History of Lean Drilling™, Lean Producing™ and Lean Hydrocarbon Development™
Lean Drilling™ was developed in 1994. It was first applied to the BP Andrew project with great success on the wells (construction and management) and subsequently production operations.
Recommendations from BP led to application of Lean Drilling™ to the wells on Hibernia and to the complete project using Lean Hydrocarbon Development™ (subsurface, wells, facilities – platform / pipeline / gas plant) for a joint venture between Cairn Energy and Brown and Root. This offshore gas project in Bangladesh was developed based on two exploration wells and brought on stream in 17 months – a record fast track.
British Gas E&P used de Wardt and Company scenario planning and Lean Drilling™ to develop a strategy for exploration drilling worldwide which yielded a 30% improvement in performance year on year.
Lean Drilling™ has been extensively applied in Norway to establish a new level of performance across the industry. The first application was the BP Barden exploration well which yielded a 65% improvement in drilling performance with 100% data acquisition of high quality and a fully integrated sub-surface / drilling team. This was repeated for BP with a different rig and prospect then with Saga Petroleum for the deepest water wildcat well offshore Norway. The first development well application was on the very difficult Amoco Valhall project which contains active faults in the overburden and flowing chalk in a depleted reservoir, producing best ever drilling performance from the platform on the first well with significantly increased production in the second well. The joint bp / Amoco Norway chose Lean Drilling™ as its tool to achieve across the board drilling and completion performance improvement (World Class Drilling Process) and subsequently was awarded a prize for Most Improved Business Unit Wells Team.
Statoil selected Lean Drilling™ as the tool to drive improved performance across the company in a strategic program. This has been very successful with results exceeding technical limit in drilling and doubling of production rates. This new way of working is now embedded in Statoil’s standard wells planning and management processes.
TotalFinaElf Norge selected Lean Abandonment™ as the program to drive improved performance in their sub sea and platform abandonment programs; success has included a 43% improvement in time and a demonstration that 66% improvement is possible.
The application of Lean Drilling™ to the Mad Dog project has yielded best in class results, taking just 21 days per 10,000 ft to drill a deepwater, sub salt well. The team achieved BP's highest "Beyond the Best" rating , the peer ranking of Best in Class organization and the rating as the first fully integrated schedule across a complete project.
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Testimonials
We have seen significant improvements in results and have adopted the principles in our planning and operations efforts.
His recent corporate strategy development work resulted in a set of strategic initiatives that are already beginning to deliver value only a few months into their implementation.
His insight into the oil and gas industry is invaluable, and his knowledge of best practice in manufacturing has added measurable value to several of our investments.
John’s emphasis on rigorous planning has resulted in tangible and measurable results in the area of drilling and completing wells. A true step-change.
John de Wardt provided us with a straight forward, hard driving, no nonsense approach to strategic planning that is still helping us define and achieve new business goals.
...substantial improvement in product delivery and resultant reductions of inventory. The catalyst for these new processes was the Strategic Planning workshop lead by John de Wardt.
Case Studies
Oilfield Rig Throughput Doubles
A program that revamped the workflow in sub assemblies and final assemblies enabled a major oilfield supplier to double the throughput of their facility. Critical elements of success were the sub division of the final assembly into suitable sub assemblies and the development of efficient work centers.
Pressure Vessel Fabrication Time Cut by 27%
A "Design to Build" process improvement program cut the manufacturing time of very large diameter heavy tar sands processing vessels by 27% with an aggressive goal to continue the reduction.