Routes of digital and intelligent transformation for petroleum drilling with a vision of carbon neutrality

The development of drilling and well completion engineering over the past one hundred years can be divided into four stages, namely conceptual, empirical, scientific and automatic stages, during which the drilling and well completion technical system, guided by technical principles and methodology of drilling and well completion and armed by equipment, tools, and software. At present, a vision of global carbon neutrality greatly is expected to cause a great reduction in petroleum demand and investment in hydrocarbon exploration and development. Accordingly, oilfield service companies are subjected to increasing pressure for carbon footprint control and commitments to safety and environment protection, and the profit space of engineering technical services is compressed. The green and low-carbon transformation is inevitable for petroleum drilling. Digitalization and intelligentization are the destined routes for petroleum drilling to carbon peak and carbon neutrality and facilitate high-quality development. The status of petroleum drilling digitalization and intelligetization was reviewed, and the challenges facing the drilling technology development were identified. It was proposed that the upgrading and leap-forward of conventional engineering technology should be delivered via three aspects of intelligent drilling and well completion. Also, the intelligent surface equipment should coordinate with intelligent downhole tools, with intelligent software serving as interactive systems, to deliver closed-loop drilling optimization. By doing so, the synergistic ecology of drilling and well completion digitalization is formed, which promotes the upgrading and greatly enhances the operation efficiency and safety assurance of drilling and well completion.