William Furlow
Senior Editor
Transocean's new state-of-the-art ultra-deepwater drillship Discoverer Spirit is on its third well for operator Unocal. With dual-derrick capabilities, the rig is designed to drill more efficiently, but Unocal's Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Drilling Manager, Kevin O'Donnell, says the rig is only part of the story. He credits people over equipment for the world-class drilling rates these wells have been turning in.
The fundamental driving force behind Unocal's early performance with the Discoverer Spirit is a culture that includes a firm commitment by everyone on the drilling team to achieving extraordinary results. O'Donnell says that means not just the drillers, but the entire Unocal cross-functional team. The drilling contractor and about 20 service companies must believe that current industry performance isn't good enough, and that far greater performance is possible. This mindset must permeate everywhere, creating both a desire and a sense of ownership that drives everyone involved to accept his or her share of responsibility for delivering the most efficient and safest drilling performance.
Strive for perfection
Unocal drillers and geoscientists work closely together to thoroughly understand the geology and determine prospect evaluation requirements. This knowledge forms the basis for creating an efficient well-design and execution plan. For the Discoverer Spirit operation, the execution plan is broken down into a series of small elements, normally between 400 and 500. These elements add up to what the team considers the perfect well. Unocal personnel then work closely with rig and service company personnel to determine the optimum element times and sequence, rather than merely using historical performance as a basis for the target. O'Donnell says this methodology has produced well-time targets that are substantially shorter than historical performance could justify. Still, the team is confident the goals are realistic.
Benchmarking
While the Discoverer Spirit is a new rig, Unocal's use of benchmarking is not new. Although excellent personnel are the foundation for success, benchmarking provides the roadmap to the ultimate goal - the perfect well. Benchmarking is performed on two levels. Internal benchmarking is paramount in the pursuit of the perfect well. External benchmarking is important to define the value added by such a goal-oriented culture.
Internal benchmarking is initiated in the planning process. Each piece of the "perfect well" is put in place through an iterative process that revolves around critical thinking and ad-hoc team discussions. After the process is complete, the entire team understands the thinking that led to the time allotted for each task. This pervasive understanding expedites post-job evaluation, ultimately leading to improvement. The tasks are benchmarked on a daily basis, allowing efficiency improvements to be implemented in the shortest time frame possible.
External benchmarking also occurs on a daily basis, tracking the current well performance against adjacent wells that represent valid comparisons. During drilling, the time curves are updated daily to illustrate the value added to the exploration program through increased speed and efficiency. When drilling is complete, the external benchmarking is summarized as a percent improvement over comparable wells. These performance summaries underscore the financial impact of a culture that is always seeking the perfect well.
Ultra-deepwater drilling performance
A dramatic illustration of how effective this approach has been for Unocal can be seen in a graph of all ultra-deepwater wells drilled to date in the Gulf of Mexico. As part of its external benchmarking protocol, O'Donnell's team has charted all the wells drilled by the new generation of ultra-deepwater drillships. The graph displays the project days versus depth for each of the wells and identifies the rig that was used to complete the project. This graph clearly shows that Unocal has an advantage when it comes to drilling deep wells in ultra-deepwater.
The first well drilled by Unocal with the Discoverer Spirit was the Dana Point prospect. Although this was the first well drilled with the new drillship, reaching a total depth of 26,850 ft, the 118 total project days still fell within the top quartile of drilling performance for all of the wells drilled to date in the ultra-deepwater.
With most of the bugs worked out of the equipment, and the drilling team rapidly gelling, the second well went more smoothly. This well, the Dendara prospect, was drilled to 24,050 ft in less than 38 days. The entire project took less than 50 days, making it the fastest well drilled to that depth range in the ultra-deepwater. The Spirit is currently drilling its third well for Unocal, the Ponza prospect, and the performance on this well is shaping up to be equally efficient.
Discoverer Spirit
While the culture of this team improves efficiency, there is no denying that the Discoverer Spirit is an excellent rig for drilling in ultra-deepwater. O'Donnell acknowledges that his company could not turn in the numbers it has without a rig of this capacity, capability, and sophistication.
The dual-activity derrick system on the Spirit has received a lot of attention. Like many other systems on the rig, O'Donnell said, it is viewed as an integral part of the process.
Unocal's own statistics show that the dual-activity derrick system has afforded them as much as 25% greater efficiency, which is part of, but not the bulk of, their advantage over the average well drilled in ultra-deepwater. According to Transocean Sedco Forex, this increased efficiency would be even greater on a development project.
The main thing to remember, according to O'Donnell, is that a rig is just a machine. Despite the importance of all the technology, it is the people who operate it who make the difference. It comes down to a question of culture.
O'Donnell said Unocal recognizes that decisions made every day on the rig have a huge impact on performance. This means more than following orders sent out from the home office. It is therefore critical to provide personnel with the necessary authority to make decisions to streamline the process and to provide incentives for their contributions to success.
Recognizing this fact, Unocal pays a cash bonus to everyone who works on the rig based on the time it takes to safely drill a well. This gives everyone on a rig an incentive to get involved, plan ahead, and execute with high efficiency.
