Author Topic: National Oilwell Varco to test technology to develop automated, remote-controlled drillships  (Read 1434 times)

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Offline Elderberry

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Houston Chronicle by  Sergio Chapa May 7, 2019

The auto industry is testing self-driving cars. Big deal. The oil and gas industry is working on self-driving drillships.

The Houston oil field services company National Oilwell Varco said it plans to begin testing technology this summer that would allow it to place self-guiding, remote-controlled and automated drillships, which drill offshore wells, on the world’s oceans in just a few years time.

The testing will begin onshore in Norway and then on a ship in the North Sea, said National Oilwell Varco Chief Technology Officer Hege Kverneland at the Offshore Technology Conference on Monday.

“A lot of the operations and support activities that you’re doing on a drillship, you can support them from shore,” Kverneland said. “You could support several operations at the same time instead of physically being on the rig.”

More: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/National-Oilwell-Varco-to-test-technology-to-13823985.php

Offline thackney

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...NOV currently uses a crew of 200 people aboard a drillship, but Kverneland believes that if the tests are successful, the company can reduce a crew size down to 100 people, who will still be needed to operate other systems that for the moment still require manual operators....

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Still hard to imagine all the activity that goes on when the well kicks or the like.
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Offline Idiot

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...NOV currently uses a crew of 200 people aboard a drillship, but Kverneland believes that if the tests are successful, the company can reduce a crew size down to 100 people, who will still be needed to operate other systems that for the moment still require manual operators....

- - - - - - - -

Still hard to imagine all the activity that goes on when the well kicks or the like.

If you call Schumberger to log a well, they send out the truck but NO engineer.  Just an equipment operator to run the reel.  The engineer is in his/her office monitoring the logging, and by use of a satellite connection.  They are saving a lot of money this way.  No telling how many logging jobs one engineer is monitoring at a time.  Sadly, they aren't reducing the price to the customer of logging the well......

Offline Hoodat

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If you call Schumberger to log a well, they send out the truck but NO engineer.  Just an equipment operator to run the reel.  The engineer is in his/her office monitoring the logging, and by use of a satellite connection.  They are saving a lot of money this way.  No telling how many logging jobs one engineer is monitoring at a time.

That engineer can also be sitting in a cubicle in Bangalore.  Schlumberger needs field engineers, but no one finishing engineering school wants to start out driving two hours to well sites in Nowhere New Mexico.
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Offline Joe Wooten

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That engineer can also be sitting in a cubicle in Bangalore.  Schlumberger needs field engineers, but no one finishing engineering school wants to start out driving two hours to well sites in Nowhere New Mexico.

Schlumberger used to pay at least double what other companies were offering engineers just out of college. When I graduated UT in 1979, they made me an offer that was double what the next highest offer from Texas Electric was. It was the hours, and time off that sold me on T.E. Several Classmates went with Schlumberger and worked their asses off for about 2 years until that boom busted. By that time I was at Comanche Peak, and three of them hired in right after I transferred there in 1980. Two of them managed to stay on with Schlumberger through the next couple of booms. They might still be with them. I don't know as we lost touch in the late 1990's.

Offline Smokin Joe

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You still need someone to plug it back in when the connection comes undone.

It used to be if you wanted to get the job, you went there and got dirty every now and then, at a minimum.

Pardon me while I question the future of an oilfield with no mud on it's loafers (not even workboots).
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Offline IsailedawayfromFR

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What could possibly go wrong?
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Online Bigun

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What could possibly go wrong?

You need look no further than the Deepwater Horizon incident to find out.


When the people calling the shots are in New Orleans instead of on the rig bad things can, and do, happen.
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Offline Smokin Joe

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You need look no further than the Deepwater Horizon incident to find out.


When the people calling the shots are in New Orleans instead of on the rig bad things can, and do, happen.
Yep. The willingness to engage in dangerous behaviour is inversely proportional to the proximity to the wellhead.
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline Hoodat

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When the people calling the shots are in New Orleans instead of on the rig bad things can, and do, happen.

I am not a fan of onshore micromanagement.  SWA (stop work authority) is a necessary component of any offshore enterprise, and it would have prevented the Deepwater Horizion incident.  Groupthink kills.
If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.

-Dwight Eisenhower-


"The [U.S.] Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals ... it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government ... it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection against the government."

-Ayn Rand-

Offline Elderberry

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If there are no logging engineers on site, then if a LWD, MWD, or RSS tool fails after a trip out, who is responsible? The drillers claim they didn't bang/damage the tool.

Online Bigun

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I am not a fan of onshore micromanagement.  SWA (stop work authority) is a necessary component of any offshore enterprise, and it would have prevented the Deepwater Horizion incident.  Groupthink kills.

The Deepwater Horizon incident is the kind of thing that happens when accountants begin to run things instead of those who know what they are doing.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Offline Smokin Joe

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I am not a fan of onshore micromanagement.  SWA (stop work authority) is a necessary component of any offshore enterprise, and it would have prevented the Deepwater Horizion incident.  Groupthink kills.
Yep. While I have only worked land rigs, any hand on the crew can shut down the operation if they see something unsafe. They all, from the worm up, have SWA.
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis