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Automated drilling

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Computer-controlled drilling is slowly changing how the oil and gas industry discovers natural resources. Automated drilling can reduce the number of injuries to zero and increase productivity and accuracy.

History

Advantages

Disadvantages

Comparison to human drilling

Global oil prices and a surplus of gas have caused an improvement in the economics of automated projects. Meanwhile, in North America, human-operated drilling has greatly improved.

Companies like Shell have chosen to scale back and even cancel many projects in which automated drilling would play a crucial role in developing thousands of wells. This is after the company made years of headway in automated technology. According to a 2011 issue of Drilling Contractor, the first generation of Shell's automated control system already showed a 70% improvement in rate of penetration (ROP) in test areas. But human drillers have recently narrowed the gap, leaving that number irrelevant.

References   

Noteworthy papers in OnePetro

External links

See also