Automated control of drilling parameters in order to reduce environmental risks

Abstract

The study evaluates the effectiveness of automated monitoring of drilling parameters for reducing environmental risks and transitioning from a reactive to a proactive management model; the aim is to quantitatively confirm that integrating multichannel telemetry and predictive analytics algorithms reduces incident frequency, the magnitude of lost circulation, and the probability of kicks progressing to a critical phase. Materials and methods included processing 1-s data streams (weight on bit, rotary speed, torque, pressures, flow rates, mud properties, gas content) from MWD/LWD and surface sensors, constructing integral indicators (equivalent circulating density, mechanical specific energy, hydraulic efficiency), and a two-series quasi-experiment comparing traditional monitoring with an automated system trained on a corpus of 150 production wells from three West Siberian fields; gradient boosting, random forest, and neural network models were used for early forecasting of stuck pipe, lost circulation, and influx events at a 15-20-minute horizon, with statistical verification by Student’s t-test. The results showed a 4.07-fold reduction in borehole wall instability frequency (from 4,68 to 1,15 incidents per 1,000 m), a threefold decrease in average lost-circulation volume per incident (18,45→6,21 m³) and a twelvefold reduction in total lost circulation per 100 wells (863,2→71,4 m³); average influx detection time fell from 145,8 to 28,5 s, response time from 85,2 to 15,6 s, and the share of kicks escalating to a critical phase dropped from 7,33% to 0.67%; mechanical specific energy decreased by 19,25% (245,7→198,4 MJ/m³), and non-productive time from 18,9% to 4,2% (p 0.001). The discussion confirms that joint analysis of ECD/MSE and multivariate patterns keeps pressure within the safe window and prevents severe complications while simultaneously reducing fuel consumption and the carbon footprint; limitations concern geological representativeness and scaling, but practical effects indicate the advisability of integrating the system with BOP automation and environmental compliance procedures, as well as developing closed-loop control.