Digitized Fluid Transport

Drilling operations require large volumes of drilling fluids, with specific requirements for contents and quality. Transport of fluids between rig and onshore facilities carries a significant cost in terms of money and CO2 emissions. In contrast to logistical operations in land-based industries, drilling fluid handling is today orchestrated through several uncoordinated and manual procedures, with sparse and conflicting data material. The volume expected by the drilling crew, the volume recorded for billing purposes and the volume pumped onboard the rig may be three different numbers, reported by e-mail or phone. The fluid contents and quality meanwhile, remain unverified until manually tested onboard the rig. Lack of reliable digitized data results in sub-optimal planning. If a ship's tank has contained oil-based drilling fluid, it must be cleaned before taking on water-based fluid. However, knowledge of tank history is not available to logistical optimization systems. The result is more ships than necessary being shifted around between Mongstad base and the cleaning facilities at Sløvåg. Errors in manual procedures may also contaminate water-based fluids with oil. This increases operational costs, as the spent fluid can no longer be ejected at sea but must be reprocessed onshore. This project seeks to improve the state of the business by digitizing fluid handling. Sensors will provide density, volume and rheology measurements at dock and rig, the ship's tank histories will be tracked and both maritime, rig and logistical operations will share the same data-set on fluids. The data will be made available on a platform that facilitates automatic and digitized reporting, reducing the manhours needed for paperwork and facilitating analytics along the whole fluid lifecycle, including both fleet plans and planning of drilling operations.

Prosjektet avsluttes uten resultat.