Blind Trust: Challenges in Data Sharing for Oil and Gas Well Construction

The drilling and completion of oil and gas wells is a collaborative business, involving employees from many contractors working together. Well construction generates many documents that are sharedcross-functionally between these different groups. A regulator may receive an as-drilled plat from a well planner, using surveys from an MWD operator, based on a pipe tally from a rig contractor. In thisscenario, the person legally specifying the well location has likely never physically seen the wellhead or the equipment used to define the location. The regulatory database might later be used by adifferent operator for identifying offset wells on a nearby drilling program, further confounding matters. While document sharing is critical for successful well construction, there is often little opportunity forverification before use or transmission to another party.A review of documents related to well construction was performed. This included plats, well plans, bottom hole assembly reports, directional surveys, and other drilling records. The examination wasperformed on which data was contained in these documents, how it might be verified by a third party using it, and the potential for errors to arise when the data is received or transmitted. Of particularconcern were documents such as well locations and directional surveys which are not only difficult to verify but are also likely to be further shared with additional parties.