helmerich&payne_blog

Wellbore positioning comes with high levels of uncertainty due to error sources inherent in the surveying process. If not accounted for, these errors can result in loss of production, equipment failure, and non-productive time, leading to potential exposures and/or costly situations. By reducing uncertainty with better data, decision makers can have more confidence in the decisions they make - impacting overall performance for optimal outcomes. Think about the disconnect between the size of a driller’s target window (~30 ft) and the amount of uncertainty that may exist in the wellbore position at the end of a long lateral (~300 ft). With well objectives such as well spacing, collision avoidance concerns and lease lines relying on such narrow windows, oftentimes a traditional 300 ft uncertainty is insufficient to confidently place a well, even if all drilling practices are perfectly executed. Magnetic models are a critical piece of the magnetic surveying process. Increasing the resolut...

Helmerich & Payne named the No. 1 Land Driller in the EnergyPoint Research Contract Drillers Survey for the 14th year. Helmerich & Payne has been named the No. 1 Land Driller in the EnergyPoint Research Contract Drillers Survey for the 14th year. In addition to its top marks overall, H&P captured the highest ratings in job quality, technology, HSE, digital and big data, Texas & Mid-continent, Onshore Gulf Coast, horizontal and directional applications, plus three additional categories. Despite these conditions, both land and offshore contractors have—quite surprisingly—managed to maintain customer satisfaction levels commensurate with the sector’s long-term average.” This survey has been conducted annually since 2007 and reflects feedback from more than 1,000 customer evaluations that use products and services of global oilfield suppliers. This year’s study, which concluded on Dec. 31, 2021, includes ratings data on one of the most comprehensive sets of contract driller...

  HSE – Health, Safety & Environment Actively C.A.R.E.® – Actively Control and Remove Exposures; at H&P, safety is… Controlling And Removing Exposure for self and others LifeBelts – H&P's safety rules that highlight actions that individuals must take to protect themselves and others from serious injury or fatality SIF – Serious Injury or Fatality; a life-threatening, life-altering, or fatal injury Life-Threatening – work-related injury or illness that required immediate life-preserving rescue action, and if not applied immediately would likely have resulted in the death of that person Life-Altering – work-related injury or illness that resulted in a permanent and significant loss of a major body part or organ function that permanently changes or disables that person’s normal life activity Fatal – work-related injury or illness resulting in death Incident – an unplanned and undesired event or chain of events that has, or could have, resulted in injury or illness or dama...

H&P discussed these challenges with the operator and encouraged them to embrace automated technology to reduce uncertainty and maintain consistent, reliable results. H&P’s automated Bit Guidance System makes intelligent decisions based on economics and delivers real-time information, like slide reports, survey reports, drilling parameters and well plan information. By utilizing automated rig state detection, toolface orientation, recent dynamic motor yield and motor potential while sliding, and recent BHA tendencies while rotating, the H&P Bit Guidance System determined that the 29 degrees inclination projection that was calculated via legacy methods by the human directional driller was incorrect, and its actual value was a 25 degree inclination. Additionally, the higher accuracy of the bit position and trajectory by the Bit Guidance System determined a longer slide interval to precisely land the curve (the automated Bit Guidance System determined a 67 ft slide would be ...

  One emerging application in geothermal energy is that of closed-loop systems, where two laterals are intersected so that a working fluid can be pumped down one wellhead and up another. These solutions are attractive because they do not rely on the natural permeability of a formation or a reservoir of heated water already in place, they simply require a high enough downhole temperature.  While a great deal of discussion exists on wellbore intersection, most applications are by their nature heavily constrained by tight geologic requirements (e.g. coal-bed methane) or have one wellbore trajectory rigidly defined (e.g. relief well drilling).  A baseline scenario is described, with wells originating from differing pad locations, drilling with standard practices and active magnetic ranging. Using Monte Carlo techniques, the probability of successful intercept is evaluated for alternate trajectory combinations and compared to the baseline. These include well pairs originatin...

Automation of the directional drilling service including automated decision-making is proving to be a viable solution to this problem and has been implemented in the drilling of thousands of wells in North America in recent years. Continuous real-time updating of the bit position is one of the many critical analysis steps that can be automated, driving steering decisions. The practice of accurately predicting bit position and trajectory is a skill that is artfully developed by expert directional drillers over many years. To demonstrate the value of partial automation, a specific example is presented where the continuous calculation of the real-time bit position and its trajectory is fully automated, showing that the analysis and decision-making performed by the automated system is faster and more accurate than performed by human directional drillers. Although the details of only a single automated task is the focus of the case study, it is important to realize that it is just one of m...

Imagine a loved one is going to work in an industry that has been known historically to be dangerous, like mining, forestry, law enforcement, or commercial fishing. What kind of advice could you give them that would be meaningful? “Be careful.” “Work safely.” “Keep your head on a swivel.” “Don’t smash your fingers.” Sure, all these pieces of advice would be applicable to most any workplace, but do they help the worker? Not really. These “watch outs” are too vague and do not help direct the worker’s attention to specific exposures. What if the company wrote down all the exposures in a manual and handed that to each worker? This is done daily in the oilfield. These manuals are thorough, and generally easy to read and understand, but there’s still a problem. They’re hundreds of pages and could take a lifetime to memorize. Not to mention, they’re constantly changing. So, what’s the answer? This is the question Helmerich & Payne faced several years ago. H&P had set the industry stan...

