DI G ITALI ZATION OF DR I LLI N G
Digital twins building
new engineering worlds
in a digital ecosystem
Intelligent software systems enhance drilling engineers’ decision
making with rapid visualizations, real-time well plan updates
BY STEPHEN WHITFIELD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
T he oil and gas industry is in the throes of a digital revolu-
tion that is already creating step changes in the efficiency
of well planning and well construction. As part of that
revolution, digital twins – software-based representations of
physical assets – are increasingly becoming a key tool in the push
to drive greater efficiencies in all stages of E&P.

Digital twins of production assets, like FPSOs and offshore
supply vessels, are already commonplace, allowing operators to
minimize downtime and maintenance costs. Lately, companies
have also developed and continue to refine digital twins of the
Highlights
Ease of data sharing is driving work to
develop an open-source platform for
geological modeling and well planning
based on OSDU architecture.

Digital twins must balance between using
automation to streamline well planning
workflows and providing engineers with
flexibility for more uncertain scenarios.

Increasingly sophisticated predictive and
real-time analytic capabilities prove the
value of digital twins during drilling by
helping to prevent NPT.

14 wellbore itself, generating efficiencies during both well planning
and drilling.

“We need these digital platforms and these digital twins,” said
Arnfinn Grøtte, Manager – Drilling and Wells Digitalization at
Aker BP, adding that the need to better understand available data
is driving a lot of the operator’s digital transformation efforts. “We
need new architecture that will allow us to use the data we have,
and these are the kinds of systems we’re building.”
Digital twins are already commonly being used to streamline
the well design process and to serve a wide range of well con-
struction functions, such as optimizing drilling parameters like
rate of penetration (ROP) and weight on bit (WOB). Additionally,
with their predictive capabilities, they alert operators to potential
issues downhole like collisions or stuck pipe that could add non-
productive time (NPT) to a drilling operation.

Increasingly, the industry is also seeing open-source platforms
aimed at easing the integration of data across multiple platforms.

Such systems allow companies to more easily visualize a multi-
tude of well construction scenarios and make better decisions.

“We’re really tying together the system from the perspectives
of geoscience, planning and design, and execution and even
production, so that we have a common and rapid understand-
ing of the changes happening downhole,” said Olivier Germain,
Digitalization Program Director at Halliburton Digital Solutions.

“With these systems, we’re seeing much more integration across
the sectors. The operator is not working on its own but is working
with multiple suppliers to optimize the well’s design, so that not
only do you know where to drill the well, but you also improve the
execution of the drilling program and its outcome.”
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2023 • DRILLING CONTRACTOR