Online Journal for E&P Geoscientists

Ilyia, Ibrahim ^*1; Eilouti, Huthaifa ¹
(1) Petroleum Engineering Application Services, Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Due to the high demand for oil production, and in a Company like Saudi Aramco which handles one of the largest drilling operations in the world (hundreds of wells within a year) by a single company, planning the set of wells that need to be drilled undergoes a complex and a dynamic process. The entire operation encompasses multiple phases with several iterations and loop backs. Due to the size of operations, a large set of wells for an operating plan have to be defined, scheduled and then tracked so variances can be monitored and analyzed. Many challenges are faced during the execution of this planning process. These challenges arise from several facts, the most important of which are: Large number of wells have to be planned within a short period (few months); The dynamic nature of the market dictates that constraints for well completion planning change frequently; The fluctuations in material prices necessitate a more detailed planning and budgeting as opposed to using historical spending rates; Difficulties are faced due to the fact that more wells could be planned than what could be handled. Consequently, many scheduling scenarios and iterations have to be generated and optimized to determine the most appropriate mix of wells that meet both the target budget and the production requirements.

All of the above-mentioned challenges give rise to the need for an Automation IT suite of tools that can automate and assist in managing the dynamic planning process. In this paper, we discuss the IT Solution Suite that was developed by the Drilling and Workover Systems Division of the Petroleum Engineering Applications Services department at Saudi Aramco. Many important steps in the solution suite such as Schedule Automation/Optimization, Budget Calculation and Variance Analysis are highlighted and discussed to show the potential issues that have to be addressed during the execution of the planning process.