Web Enabled High Fidelity Drilling Computer Model with User-Friendly Interface for Education, Research and Innovation

Next generation intelligent software for drilling control systems together with automated monitoring and analysis systems is expected to save costs for the drilling industry. However, the transition from monitoring a process, which today is controlled manually, to automating the process requires a step-change in education of personnel as well as in infrastructure for development and testing new technology. The lack of high quality field data from drilling and well operations is a major problem in research and innovation projects within the oil & gas and geothermal drilling sector, as well as in education within these areas. Since 2015, IRIS and the University of Stavanger have developed a web enabled high fidelity drilling simulator as part of the OpenLab Drilling project1. This paper describes the objectives of the project, the technical solutions of the web enabled drilling simulator, and the results obtained during the first year after deployment to the users.