Nabors, Corva announce partnership for “Predictive Drilling” system
Nabors and Corva recently announced a strategic collaboration to provide a digital and automation offering to the global drilling industry, “Predictive Drilling.” The “technology combines Corva’s App Store and Dev Center with Nabors universal rig controls and automation platforms, SmartROS and RigCLOUD –to achieve cost reduction per foot of drilling by employing an Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) based Rate-of-Penetration (ROP) optimizer while reducing dysfunctions.
This technology enables remote control of rig site Auto Driller setpoints through a seamless cloud-to-cloud connection, without the need for any additional rig devices.
“We chose to start with Predictive Drilling as we wanted an integrated product that could bring value to our customers as soon as possible, while also being a disruptive game-changer to our market,” said Tatiana Borges, Senior Product Development Manager at Nabors Industries. “Since Corva had already developed a model that worked in advisory mode and Nabors has experience integrating other ROP Optimizer tools, this seemed to be the most efficient way to combine our expertise and deliver value to customers.”
“Corva has been developing and field-testing AI solutions to optimize rotary drilling cost per foot since 2018. We proved the technical viability of our cloud-based advisory system in multiple basins but we were missing one key piece to deliver maximum value to operators,” said Curtis Cheatham, Vice President of Research & Development at Corva. “That piece has been accomplished through our partnership with Nabors using their SmartROS platform to provide real-time, closed-loop control of the rig auto driller to optimize ROP, and reduce vibration and drilling dysfunction. The results are delivering faster ROP, lower vibration, and reducing thousands of distractions per well for drillers.”
The technology is available on all SmartROS enabled rigs, from Nabors and other drilling contractors. A Delaware Basin operator recently deployed it on four wells, increasing average ROP by 36% and decreasing average vibration by 9.7%.
