Let’s Talk About Daily Drilling Reports.

 

Holy Batman!

As a Producer or EPC you are constantly tasked with providing daily drilling and other project reporting to let all constituents, including the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) folks, know what’s happening out in the field on each of your leases…right? You have to make sure the Authority For Expenditure (AFE) doesn’t turn into a budgetary and cumulative cost train wreck and the drilling team ends up walking down the street, resume in hand because someone messed up badly, or you avoid the nasty call from the AER with a date to discuss how you ended up drilling on somebody else’s lease.

Daily Drilling Reports Software Is The Riddlers Riddle!

So what are these reports anyway? I have been pounding the pavement recently talking to producers about this very issue. It seems like there is a real malaise about what is the best approach to this dilemma, almost a residing sense of frustration really at the lack of a good system that is easy to use and gets the job done. The choice of what system to use is based on a number of factors but tends to be predicated primarily on the cost of the software relative to how many barrels per day your company sucks out of the earth.

The majors seem fairly content to use a well known software solution that appears to be robust enough to get the information required to satisfy the regulator and works well with a view to managing cost against the AFE and integrates nicely with other bolt on platforms for downhole telemetry and analyzation. But the cost of the product is simply prohibitive…probably a direct correlation to the size of company that adopts the technology and a value pricing model premised on normal industry activity.

Another option is an equally established solution that seems to get the attention of the intermediate fossil fuel extractors. It too has a proprietary bent and while capable, tends to be lacking in the ease of use functionality, but with a more reasonable license fee structure it adequately performs the task.

The micro-junior and juniors are left with spreadsheets for the most part. They don’t drill enough wells to justify the cost of a software service and if you’re an EPC you probably are trying to keep things simple, as in, just get the info you need and move on to the next project. The production lifecycle is not on your agenda, so who cares about the long term. Spreadsheets certainly work but are limiting especially if you are trying to grow your company and drill more wells.

Pay For What I Don’t Use! The Joker Must Be Joking!

The question at the end of the day is…how much information do you need anyway? I recently had a President of a smaller producer tell me that they don’t even use half of the forms available on the software but still have to pay for them and in his words…”why do we get charged for every little thing that changes or happens like if a pebble blows across the yard…why do I need to report that and pay for it?”

Good question…why do you? I think it is due to an industry wide rationalization that, well, I guess that is just the way it is and we all accept it. The software solution providers can charge what they do because it is accepted as part of doing business.

You’ve Tripped On One Of Your Tricks This Time, Joker!

Well we want to challenge that line of thinking. We don’t think it should cost that much at all. At the end of the day the activity in the field is repetitive, the amount of information required is finite and the volume of data collected is manageable. What we are offering with Oilfield HUB is a full well lifecycle solution. We are doing what no one in the industry is capable of doing, and that is tracking the money from the time you send the survey company out to draw lines on the ground, right to the end of service, whatever that may mean in the life of that well. We put all that data and communication in a centrally located file based on the unique well identifier (UWI) so all parties have access to the information and the Producer is constantly creating a data legacy of historical regional, field well and project information to provide to anyone interested.

Our focus is tracking cost and simplifying the process of daily reports. Let’s take the mystery out of the software and call it what it is…reporting. It is not complicated and it doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive whether you drill one well or 1000 wells a year, the cost should be relative and with Oilfield HUB suite of products it is. And what’s reporting without timely analytics emanating from the system, turning data into meaningful information for future project planning and capital raises.

Oilfield HUB Suite

Perhaps you haven’t considered looking for your own customized solution that you would prefer to own rather than rent, is now within your grasp as well.

Producers need a better daily drilling report answer no matter what your BOE stat sheet looks like, we have the right fit for you at the right price. Call me for details.

July 23, 2015

Dave O’Connor Vice President – Sales Leadstone Group Inc.

Get in touch with Dave                                          dave.oconnor@leadstonegroup.com       (403) 910-4172