The Drilling Study Group's annual drilling symposium will focus on new technology in drilling automation from the rig to downhole tools. Automation in drilling and completions operations is coming quickly, and many of these systems are increasingly being used on land drilling operations. Advances in control and automation of the whole drilling and completion process will improve safety, drilling performance, well quality, consistency of operations, and interoperability. As automation takes a greater foothold in our business, we will see a shift in skills and competencies of our workforce, changing the roles of the driller, the rig crew, technical specialists, and drilling engineers.

The format for this drilling symposium will consist of half a day of technical presentations followed by an operator panel which will address the value that these new technologies bring. We will feature six/seven technical presentations from leading technology suppliers, including NOV, MI-Swaco, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Weatherford, Baker Hughes, and others. The presentations will cover rig automation equipment, integrating pipe handling in land drilling operations, the operational systems used to automate this equipment, managed pressure drilling, and downhole tool automation.

The operator panel will present their experiences--good and bad--on drilling automation and answer questions from the audience. Has automation brought the value promised? Is our industry learning enough from automation experiences in other industries? Are we adequately training our rig crews and drilling engineers to work with automated equipment?

Our symposium will also include an update on the Drilling Systems Automation Technical Section (DSATS) and IADC Advanced Rig Technology Committee meeting results from the SPE/IADC Drilling Conference in Amsterdam in March.

Additional information and speakers to come.