immediately evaluate the impact and result of the change. Once a user is satisfied with their edits, they are able to share their drafts back to the team plan; making them immediately available to all other team members. This is illustrated below:
The collaboration model aims to strike a balance: On one side we want to ensure that users are no longer working in isolation, therefore sharing their changes to the other team members as seamlessly as possible is fundamentally important. However sharing changes too frequently, particularly if the data is immature, can easily be disruptive to other team members. The "my plan" construct, provides some of the isolated freedoms and stability typically experienced in "individual use" applications, while still making it very easy to share changes with the wider team in a controlled manner, after they have been properly matured and assessed. Each time a change is shared to the "team plan" a plan version is automatically generated, providing full traceability and roll back support.
Well planning is complex with many cross workflow dependencies. DrillPlan aims to remove all non-essential data entry and preserve plan coherency at all times for the end users. This means that there should be a single place of entry for each aspect of the well design. For example, for a particular wellbore there will be one trajectory object, one wellbore geometry (which will automatically dictate the corresponding sections) and one drilling fluid program. If a user was to create a cement program, all of the "context" information required for volumetric calculations, MD to TVD conversions, in-place fluids definitions etc., will be read automatically from the plan objects ensuring plan coherency.
Since DrillPlan is a comprehensive planning tool there are many different object types with many dependencies. The following schematic highlights the true complexity of this landscape, illustrating most of the dependencies between various object types in the system.
Another core functionality within DrillPlan is the ability to create, edit and audit custom reports. Typically these would be the 'Drilling Program', used as the focal document to describe the execution of the well, but reports can be made for many purposes e.g. a detailed hydraulics report for a particular BHA run, stage gate documents created at key milestones in the well planning lifecycle, executive summaries etc.
The reporting module integrates a comprehensive document co-authoring application (commercially available as XaitPorter®) and supplements this with an infrastuctuture of DDIs (Dynamic Display Items). Dynamic Display Items are figures, tables, text strings and collections thereof, which can be freely inserted into the document by the user. The DDIs are updated directly from the latest plan data, saving significant time for the document authors and ensuring coherency between your report and the engineering data. The combination of a powerful report editor and the DDI infrastructure provides a truly flexible and customizable output from the system. The reports can be edited in the application and exported/downloaded as a PDF.
DrillPlan is a cloud native application and consequently has the ability to scale resources easily on demand. Coupling these new resources with proven state of the art engine technology, has enabled many new workflows leveraging automated design. For example, Automated Trajectory Design (ATD) uses the inputs like "Surface location" and "Target(s)" to generate thousands of potential trajectories that meet a set of constraints defined by the user. The user can then explore the "solution space" by adjusting key parameters such as the Kick off Point (KOP).
Another example of automated design can be found in the BHA Operating Parameters object editor. Here trained ML (Machine Learning) models are used to generate solution spaces that predict the best combination of weight-on-bit (WOB) and revolution per minute (RPM) to achieve the best rate of penetration (ROP) for a particular zone or formation.
Automated design validation is a fundamental principle and essential feature within DrillPlan. Distinguishing itself from other applications that require explicit configuration and execution of engineering analyses, DrillPlan seamlessly initiates a multitude of validations and simulations whenever a user saves or shares some design data. This ensures that the impact of any design changes are holistically evaluated, rather than focusing narrowly on a specific domain. The Automated Engineering Analysis (AEA) infrastructure is responsible for this orchestration, facilitating efficient and thorough evaluation of design changes.
To demonstrate the benefits, consider the following example: Suppose a user makes a modification to one of the cutting tools in a drilling Bottom Hole Assembly (BHA), such as selecting a new drill bit or adjusting the position of an under-reamer. In such a scenario, the system would automatically recalculate the resulting open hole profile that is generated during the drilling process. Additionally, it would re-run all hydraulic, torque, and drag simulations that are associated with that particular drilling operation. However, the Automated Engineering Analysis (AEA) doesn't stop there. As the open hole profile changes, it can potentially impact subsequent drilling runs planned for that section. It can influence calculations related to kick tolerance, the installation of casings, mud circulation activities, and cement displacement hydraulics, to name a few. The AEA infrastructure will recalculate every engineering validation that is affected by the user's change, including those outside of the user's usual scope or expertise.
