Cost Reduction on Onshore Rig Operation with Offline Stand Building System

Abstract

The oil industry today faces a strong surge in costs as it strives to meet global and national regulatory challenges on safety compliances. Continuous efforts on reducing drilling costs have since been a focus at every level of oil production and in particularly the "flat time" associated with casing running operations. Running doubles of casing takes tubular running to a new level and evidently offers significant cost benefits.

This paper will neatly outline the case study of Offline Standing Building System (OSBS) project initiated at an onshore rig in Brunei. The new approach is based on automated pipe facility concepts, where fully mechanized hands-free pipe feeding and makeup systems were deployed to save time and eliminate handling risks.

This installation brings a breakthrough in tubular running services as it improves run rates by at least 30%, saving over 100 hours of rig time and associated costs, at an onshore rig in Brunei. It is the first hands-free system deployed in Asia Pacific and now has a proven track record on its success rate. Real-time results are gathered and compared with previous run rates on the drill floor and presented in this paper. It also discusses the advantages, limitations, challenges encountered and future improvements for the system.

The approach is particularly suited for offline operations, which then contributes directly to the drilling operational cost and time. The novelty of the new OSBS is in the integration of pipe feeding system with existing buck on equipment, with reasonable cost reduction by reducing run rates on the drill floor.