The new era of drilling industry in Iran
The new era of the drilling industry in Iran; when decisions surpass equipment.
In any major industry, there is always a point where an organization’s path diverges from the rest. A point where success is not simply a result of having better equipment or a bigger budget, but rather a deeper understanding of “time,” “risk,” and “decisions.” The drilling industry is no exception. At first glance, everything revolves around equipment, drilling tools, rigs, and components, but anyone who has spent even a few months in the industry knows that the real heart of the operation is where the “decisions” are made, not where the tools are working.
Quality in Drilling: Somewhere Between Equipment and Decisions
In the minds of many people, quality means sound equipment, standard tools, thorough inspection, and proper training. But if we apply this definition to the country’s drilling fields, it only covers part of the story. Quality equipment is valuable when it is in the right place, at the right time, and in the right decision.
In the three projects reviewed in West Karun, almost 40 percent of major outages were caused not by “equipment failure” but by “equipment decision-making.” This means that the equipment was sound; but the decision to ship it, procure it, inspect it, or install it was made late. This means that the quality of the equipment is not enough; it is the quality of the decision that makes it useful or useless.
The direct cost of renting an onshore rig in Iran is between $30,000 and $50,000 per day. That is, just this one wrong decision that kept the rig waiting for two days of useful time has generated nearly $90,000 in additional costs. Was the equipment broken? No. Was the equipment…
Stoppages that are invisible but cost time, money, and project quality
In 2004, data analysis showed that some of the major outages were not even recorded in the original report. They were “micro” outages; short, sporadic, but recurring outages. These small, seemingly insignificant outages had created a total of 63 hours of NPT. What was the root cause of these outages? Not tool failure, not construction stress, or operational complexity; they had one thing in common: the lack of immediate access to drilling services equipment, not because of a shortage, but because of late decision-making. In 2004, the same field, but with a different management team and new processes, saw a significant reduction in outages. No new equipment had been added, no advanced tools had been introduced; the only real change was in one thing: decisions became faster, more accurate, and more coordinated. This has an important message: in drilling, the best way to reduce NPT is not to buy new equipment; it is to improve the decision-making chain.
Isn't equipment important?
Here I need to clarify an important point: This does not mean that equipment is not important. In fact, it is. Drilling services equipment such as measuring instruments, sensors, head-up equipment, etc. are the heart of the operation. Without them, there is no room for decision-making. But here is the point: good equipment becomes a cost in a system with poor decision-making. For example, in one project, a high-quality Downhole Motor equipment had recorded good performance three times, but the operations team put it into operation without inspection due to overconfidence in this equipment. What was the result? At the very beginning of the operation, the equipment did not work and the operation was stopped for 7 hours. The equipment was good; the decision was not good. This is the point where the quality of the decision outweighs the quality of the equipment.
The economics of decisions; where 1 hour is not equal to 2 million Tomans, it is ten times that.
The average cost of onshore operations in Iran is between $30,000 and $50,000 per day. That is:
• Each hour of downtime is $1,250 to $2,100.
• 10 hours of downtime is $12,500 to $21,000.
• 24 hours of downtime is $30,000 to $50,000.
• 28 hours of downtime is $60,000 to $100,000.
In projects, it is often seen that wrong decisions with delayed decision-making create an average of 40 to 70 hours of soft downtime per well; downtime that is not written in official reports. Therefore, just by improving decision-making, it is possible to save $40,000 to $130,000 per well. Is this a small amount? For an organization with 20 wells per year, this means $2 to $3 million in annual savings, even without new equipment.
Why do the world's advanced industries invest in decision-making?
In Norway, Equinor uses predictive failure models and decision analysis systems to manage risk. In the US, ConocoPhillips uses advanced QC models to choose the right time to replace equipment. In Canada, Cenovus uses data-driven decision-making models that can strengthen decisions.
Proposed model for Iran: From standstill to prediction
This article presents only an introduction to the proposed model based on current models for the Iranian drilling industry, which will be fully explained in future issues. The decision-making model in the drilling services equipment chain has three layers:
1. Data
Tool performance history
Pattern of outages
Average decision latency
Team response speed
Comparison of equipment behavior in different wells
2. Forecast
Probability of failure
Probability of equipment shortage
Probability of delay
Simulation of wrong decisions
3. Optimal selection
Decision to replace or not replace
Decision to inspect or continue operations
Decision to dispatch or not dispatch
Decision to start or postpone operations
This model is based on real data from the country’s projects and is fully applicable in Iran.
It's not just management; it's a philosophy: the philosophy of invisible control.
In every operation, there is a part that no one writes about; a part that is not written in reports. Some that are not discussed in formal meetings, some that are not recorded in Excel. What is this part called? The hidden quality of small decisions, decisions that may take less than 30 seconds, but their impact is equal to thousands of dollars. In the projects studied, more than 52% of the wrong decisions were made in less than a minute; but their impact lasted for weeks. This is the invisible part of the industry; the part that “makes” or “slowly burns” the project.
The end; or rather, the beginning of a path.
Finally, we must honestly accept one fact: Iran’s drilling industry will not make a leap by purchasing new equipment, but by changing the decision-making model. The quality of decisions can change the future of the industry. The quality of decisions can eliminate billions of tomans of hidden costs. The quality of decisions can eliminate stoppages from decisions, the quality of decisions can increase the reliability of wells, and the quality of decisions can change the world’s view of Iran’s drilling.
The choice is ours: do we want to manage the future or just react to it?
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فارسی (Persian)
