SPE-192319-MS

Invisible Lost Time measurement and reduction contributes to optimizing

total well time by improving ROP and reducing flat time

Louanas Ouahrani, Ahmad Nahil Abdul Haris, Srinivasulu Suluru, Arfa Chiha, Abdulqawi Al Fakih, Schlumberger

Copyright 2018, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Annual Technical Symposium and Exhibition held in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, 23–26
April 2018.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
of the paper have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any
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Abstract
Optimizing well time and its expenditures has become a necessity for which all drilling operators and
service companies are challenged on. This requires a combination of well engineering and operations
efforts from avoidance of service quality issues that lead to Non-Productive Time (NPT) to the reduction
or elimination of Invisible Lost Time (ILT). Traditionally, more focus and efforts are concentrated around
the NPT avoidance, as its impact is visible and has a huge and direct financial consequences that leads to
increasing well cost. Most oil & gas operators and services companies have as NPTr (NPT rate per 1000
operating hours) one of their main KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to measure their performance and
ranking.

The Invisible Lost Time (ILT) analyses is considered another area of focus where the drilling
performance can make a big step change in the way how well operation activities are performed. This
doesn’t only require the identification and measurement of the ILT impact, but also taking the appropriate
measures to reduce and eliminate it from both drilling time and flat time operations. This is essential to
remove the variability and bring consistency to the well operations performance among all the rigs and
projects.

The approach described in this paper involves the implementation of a tracking tool that uses the rig
surface real time data that will be referred as High Frequency data (HF), combined with the Daily
Operation Reports, referred as Low Frequency data (LF) to track and display multi-well drilling operation
activities comparison (drilling and flat time). This allows to identify any variation and to measure the
Invisible Lost Time (ILT) within the different drilling activities and rigs compared to the best and to the
benchmarks. Once the ILT is identified and measured, the drilling engineering and operation teams take
appropriate actions using LEAN principles and methodology to tackle the inefficiencies and initiate
performance improvement opportunities. These are then prioritized based on its impact and assigned as
discrete projects for rig and office based teams to address the gaps. Measuring is the first step that leads
to control and eventually to improvement. ‘’If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If
you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it’’. (H.James
Harrington).
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Introduction
In a Lump Sum Turnkey (LSTK) project, drilling efficiency, consistency and integrity are keys to
achieve performance and to ensure project profitability without jeopardizing the HSE rules. Thus, the
culture of continue improvement requires to be embraced by the entire project team including the rig
contractor relevant personnel.
Each year, an average of 25 different well types per project are delivered to the client and these ranges
from vertical to horizontal and multi-lateral ERD (Extendended Reach Drilling) wells. The well’s duration
varies between 23 to 70 days depending on the type and design. Drilling the wells with different rig
providers that sometimes involve the use of ‘’green’’ rig site crews, constitutes a challenge in terms of
performance consistency and sustainability among all the rig. Huge efforts have been made to align the
drilling contractors to deliver wells in the most consistent, efficient and safe way.

By introducing the Invisible Lost Time analyzer tool combined with the drilling performance strategy
and methodology, the overall well average Rate Of Penetration (ROP) had been improved by more than
15% (average 5% year on year from 2014 to 2018), essentially achieved by addressing drilling weight to
weight connections time and improving it by 35% from 2014 to 2018. Flat time was also improved by
more than 30% focusing mainly on the big portion that constitute the flat time from BHA handling, drill
pipe tripping, casing running, wellhead and BOP operations together with completion activities. The
implementation of a performance tracking tool also enabled the generation of automatic End Of Section
Reports (EOSRs), ILT reports and a daily performance reports for each well and each rig. These reports
display the operations performed during the day or section compared to the benchmarks and to other
similar operations in different rigs. These same reports are then shared with all project’s teams in the
office and at the rig site so that their current performance against the agreed targets can be reviewed and
necessary actions can be taken for any deviation. This together with daily feedback is the key enabler for
all rig crews to develop and maintain a continuous improvement culture.

In addition to the optimization of the well’s duration, the data base and the information generated by
this tracking tool resulted in significant savings on the time spent by the engineering and operations teams
for data gathering and analysis. This also allowed the teams to focus primarily on engineering and
optimization tasks and further increase efficiency.

