Drilling and Well Digitalization, A Journey of Transformation

The Company's digital transformation project was started in 2018 to overcome the challenge from digital disruption, energy transition and hydrocarbon reserves declination. Drilling and well engineering cluster is a key player in operating cost optimization which requires digestion and analysis of tons of data generated through daily operational reports. Thus, several digitalization projects have been initiated to optimize drilling and well process to be better, faster, and safer. In this paper, we intend to share a successful journey of digitalization under drilling and well cluster. The transformation journey started with identifying engineer's pain points in each process, among which the most common were redundant processes, manual data inputs/calculations, and time spent on collecting and analyzing unstructured data sources. Moreover, diversified practices on engineering programs and data analysis adversely affect well design standardization and optimizations. To counter those pain points, digital transformation projects were ideated by using digital solutions and technology which are grouped in 5 focus areas: centralized data platform, business intelligence, robotic process automation, digital assistant, and data analytics from fundamental to advance level respectively. Besides out-of-the-box solutions, many internally developed systems have been utilized throughout the journey which helps engineers to build their digital capability and awareness. There are over twenty (20) drilling and well digital projects implemented since the transformation project has been started. And as a result, engineers’ workload has been reduced significantly using digital solutions such as data extraction, visualization, and in-depth analysis. For example, the first successful project under robotic process automation utilizes text analytic and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to analyze well conditions and integrity status from unstructured data and to generate reports within a limited timeframe. Another successful case is well design automated workflow which saved around 40% planning cycle time and provides a better design quality which will lead to a lower well cost. Total cost saving of over 40 mmusd has been recorded so far under the digital transformation project. Furthermore, there is an outlook for additional cost-saving through future new projects, integration, and scaling up plans across the company's international assets. The results and outcomes are very promising to this point. We believe that these initiatives will help the company to improve productivity, benefits, agility, and move beyond business disruptions. Combination of drilling and well expertise with digital transformation solutions will significantly improve well design process, quality and operational efficiency which make industry stay competitive and resilient in the future.