According to John Kozicz, technology manager, Transocean, “Drilling automation is not new, or particularly novel.” As early as 1932, companies such as Westinghouse and General Electric began patenting methods for automating portions of the drilling process.

The question of automation in today’s drilling environment revolves around the role of the driller. SPE’s Gulf Coast Section held its annual Drilling Symposium titled, “The Changing Role of Rig Supervision (Do We Need the Driller?),” in Houston in late April. Among the panelists were a number of operating and service companies presenting the current status of drilling automation and its possible developments in years to come.

“Absolutely, we need a thinking person,” said Paul Pastusek, drilling mechanics advisor, Drilling Technical Group, ExxonMobil. “We can automate the things we know, but not the learning process,” he said.

“For Shell, automation is about performance, not reducing staff per se,” said Mark Anderson, drilling mechanics technologies manager, Shell. “Without automation we are not taking full advantage of known best practices – for both routine and non-routine operations – and we are continually paying for the inefficiency associated with the wide range of experience and skill level of available personnel in our industry, and entering our industry,” he said.

“The technology to implement drilling automation has kept pace with advances in hydraulic, electronic, and computer systems,” Kozicz said. The majority of automated systems innovations has been applied offshore where manpower and deck space are both in limited supply, but some automation is at work on land. “We’ve seen limited deployment of drilling automation on land rigs,” Kozicz said.

Drilling automation on land is helping to lower development cost in a number of North America’s shale plays, such as the Eagle Ford in South Texas.

“Next generation AC rig designs are paying off for Anadarko,” said Mark Sundland, drilling engineering manager, Anadarko. Of the company’s 48 rigs covering the lower 48 states in the US, 85% are next-gen AC rigs with 32 of these working exclusively in the company’s shale developments in Eagle Ford, Marcellus, Haynesville, Niobrara, and Bone Spring. “Is it cost effective? Yes,” Sundland added, and not only in terms of time savings. The automation available in the land rig market has improved safety by lowering both the occurrence and severity of incident rates.

In the Eagle Ford alone, Anadarko has drilled 153 wells and more than 2 million feet in the past 12 months. Its spud-to-rig release record stands at 8.5 days, and the company has outpaced industry averages in the Eagle Ford with a drilling cycle time of 12 to 13 days compared to 28.

“We need the driller, but we really need a better informed driller,” Pastusek said. The consensus of the panel was that the driller should remain a crucial part of the process. As automation becomes more fluid at the rig site, skill sets will become more advanced. Rather than fade away, it is more likely that the driller will benefit from a more central role developed around varying degrees knowledge on a variety of tools and systems. “Drilling is really a people business,” Sundland said. “Automation is efficient; however, the business performance is still driven by the people.”