Invisible Lost Time Analyzer tool and KPIs workflow

The Invisible Lost Time Analyzer tool gets its inputs from the rig surface real time data recorded from
the different rig sensors from the mud logging sensor like surface RPM, surface weight on bit, hook load,
block position, bit depth, hole depth, mud flow in, stand pipe pressure, surface torque and ROP, all in
WITSML format. This is the High Frequency data. The ILT analyzer tool is built with a ‘rig state’ engine
capable of identifying all the different rig state activities such as circulating, reaming, backreaming, in
slips...etc
The other input for the ILT analyzer tool comes from the Daily Operation Reports (DORs), that the
Well Site Leader (WSL, also known as Company Man) prepares every day for the rig activities summary.
This is the Low Frequency data, where each activity has a code and a sub code associated to it in the
reporting system, like make up BHA, nipple up BOP, pressure test BOP (Figure 1). This data can be
imported to the tool as an Excel file or via a direct link with the reporting system that will pull the data
automatically from the DOR, which is the case for this study.
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Figure 1: Drilling Invisible Lost Time Analyzer Workflow

The two inputs are then merged together in the ILT analyzer tool shown in Figure 2 where the High
Frequency data and the Low Frequency data are plotted on the right-hand and the left-hand side
respectivlely. A crucial step in the process is the definition and the creation of a list of KPIs, metrics and
templates for the different rig activities (drilling and flat time activities) based on the HF data and LF data
and combined KPIs using both HF and LF data together. The tool will start then computing, analyzing
and measuring the ILT for each of these defined activities.
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Figure 2: Merging HF and LF data in ILT analyzer tool

Merging both High Frequency and Low Frequency data enables the project team to compare and
identify any miss-reporting that may have occurred on the DORs when compared to the real time data log.
Thus, allowing to accurately allocating time to each activity reported in the DORs and to resolve
discrepancies. Both data sets complement each other.

Activities and KPIs Definition and Mapping

For this study, the table below summarizes the list of the main Key Performance Indicators defined and
mapped in the ILT analyzer tool to be tracked and analyzed. The first group of activities is related to the
on bottom drilling with seven main KPIs, average ROP, on bottom ROP, rotary ROP, sliding ROP, ROP
by formation, drill stand weight to weight time and in slips time. The second group of KPIs are the main
constituent of the flat time activities, BHA handling operations, drill pipe tripping, casing and liner run
operations, BOP and wellhead operations and completion run activities.
Each activity and KPI mapped in the ILT analyzer tool has the data source from where it is computed.
The same table highlights the source of each KPI, that can either be from the High Frequency data or Low
Frequency data or a combination of both set of data sources.
A target is set for each single activity (Table 1), and from which the ILT analyzer tool measures the
total number of hours lost or that could be saved if this is exceeded the preset targets. The targets are
updated and recalibrated each year reflecting the continuous improvement seeked.
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Operations Activity or KPI Data Source

Average ROP HF + LF
On Bottom ROP HF
Rotary ROP HF
Drilling Sliding ROP HF
ROP by formation HF
Drill stand weight to weight time HF
Connection time (in slips) HF
M/U BHA LF
BHA Operations
L/D BHA LF
RIH by stands in Cased Hole HF + LF
RIH by stands in Open Hole HF + LF
POOH by stands in Cased Hole HF + LF
Tripping Operations
POOH by stands in Open Hole HF + LF
RIH by Singles HF + LF
POOH by Singles HF + LF
Casing run in Cased Hole HF + LF
Casing run in Open Hole HF + LF
Casing & Liner Run operations Liner run by joint HF + LF
Liner run by stands in Cased Hole HF + LF
Liner run by stands in Open Hole HF + LF
Install Wellhead LF
N/U BOP LF
N/U Diverter LF
BOP & Wellhead Operations BOP Pressure Test LF
N/D BOP LF
Changes Rams & Pressure test LF
Install X-mass Tree LF
Completion Run Completion & tubing run HF + LF
Table 1: List of tracked activities or KPIs

Invisible Lost Time Measurement

After the process of defining and mapping all the rig activities and KPIs, the ILT analyzer tool can
generate a high level summary of the project ILT and performance trend reports per section, well and rig.
The snapshot example in Figure 3 is an export of the project ILT report and performance summary for
two sections and four rigs.
SPE-192319-MS 6

