New tools—hardware and software—are facilitating drilling that is faster, deeper/longer and more accurate, the latter zeroing in on the heart of pay zones to increase production.
U.S. land drilling companies Patterson-UTI and Helmerich and Payne are using technology to inform procedures and design.
The best analysis comes from assimilating and processing the widest range of information, according to Patterson-UTI. To that end, they have developed services such as HiFi Nav (High Fidelity Navigation) and REX (Rules Engine Exchange), the latter a cloud-based real-time alerting system that aggregates data from daily drilling reports, EDRs and drilling control systems.