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VOL. 10, ISSUE 1 (2026)
Drilling project scheduling and risk management using hybrid optimization models
Authors
Ichenwo John Lander, Marvellous Amos Dornubari
Abstract
Drilling projects are capital projects that
are highly uncertain in their operations and executed on a schedule.
Three-month old drilling schedules are based on mostly deterministic planning
techniques which do not sufficiently consider dynamic operational risks like
non-productive time (NPT), equipment failures and geological uncertainties. The
study demonstrates an optimisation framework that combines both deterministic
scheduling models and stochastic risk modelling and metaheuristic optimisation
algorithms. This approach is explicit in the implementation of the operational
risk, as it is put into the scheduling objective function, which allows the
generation of resilient drilling plans that are efficient in terms of schedule
and have an appropriate risk exposure. By being applied to an offshore drilling
project in the North Sea involving six development wells, the hybrid framework
is shown to perform well in comparison to the conventional deterministic
schedules, reducing the projected project duration variability by 12.3% and
with a similar average time to completion. The results of Monte Carlo
simulation show that the hybrid method minimizes the chances of schedule
overruns of more than 10 percent to less than 18 percent (p < 0.01). The
framework gives the drilling engineers and project managers a practical
decision-support tool to enable them to make risk-based trade-off analysis
between aggressive and conservative scheduling. These results will be of great
impact in the field development planning, rig allocation and control of cost in
the drilling operations.
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Pages:40-46
How to cite this article:
Ichenwo John Lander, Marvellous Amos Dornubari "Drilling project scheduling and risk management using hybrid optimization models". International Journal of Advanced Engineering and Technology, Vol 10, Issue 1, 2026, Pages 40-46
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