44.7% of attendees at September’s 2009 IADC Advanced Rig Technology Conference cited reliability as the characteristic in greatest need for development. The other choices at the 29 September conference in Houston were automation (30.7%), cost (11.4%), maintainability (11.4%) and accuracy (1.8%).
The event drew 228 attendees representing operators, drilling contractors, equipment manufacturers, service firms and others. To facilitate audience input, IADC used an automated response system, through which registrants answered pre-determined questions on the spot, the totals displayed graphically within seconds.
Benefits of automation now and in the future differed, according to the survey. Of three possible benefits – safety, efficiency and enabler), safety was seen as the major benefit now (41.9%), followed by efficiency at 37.5% and enabler at 20.6%. Later, however, enabler was number one, at 42.3%, followed closely by efficiency (41.7%), while safety trailed at 16.0%.
The audience also found that, in regard to accuracy, managed pressure drilling equipment needs the most development (22.1%), followed closely by directional drilling equipment (21.2%) and measurement/logging while drilling equipment (19.2%).
However, regarding safety, the greatest need for development was reported as automated/remote/humanless operations (31.4%), cranes & handling (28.6%) and dropped objects (24.8%).
The complete survey can be downloaded in PDF format from the IADC Advanced Rig Technology Committee website, www.iadc.org/committees/advanced_rig_technology/index.html.
