Nabors, Corva collaborate on automated “predictive drilling” digital solution

(WO) – Nabors and Corva announced a strategic collaboration to provide a first-of-its-kind digital and automation offering to the global drilling industry.

By connecting Corva’s industry-leading App Store and Dev Center to Nabors universal rig controls and automation platforms – SmartROS® and RigCLOUD® – the players aim to bring a whole new level of intelligence and performance to drilling rigs.

SmartROS® and predictive drilling: Consistent, efficient and automated

The companies’ initial focus is 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.

Named “Predictive Drilling” – 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 new Predictive Drilling Solution is available on all SmartROS enabled rigs, from Nabors and other drilling contractors.

Ease of adoption                     

A Delaware basin Operator recently deployed Predictive Drilling on four wells, increasing average ROP by 36% and decreasing average vibration by 9.7%.

The impressive ROP results were outshined by the ease of deployment and integration into the drillers’ workflow. To have field utilization of Predictive Drilling increase to 80% of lateral footage drilled on the first pad speaks volumes of the design which simplified the drillers’, drill site managers’ and directional drillers’ workflows.

These early yet promising results equate to dramatic increases in savings and efficiency.