Performance time-work speeded up on Schiehallion project

Consultants "raise the bar"

William Furlow
Technology Editor

According to RLG, while the TMP program was being implemented, at time H, the six following wells drilled on Schiehallion were six of the seven fastest, including the single fastest, BP has drilled in the North Sea in the last two years. [6,072 bytes]
RLG International's Theoretical Maximum Performance program may unlock the potential of marginally economical fields with a different kind of new technology. While this isn't rig floor automation, or a new downhole tool, it may affect the all-important critical path.

At first blush, RLG International appears to be just another bit player in the sea of efficiency consultants running over the oil industry. Commonly referred to as "flavor of the month," these experts are in turn tolerated and derided by front line workers.

Armed with clipboards and stopwatches, consultants are willing to tell anyone who will listen how to do his job better and faster. There is an unwritten understanding that if workers can survive the initial onslaught of ridiculous questions and suggestions, the efficiency experts will be gone with the next crew change.

At its core, the idea that someone from outside operations could have anything practical to say is suspect. Offshore workers make their living supporting certain routines. While the home office has to watch the bottom line, the absence of incidents is the crew's primary goal. Everyone is trying to keep the operation on schedule and avoid lost time incidents. The crew has target goals to reach. These are established standards, built on historical data, that tell foremen and workers how long a particular operation should take. As long as they meet these goals, everyone is happy. If they happen to come in under schedule, that's even better.

Raising the bar

The problem comes when a consultant is sent out to evaluate these standards and in effect "raise the bar." Now everything has to be done faster. By taking the slack out of the critical path, these consultants tell management they can save time. This sounds good, but when the operations are done faster there are more accidents; workers are under more pressure; they get tired; and concentration begins to lag.

It may be true that there are many potential time savings in any given drilling procedure, but simply telling workers how long an operation should take puts an undue burden on them. All of a sudden they are not performing their usual routine. They are asked to use their judgment, modify their procedures, and more or less guess where they can save time.

With each worker or each crew going at this on their own, it becomes a fine recipe for trouble. Fortunately, such efficiency programs never last very long. The consultants leave and things gradually return to normal.

Nobody honestly believes there isn't room for improvement in the critical path. Anyone who has spent time on a rig can't help but notice there are busy times and there are slow times. Drilling a well involves a lot of waiting around under the best conditions. If there is a problem, and eventually there always is a problem, the wait time is increased. The big question is how much of this waiting around is absolutely necessary.

BP's problem

RLG is aware of the stereotypes, the resentment, and the confusion efficiency experts cause. They do not pretend to know a better way for a worker to do his job. The senior staff has exactly zero oilfield experience. What they do have is patience and a sense of humor.

RLG was literally brought on board by British Petroleum to identify potential time savings on the Schiehallion project. At the time, costs for new North Sea and West of the Shetlands projects were running high and the company was looking at innovations in every aspect of the design to maximize profits and minimize costs.

Traditionally, best practices for a new drilling program are established by evaluating data from a dozen or so similar wells. Each step in the process is evaluated and the historic data are used as a yardstick in determining the time and expense of the process. The problem with Schiehallion and many new other projects is that there are no real precedents. Drilling operations have become so complex and there are so many innovative options that finding similar projects is difficult.

When BP was evaluating the Schiehallion project, it realized that it would have to rethink this strategy from scratch. The company decided to bring in RLG to assist in establishing what would amount to a new paradigm.

This was no small commitment. In addition to the hefty consulting fees, it requires a high level of commitment from management, and a huge outlay of time and effort from absolutely everyone involved in the program. Where the traditional analysis might break the program down into 12 distinct steps, analyze each, and come up with a target timeline, RLG will look at 400 steps and spend an average of 15 months on every platform in the project evaluating these steps to determine the optimum timeline. On the first platform alone, RLG had two high-level representatives working in shifts for 18 months.

BP was up to the challenge because it needed to realize time savings to justify the costs of the project. In that sense, it had no choice. Thus, RLG was given full support from management to work with not only the BP employees onshore and offshore, but all the contractors as well. This level of support was essential because before they were through, the team would work directly with everyone involved.

