Optimizing Drilling Rate with Machine Learning

Shell Exploration and Production Inc. Mathematics, 2012-13

Liaison(s): Xianping (Sean) Wu
Advisor(s): Rachel Levy
Students(s): Kyle Chakos, Sam Gray, Xanda Schofield (PM), John Wentworth

Shell E&P spends millions of dollars every day on offshore drilling operations. To monitor this process, a substantial amount of drilling data is collected and transmitted to an onshore operations center in real time. The team worked to find a method to analyze the aggregated data to determine for similar rigs when drilling is not proceeding at an optimal rate. The algorithm implemented identifies these suboptimal conditions and then proposes changes of drilling parameters to optimize drilling speed.