 If you have been around Helmerich & Payne for any period of time, no doubt you have heard the term. Actively C.A.R.E.® is one of our Core Values and has been a part of H&P's culture for decades. The idea that we care for our coworkers, customers, and the communities in which we operate is a fundamental principle by which we operate across the globe today. Especially in the drilling industry, we demonstrate how we Actively C.A.R.E by addressing exposures that could result in Serious Injuries and Fatalities (SIFs). Prior to 2015, H&P had used historical metrics, including Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR), to identify HSE performance. However, in late 2014, we had two serious events within two weeks that caused us to take a hard look at how we were measuring safety. “Having two fatalities in such a short period of time really challenged us to reevaluate our HSE processes and ultimately resulted in a completely new safety management philosophy at H&P,” says H&...

Performance contracts are increasingly common in the drilling industry , especially in recent years. This incentivized contract structure, established as a partnership between operator and contractor, improves both well performance and operational execution while incorporating the rig contractor as an additional stakeholder in the operational performance of the well. Many performance contract styles exist, with one common goal: if targets are met, all parties involved benefit. An increasingly common performance contract type is a tier-structure KPI (Key Performance Indicator) format. In this format, metrics in the form of KPIs are determined, and goal ranges are set in a tiered system. Prior research and data collection, requiring effort from multiple departments, is needed to determine achievable and stretch metrics. After the goals are agreed upon, field personnel, experienced rig leadership, and comprehensive technology support are determined, forming a foundation for success. Esta...

A major operator in the Midland Basin had been using the H&P Bit Guidance System with AutoSlide® Technology as their solution to successfully build and scale their remote directional drilling. Although AutoSlide technology was consistently producing better than average curve times, there seemed to be a curve time “ceiling” around 11 hours. H&P believed that curve times below 8 hours were possible in this basin, and set out to raise the bar and help ensure this operator was achieving optimal performance. H&P aims to treat every customer relationship as a true partnership, which is why our Directional Team approached the operator with a bold plan to pause AutoSlide technology for the curve section of the hole where the “ceiling” seemed to exist.  Their idea was to drill some of the curves manually to gain new perspective on what could be hindering optimal performance so that they could help the operator achieve their desired outcome. By manually sliding, H&P not only ...

An operator in the North Sea faced a lower completion lock-up 800m above total depth (TD), followed by a stuck pipe event in an ERD multi-lateral well. In an initial effort to push the completion down to TD, all slack off weight and torque margin were used. Since no improvement was observed, the decision was made to pull-out. However, the string remained stuck and despite the rig efforts to free it, the lower completion had to be cut and left in hole. H&P’s DrillScan® technology team performed an in-depth post-analysis, reviewing all available data to identify what might have caused the lock-up event. The data provided was used to simulate the downhole conditions undergone by the completion with the DrillScan genuine stiff-string model. The results and conclusions pointed to string dysfunctions: suboptimal tripping and lubricating/ backreaming practices (BHA POOH) led to repeatedly exceeding the screens yield strength (lower completion RIH). H&P’s DrillScan software was a...

A Well Site Leader working on a rig in West Texas’ Delaware Basin identified that their conventional mud motor was stalling at a much lower differential pressure than the motor was supposed to be rated for, indicating that the motor in hole was weak. Making an unplanned trip to replace the motor could cost approximately $50,000, on top of the costs of the day rate if they had to pull-out-of-hole (POOH). More importantly, an extra trip would mean increased exposure to safety incidents as there is an increased likelihood of a serious injury or fatality (SIF) event every time there is an unplanned trip. The operator and the H&P team knew they needed to find a solution that would allow them to reach total depth (TD) without needing an extra trip. H&P recommended the newly released StallAssist® software which is designed to detect, mitigate, and recover from downhole stalls. As pressure is reaching the stall rating, the system continually and simultaneously evaluates several factor...

  An exploration and production (E&P) company with operations in the Midland Basin was battling over-torqued connections and trying to mitigate the resulting drillpipe damage. Between Q3 and Q4 of 2021, a considerable number of their drilling connections had to be broken with manual tongs. In addition to slowing the connection process down and reducing the life of the drillpipe, a larger threat was the added safety exposure. With tong events attributing to a large percentage of crew time in the red zone, they knew they needed a new solution that could break connections at a higher torque than 60,000 ft-lbs. H&P introduced the HexGrip™ 120 wrench, a newly released proprietary tool designed to help solve the torque challenges the industry is facing and provide ancillary benefits to operators. This high-torque automatic wrench is capable of making tubular connections up to 100,000 ft-lbs. and breaking out connections at 120,000 ft-lbs., making it ideal for long lateral appl...