Figure 3: Invisible Lost Time Report

During the first year of the project, around 20 wells were drilled, most of which, were single lateral
horizontal wells where the average duration of a well varied between 24 to 30 days. The drilling contractor
was new to the drilling business, so the project went through an extensive learning curve. The first wells
delivered constituted a startup point for the drilling performance analysis. The project NPT was averaging
10% from the total well time. The drilling time for those wells was varying from 40% to 50% of the total
well time. The rest (50% to 60%) represent the flat time activities of the wells (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Well Time Breakdown

By analyzing each operation details for the wells, based on the defined list of activities described in
table 1, it became easy to quantify and determine the ILT which varies from 20% to 30% per well. One
of the main reasons for this high ILT was due to the rig crew’s inefficiencies as the rig contractor was new
in the drilling business. The ILT in the drilling time 10% to 15% and by 15 to 20% in the flat time
activities (Figure 5). Other reasons and sources for the ILT come from lack and inconsistency of
adherence to the drilling instructions, improper job and tools preparation and planning, crews performance
inefficiency and weather conditions.
SPE-192319-MS 7

Figure 5: Invisible Lost Time Distribution in Well Time Breakdown

Drilling Performance Improvement Strategy Workflow

To address all the inefficiencies and gaps identified in the drilling and flat time operations, a drilling
performance improvement strategy workflow was created where all the new processes introduced had
been stated and mapped between the different key players and contributors in the project delivery team.
The simplified workflow in figure 6 summarizes the full process.
The process starts from the preparation of the new well drilling program with well activities breakdown,
by the Well Engineer (WE). The Performance Engineer reviews the activities breakdown and prepares the
Best Composite Curve (BCC) for the new well which concept will be explained below. The Data Specialist
(DS) loads the well plan including the BCC plan in DOR the reporting system to generate the well time
versus depth curves during the execution of the well. Once the well is spudded, the Well Site Leader
(WSL) will generate the DORs. In addition to the rig surface real time received at the WITSML server,
the Data Specialist prepares and generates the Daily Performance Reports (DPR) for every rig
automatically from the ILT analyzer tool. The DPR covers the last 24 hours of the well construction
activities summary which is compared to the benchmarks and offset wells (for drilling and flat time
activities). The reports are then shared with all the rigs, engineering and operation teams. The teams
review, provide feedback and take appropriate actions to address the lagging activities whenever required.
The DPR feedback shared with rigs constitute a key element to establish and maintain the continuous
improvement and the performance culture among the rig population. It creates a positive ‘rivalry’ between
the rigs to achieve and exceed the benchmarks and deliver the well ahead of the plan.
At the end of every section, the DS generates an End Of Section Report (EOSR) automatically from
the ILT analyzer tool. The section feedback is sent from the rigs and includes the lessons learnt, best
practices and recommendations captured during the execution of the section by the WSLs. The feedback
is then added to the EOSR which contains a full summary of the section activities such as BHA make up,
drill pipe tripping speed, ROP, casing and liner operations and wellhead and BOP activities, where each
activity is compared to the benchmark and to the offset wells from the same and different rigs for the same
hole section.
A meeting between the project engineering and operation teams is held on a bi-monthly basis, to review
all the completed sections for all the rigs during the past two weeks. The engineers in charge of the rigs
go through the section reports and start reviewing and discussing each activity performance. In this
meeting, the project teams come up with actions and mini projects with the objective to work and address
all the gaps and lagging activities. Any successful story, lessons learned, best practices captured during
SPE-192319-MS 8

these reviews are then shared among all the rigs and these, are also added to the future drilling programs.
This review process is aloso a key to enhance the performance and to foster a continuous improvement
culture among the project teams.

Figure 6: Drilling Performance Improvement Workflow

Best Composite Curve Concept and Process

Driving and challenging the drilling performance well on a well basis require the introduction of the
well BCC concept. This is a time versus depth curve built with a composite of the best single activity time
performed among all the wells drilled in the project, such as BHA handling times, pipe tripping speed,
casing and liner running activities, cementing activities, BOP and wellhead handling and pressure test
times, completion times. The BCC takes the best achieved time for all flat time single activities regardless
of the rig or crew who performed it. The ROP is a field dependent, where the best average ROP achieved
per section on that specific field is utilized for the BCC time versus depth curve construction. Well types
and designs are taken into considerations as well.
Beating the BCC entirely from spud to rig release challenges the engineering and operation teams all
the time which ultimate goal is to be as close as possible to the BCC at the end of the well and beat it
whenever possible to set new benchmarks. The BCC is continually reviewed and updated whenever there
is any activity of the well performed with a best timing compared to the last record. At the end of the
well, from the clean time, it becomes easy to measure and identify the ILT from each activity, discuss and
set improvement plans to address each lagging activity following the drilling performance workflow
described previously. The BCC for the well in a mature project is considered to be free from ILT
especially
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if this is built with significant number of offset wells, however this, should be confused with the technical
limit. The project team is constantly challenged by comparing the drilling performance to the BCC curve
in the quest to improve performance. Figure 7 presents an example of the improvement results achieved
over the last four years in a single lateral horizontal well type. The 2018 BCC curve becomes more
aggressive as it’s been built from the combination of all the wells delivered from 2014 to date.

Figure 7: Progression of the BCC and TvD curve from 2014 to 2018

On Bottom Drilling Invisible Lost Time Reduction

The two main contributors to the ILT in the on-bottom drilling are the lack of adherence to the
recommended drilling parameters and the drill-stand weight to weight time. Lack of adherence to the
recommended drilling parameters has multiple reasons like reducing the parameters to control the
trajectory, downhole tools limitations, excessive on bottom downlinking, surveying time and drillers
inability to follow the instructions for the recommended drilling parameters. In this paper, we will focus
only on the drill stand weight to weight time impact and its optimization in the project.
The drill stand weight to weight time has been analyzed for all the wells and for all the sections, and it
is composed with the sum of three three distinct activities.
1- Pre-connection: this is the time interval spent from the moment the stand or single is drilled (drilling
stopped and bit off bottom) until the drill string is set into the slips. All the activities performed
between these two intervals such as hole condition, reaming, backreaming…etc, falls under it.
SPE-192319-MS 10

2- Connection (In Slips): it is the interval from the time the full string weight is set in slips until the
drill string is pulled out of the slips after making a new connection.
3- Post-connection: this is the time interval spent from the moment the drill string is pull out of the
slips after making a connection, until resume drilling (bit goes on bottom again). All the activities
performed between these two intervals like hole surveying, downlinking, tool face orientation…etc,
falls under this Post-connection time.

An average of 25 different well types are drilled every year in the project with an average of 18,300
feet drilled per well, this represents an average of 192 drill stand connections to drill the well to Total
Depth (TD). Analyzing all the details of the weight to weight connection time is very important to detect
and eliminate the waste and all unnecessary time from it, as well as bring consistency in making
connections among all the rigs.
In 2014, the overall average weight to weight connection time was 25.9 minutes (11.7 minutes for the
Pre-connection, 7.4 minutes for the in slips connection and 6.8 minutes for the Post-connection). The
target set in the project for the weight to weight connection time is 15 minutes (regardless the hole section
size). This represent an ILT of 10.9 minutes per connection and 2,096.64 minutes (34.9 hours) per well.
This ILT could have constituted potential saving of 873.6 hours (36.4 days) only in the weight to weight
connection time if the target of 15 minutes had met in 2014 (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Weight to Weight connection time improvement from 2014 to 2018

In 2015, the project had an ILT of 1,315.2 minutes (21.9 hours) per well and represented a potential
saving of 548 hours (22.8 days) for that year. Similarly, in 2016 and 2017, an ILT in the weight to weight
connection time of 311.2 hours (12.9 days) and 220 hours (9.2 days) respectively was recorded when
comparing to the target which represent the potential savings (Figure 9). The ILT number will depend on
the targets set.
Overall, the project managed to reduce the weight to weight connection time from average of 25.9
minutes per stand in 2014 to 17.7 minutes only in 2017, this represent an improvement of 35.2%
(improvement of 15.7 % in 2015, 13.5% in 2016 and 6% in 2017). This is achieved by addressing and
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focusing all the efforts in optimizing the Pre-connection, Connection and Post-connection times and most
importantly brining consistency to all the rigs involved in the project.

Figure 9: Weight to Weight connection time ILT reduction from 2014 to 2017

The Invisible Lost Time reduction and improvement in the weight to weight connection time has a
direct impact on the overall average ROP increase in the well, as the drill stand connection time is included
in the computation of the section average ROP. Figure 10 illustrates this relationship clearly where the
weight to weight connection time is decreasing year on year and the overall average ROP is increasing
with it as well from 2014 to 2017.
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Figure 10: Impact of Weight to Weight connection time reduction in average ROP

Flat Times Activities Improvement and Invisible Lost Time Reduction

Another part in the well construction activity where the ILT is high, is during the flat time. As described
in the introduction, the ILT is estimated to be between 15% to 20% from the total time of all flat time
activities (BHA handling, pipe tripping, casing and liner running activities, cementing activities, BOP and
wellhead handling, pressure test and completion activities). Flat time activities optimization is dependent
on rig contractor’s crews performance, job planning and tools preparation. The rig crews efficiency is
impacted as well by the extreme weather conditions like heat, sand storms and high winds.
To address the low performance and inconsistencies during flat time activities, few workshops have
been conducted with the drilling contractors, targeting the key personnel such as tool pushers, rig
superintendents and drillers. The activities that took long time and those that showed a big variation
between the rigs and crews were selected. Each activity was analyzed, unnecessary steps were identified
together with the activities that could be done offline simultaneously with the online ones. Rig surveys
and audits were performed to undersdand how actually the different crews from different rigs are
performing the specific activities identified. All the information collected from those audits and
workshops were translated into procedures with the aim to improve both efficiency and safety. In addition,
to that, tasks and mini projects were assigned for field and offices teams to follow up on each activity and
to make sure that the rigs are adhering to the agreed procedures.
Figure 11 shows how flat time improved year on year as a result of all efforts made to increase rig
performance efficiency and eliminate ILT from the operations. This is presented in feet per day as it has
been normalized to take into account different well types and well durations. The project achieved a
performance of average 11% year on year for the flat time activities from 2014 to 2017.
SPE-192319-MS 13

Figure 11: Flat Time ft/day improvement year on year

It is extremely important to hear feedback and any concern from the rig contractor crews, as any
procedural or task change must be fully adopted and embraced by the people actually implementing it. A
feedback regarding the rigs performance is been sent daily to all the rigs, as part of the Daily Performance
Report. The flat time activities covered in the study of the ILT reduction constituted more than 70% of
the flat time operations. Figures 12 and Figure 13 show examples for the drill pipe tripping and casing
running speed improvement year on year.

Figure 12: Average pipe tripping speed improvement year on year

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Figure 13: Average casing running speed improvement year on year

Conclusions
Efficiency, consistency and integrity are the three pillars required to achieve drilling performance. The
implementation of the Invisible Lost Time analyzer tool enabled the project to identify and measure the
ILT on each drilling and flat time activities. Identifying and measuring the ILT alone is not the way to
achieve performance as it is paramount to set action plan to address each of the identified improvement
areas that drives the performance and align the consistency among all the rigs.
All the optimizations work done in the project to improve the performance, it consequently helped to
reduce the average well ILT from around 30% in 2014 to less than 10% in 2017 (Figure 14). That is
translated directly in an increase of the average footage per day year on year, and reduction in well
duration.

Figure 14: ITL reduction year on year translated to ft/day performance increase

Despite this reduction of the ILT in the operations, the project continues to report inconsistencies
between the rig crews in performing the same tasks. However, eliminating completely the ILT from the
activities dependent on the human factor will prove to be difficult, and this is where the rig automation
can truly make a step change in enhancing and sustaining drilling performance.
SPE-192319-MS 15

Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank the Schlumberger Software Integrated Solutions (SIS) team, Kim Dung
Phan Thi, Idzuan Azdy Zainal Abidin, Zairul Zahha Bin Zabidi, Arman Arbabaev and Vladimir Skvortsov
for their help and continuous support in developing and enhancing the software utilized. A special thanks
to Haider Al-Shams and Mustafa Radhi Al-Jumaiah for their support and efforts in data loading and quality
check in the project. We would like also to thank Stefano Scagliarini for his feedback and for reviewing
this paper.

Nomenclature
BHA = Bottom Hole Assembly
BOP = Blow Out Preventer
BCC = Best Composite Curve
DOR = Daily Operation Report
DS = Data Specialist
DPR = Daily Performance Report
ERD = Extended Reach Drilling
EOSR = End Of Section Report
HF = High Frequency
HSE = Health Safety and Environment
ILT = Invisible Lost Time
KPI = Key Performance Indicator
LF = Low Frequency
LSTK = Lump Sum TurnKey
NPT = Non-Productive Time
RPM = Revolution Per Minute
ROP = Rate Of Penetration
SIS = Schlumberger Software Integrated Solutions
TD = Total Depth
TvD = Time versus Depth
WE = Well Engineer
WSL = Well Site Leader
WITSML = Wellsite Information Transfer Markup Language