GEOTHERMAL DRILLING PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT THROUGH A COMPREHENSIVE NON-PRODUCTIVE TIME ANALYSIS

Abstract

In the development of geothermal projects, one of main thing that has the greatest level of challenge and high costs are drilling operations. Drilling operations planning must be carried out properly and precisely so that the well can be completed effectively and efficiently in term of depth, time and cost.
However, in carrying out drilling operations problems cannot be eliminated. Operational problems can be categorized into surface and subsurface problems. All these problems lead to unplanned operational time in geothermal well construction, commonly defined as Non-Productive Time (NPT). NPT has a direct relationship to the cost overrun of wells.
Processing standardized daily drilling reports is the main information in identifying existing NPT, which explicitly stated as NPT or sometime disguised in Productive Time (PT). All these NPTs are then classified and analyzed to get the root cause and define ways to improve the performance during drilling campaign.
This paper aims to describe a comprehensive NPT analysis of all operating times to improve geothermal well performance. The proper NPT analysis can minimize problems in drilling, improve the drilling performance and in the end increase the economic value of geothermal development projects.