Speaking at the 2013 OSIsoft user conference in San Francisco earlier this year, Marathon’s Ken Startz presented ‘MaraDrill,’ a proof of concept (PoC) demonstration of the use of OSIsoft tools to develop a comprehensive data infrastructure in support of its ‘factory drilling’ effort in the Eagle Ford and Bakken non conventional plays. Marathon’s use of OSIsoft’s PI System goes back to 1988 with an installation at its Robinson, Illinois refinery. Its first OSIsoft ‘salesman’ was founder and CEO Pat Kennedy. Today Marathon has four PI systems installed in its upstream operations around the world.
Marathon has now leveraged its PI System investment across its unconventional resource plays with the new high frequency data infrastructure, along with web-based tools, PI WebParts and Coresight and Microsoft’s SharePoint platform.
The MaraDrill PoC was launched early in 2012 with three Helmerich & Payne rigs operating in the Eagle Ford and Bakken. Data from the rig’s Omron control system was aggregated with vendor data using PI’s OPC interface. A satellite link brings the consolidated, high frequency data stream in to Marathon’s Houston HQ. Drilling KPIs such as rate of penetration, weight on bit and mud flow rate are captured with 1 second time stamp resolution to the PI Server.
Data visualization and analysis is performed using PI Coresight and the PI Excel data link. Data is also served to Spotfire for post well analyses of parameters such as rock strength and to predict penetration rates of subsequent wells for logistics and planning purposes.
Another compelling use case is pinpointing stick-slip drilling problems. Such issues can be spotted in the new high frequency data sets where they were obscured in the legacy Pason recording system. Stick-slip mitigation has led to a 40% hike in penetration rate on some wells and has reduced costs associated with downhole MWD/LWD tool damage.
Providing accessible real-time data at the rig and remotely has improved Marathon’s decision making through ‘consistent and easy-to-access data.’ More eyes on the data means significant time and capital cost reduction. A 5% reduction in drill time equates to a $1 million/rig/yr saving.
Startz concluded that using the real time PI System/SharePoint infrastructure has proved easy to configure and flexible. Capturing standardized operational data into a ‘single version’ of the truth has brought visible, actionable data to all. Download two related Startz’ presentations from 1306_0101 and 0102 and/or reread our report from the 2013 OSIsoft user conference in last month’s Oil IT Journal.
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