Building trust

Trust is the essential ingredient in this process and it doesn't come easy. No one is eager to face 18 months of scrutiny. RLG bases its program on empowerment techniques. It looks to workers to become innovative and offer their own time-saving suggestions. To get this flow of information started, RLG has to involve the workers in the process of saving money. This can be difficult because the amounts of money involved in operating an offshore rig are so high that they almost seem to be an abstract.

If a roustabout is told the rig he works on has a day-cost of $125,000, it is difficult to convince him that anything he does day-to-day can affect that cost. RLG tries to overcome this barrier by breaking these numbers down to an hourly or even minute-by-minute rate. At that level, the numbers are small enough that they seem very real. In addition, by considering such snippets of time, the workers understand how valuable every minute can be. For example, the $125,000 cost rate is $5,600 an hour, or $82 a minute. If a worker is able to save just one minute he can save $82. While this may or may not be accurate, the point is to change the worker's point of view so he is focused on saving time, and thus money. This new point of view gives the program its foothold.

In addition to involving the workers in the numbers, the team also involves them in planning meetings and encourages them to ask questions and make suggestions.

This again is a slow process. Such interaction is unusual, and can be uncomfortable not just for the workers, but for their supervisors who are not accustomed to being advised. By offering feedback to the rig superintendent and implementing as many of the suggestions as possible quickly, RLG can gradually demonstrate it means business. Such encouragement builds on itself. As more suggestions are put in place, more are made.

After such meetings, RLG will de-brief the supervisors and also get their feedback. If part of the meeting did not go well, this allows RLG to makes suggestions right away on how it might succeed the next time. As a rule, these supervisors are swamped with paperwork. It is difficult for them to find the time to observe and interact with workers. RLG helps speed up the process and keep things moving forward. RLG also works with these managers to help reduce the time they have to devote to paperwork so after the RLG representatives are gone the managers will have more time to devote to managing the crews.

In addition, crew changes are a prime period for the exchange of ideas. RLG recognizes that a crew change may signal a loss of momentum for any innovations. To avoid this problem, the crew members sit down with their replacements and go over any innovations they were working on and share ideas. The crewmen are also debriefed by RLG while they are fresh from work to give any new ideas or voice any concerns.

400 steps

The goal of all these meetings, and interviews, and all this empowerment, is to establish a 400-step execution plan that incorporates lessons learned for each activity performed on the rig. This is a far cry from the 12 steps currently used as the standard for defining these same activities. By taking such a microscopic look at each job, RLG hopes the workers and supervisors will identify a more efficient way to do the job. By eliminating delays and identifying time and cost savings by examining each step of each function on the rig, RLG hopes to shorten the critical path not just once, but continually.

The 400 steps for each program will differ. There is no predetermined template RLG uses. The steps are actually identified by the workers. When a set of steps has been completed on one well in a development, it may be transferred to the next well on that field, but initially the 400 steps for each program are created from scratch by the workers.

Once a company has undergone RLG's Theoretical Maximum Performance program, it can apply the techniques to future projects without the additional cost and hassle of bringing the consultants back into the loop.

If BP brought a new contractor on for a later project, RLG would get involved to bring that contractor up to speed on TMP. Otherwise BP's own employees and the contractors involved in Schiehallion, for example, should be able to train newcomers on their own.

Along these lines, RLG does not present seminars on this technique. There is simply not enough time in a seminar meeting to allow the essential trust and the transfer of information that makes the program a success. To succeed RLG needs 12-18 months initially, with a shorter time required for other projects by a repeat customer. It takes this much time to enact the needed change in corporate culture.

Typically, RLG will work with a company, such as BP, through the different stages of a project. For example, RLG will start with drilling, then work with the company on its production activities as well. While this is a lot of man-hours for both BP and RLG, the results on Schiehallion were impressive. While reductions in the critical path, and thus the cost of the project, were necessary for its viability, the TMP implementation yielded results.

Schiehallion

Based on BP's own performance tracking, while the program was being implemented, the six wells drilled on Schiehallion were six of the seven fastest, including the single fastest, BP has drilled in the North Sea in the last two years. This is measured in days per 10,000 ft in the accompanying graph. In addition, "lessons learned" on the wells, a figure that averages 20 per well prior to RLG's intervention, rose to 140 on the first well after the TMP implementation, and totaled 750 at the end of the six-well program. These lessons learned were then incorporated into future drilling programs.