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Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Maersk Drilling’s Maersk Discoverer reached a milestone while drilling in Egypt’s East Nile Delta for BP, Atoll well. The company completed the deepest well ever drilled in Egypt and the longest ever drilled in the Mediterranean Sea.
The well was another East Nile Delta success for BP, discovering 50 meters of gas pay in high-quality Oligocene sandstones. In addition, the well was an even greater success because it was drilled in 234 days, 62 days ahead of BP’s AFE target, thus creating a substantial cost savings.
“The strong performance is a result of the dedicated use of the ‘Plan Do Study Act’ methodology in the planning and execution of the work. Also, a structured approach to applying lessons learned from the previous wells Geb and Salamat played an important role,” says rig leader Allan McColl.
McColl also highlighted the strong focus on actively using observation studies to optimize operational performance as a key driver in continuously improving the operational procedures. An example of this was how the auxiliary well centre was used as a ‘test bed’ to break the BHA (Bottom Hole Assembly) handling process into small clearly defined optimized steps. Following a micro KPI process there was a forty five minute time saving on the critical path by integrating the lessons learned. This benefit was then applied on subsequent occasion of handling the BHA.
Another great achievement that significantly contributed to beating the AFE target was BOP reliability. Thorough maintenance of the BOP prior to the Atoll well and involvement of BP and Maersk Drilling Technical Authority teams in evaluating equipment risk assessments enabled the team to keep the BOP functioning on the wellhead for no less than 201 days.
“After all the effort everyone on the BP/Maersk Drilling team has put into building a strong joint performance culture this was a very well deserved achievement that everyone should be very proud of” says Unit Director Thomas Falk.
In addition, Falk said, “We have shown BP what we mean when we talk about jointly creating value and we look forward to continuing our discussions with BP on how we mutually benefit from this in our drilling contracts.”
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