Collaborative and holistic applications drive record drilling performance in Mak-Ban Geothermal Field, 2020-2022

Abstract

Philippines pioneered the geothermal development in Southeast Asia and consistently remained as one of the largest producers in the world since the birth of the industry in 1971. Philippine Geothermal Production Company, Inc. (PGPC) operates both Tiwi and Mak-Ban geothermal fields. With over 300 wells drilled since its exploration days, PGPC maintained its significant load share in the Luzon grid up to present.
In fields such as Mak-Ban, wells as deep as 3,000m. are drilled in order to tap this renewable resource. From 2020-2022, PGPC executed an 11-well drilling campaign comprising of 9 deep production wells and 2 multilateral injection wells, with all wells now in the system. Seven out of ten deepest wells (>3,000m) in Mak-Ban were drilled in this campaign. This campaign resulted to several records; fastest well drilled 3,611m in 23.9 days, fastest daily Rate of Penetration (ROP) of 523m per day, and lowest NonProductive Time (NPT) of 3% despite of new well design challenges.
This paper aims to share the journey of PGPC Drilling Team in improving drilling performance by adapting a collaborative and holistic approach from well planning, operational alignment, design improvement and technology selection. Drilling performance metrics from recently concluded 9-well Mak-Ban drilling campaign and the previous 2002-2004 drilling campaign were compared to show the success and improvement. These metrics are: (1) Days drilled vs Actual Depth reached, (2) Rate of Penetration, (3) Target depth reached vs Planned depth, and lastly, (4) Drilling Non-productive time.