Application of New Technologies and Best Operational Practices to Accelerate the Learning Curve in Wells Drilled in the Ayatsil Field, Mexico

Abstract

Today drilling wells is one of the biggest capital expenditures and is employed starting from exploration, delineation, initial wells for production, and fresh production incorporation when existing wells production have declined. The estimated cost for drilling new wells in Ayatsil field is around 20 to 25 MM $, which requires a high level of decision to achieve production goals without exceeding the budget assigned to the Ayatsil field. Therefore, to make the right decision requires an integration of multidisciplinary group of specialists (geologists, geomechanics, reservoir engineers, production engineers and drilling engineers) from well design to execution phases. This paper will illustrate the methodology and process applied by the operator to optimize the drilling stages and accelerate field production, as a result the operator developed the operational excellence project, that consist of five phases and being executed by a multidisciplinary project team. The drilling team has been successful in reducing the depth versus days curves from an average of 130 days in 2017 to an average of less than 58 days in 2022. The best performance achieved till now in terms of total meterage is 4,200 meters drilled in 51 days from the surface. The continuous improvement of the Ayatsil project has resulted in world class drilling performance. The success factors include standardized well design, performance improvement processes that was made possible by the multidisciplinary well decision team like, flat times efficiency. In addition, the outcome of this approach has resulted that 30 to 33 million dollars have been saved from the original budget in reduction of well costs and impulse the productivity of Ayatsil field.