SystemDrilling, Wells & Decommissioning

NPT Analysis

NPT analysis that reads what crews wrote, finds the repair and waiting typed as normal work, and sends the same lines to the rig and the contractor before anyone signs.

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Follow one ring from proposal to credit ↓

The problem

Non-productive time that the codes call circulating

Hours are typed by the rig after a long tour, from a code list, in a hurry. A top drive waiting on a part becomes circulating, and an unplanned trip for a failed tool becomes a trip. The words in the remarks say what happened; the code is what gets counted.

So the lost-time figure in the performance review is low, the repair never meets the contract's repair allowance, and a planned job typed as repair costs the contractor instead. When someone finally argues about it, the argument runs by email, months later, with each side reading different lines.

Built forDrilling performance engineersDrilling superintendentsCompany representativesRig contractor managersContract auditors

The Problem Today

Rigs type their own hours in a hurry, so non-productive time from a broken top drive can go in as normal work.

20%: of well time lost vs 2 to 3% rig downtime, at one contractor published

Coded by hand today

Tour sheets
Reports
Codes
Disputes

Repair paid as normal workHours past the allowance billed at the full rate
Disputes by emailMonths later, with no shared evidence

The Solution

Read each hourTour sheets, daily reports, service tickets and remarks, line by line
Ring the flat spotsEach well's curve, plan against actual; miscoded stretches ringed
Both sides answerCompany representative and rig contractor see the same lines
Signed, then pricedThe superintendent signs or settles; the repair clause applies after

Built-in controls

Agents never decide who pays
Lines opened before any signature
The release takes a second signature

What You Get

The year's lost time is counted from what crews wrote, and each ruling carries two answers and a signer.

$40.1M: of rig time sat under normal-work codes, at sample spread our estimate

Hidden stretches ringedTyped as normal work, read as lost time
Credits from signed rulingsThe contract's repair clause, applied after a person signs
Causes that repeat across rigsParts, tools and waits grouped for the planning review

One ring, from the curve to the contract

31.5 hours typed as circulating: one NPT analysis ruling, start to credit

A platform rig reaches section total depth at 9,870 ft and starts circulating the hole clean. Ninety minutes later the top drive faults, and the rig waits on a part from the shore base.

demoRigs, wells and contract terms are sample data, and so is each number.

01Review
As typed, 11.8% lost time; as read, 17.4%; signed so far, 14.2%
Drilling performance engineer
The year opens as the drilling team draws it: each well's days against depth, plan against actual. The engineer sees three numbers side by side and knows only the signed one counts. On 14-151 the actual curve took 58.9 days against a plan of 45.3, and the rings show where the rig called flat time normal work.
02Review
The proposal keeps the first 1.5 h as planned cleaning and calls 30.0 h repair
Drilling performance engineer
Ten report lines open with the marked ones in yellow, beside the agents' proposal: code 8 repair rig, lost rig equipment, 96% sure, with each step of the reading. Only the first 1.5 h stay as planned hole cleaning at section total depth. A contract box shows what a signed ruling would do, and says no agent decides who pays.
03Review
The company man and the contractor get the same ten lines
Drilling performance engineer
The engineer sends it to both sides at once. Each has five working days to answer, and the superintendent is told when a clock runs out. Sending the same evidence to both is what stops the usual argument, where the operator quotes the morning report and the contractor quotes its own tour sheet.
04Answers
The rig's own representative opens the marked lines and agrees
Company representative
The company representative opens the 03:00 remark and the 06:00 tour line that puts the top drive back in service at 09:00. He agrees with 30.0 h as repair. His answer is one of two; it does not settle the hours on its own.
05Answers
The contractor disagrees once: 27.5 h, because some circulating was planned
Rig contractor manager
The contractor's manager opens the same lines and disagrees, picking planned work as the reason and putting the repair at 27.5 h. His point is fair on its face: circulating at total depth was in the program anyway. The disagreement goes to the superintendent with both answers side by side.
06Ruling
He rules 30.0 h: repair runs from fault to back in service
Drilling superintendent
The superintendent opens the lines and the contract clause, then settles it with a reason: the crew circulated one more bottoms up after the repair, so planned cleaning was not done inside it. Under the repair time clause, 12.0 h stay at the operating rate and 18.0 h fall to $0, a $111,000 credit.
07Ruling
The credit waits until the contractor acknowledges the ruling
Rig contractor manager
A ruling that goes against the contractor does not reach the invoice on the operator's word alone. The contractor's manager acknowledges it here, or can dispute it under the contract instead. Only after his acknowledgement can the credit leave in a release, and the stretch shows signed.
08Ruling
March on Rig 2 now carries 18.0 h at $0 and a $111,000 credit
Contract auditor
The repair time ledger lists each rig and month with repair coded, found and signed, and what goes to $0. Signed rulings net $770,090 across the year so far. If every live proposal were signed as proposed, it would be $1,465,763, and the screen says plainly that this is no claim.

30.0 hours of repair: 12.0 paid, 18.0 at $0, and $111,000 back

The repair time clause pays a set number of hours a job at the operating rate, then nothing.

Repair hours at the operating rate, the job allowance	12.0 h
Repair hours past the allowance, at $0	18.0 h
Repair, from fault to back in service	30.0 h

demoSample data, from the working solution. 18.0 h × $148,000 a day ÷ 24 = $111,000. The $148,000 operating rate is one line of the $356,000 spread; the zero rate applies to that line only.

Three causes that hid under normal-work codes on more than one rig

The cause finder groups by part, tool, hole section and rig, and names no person.

Top drive inverters: 107.0 h as circulating

Failed 8 times on six rigs. Each time the crew kept circulating while the part came out, so the hours never showed as repair.

Measurement tools: 148.5 h as planned trips

Failed 12 times. The trips were real but none was planned, and the service tickets name the failed part each time.

Offshore weather: 340.5 h under circulating

Crane wind limits and rough seas stopped work. Weather time is the operator's own and changes no contract rate.

demoSample data, from the working solution.

Around the ruling

The queue, the causes and the rigs behind the invisible lost time

What the superintendent, the auditor and the engineer each open after one ring is settled.

Audit trail traced to one flat stretch: lines opened, both answers, the ruling, the contract sum and the acknowledgement — **One stretch on the trail**Each opened line, each answer, the ruling and the acknowledgement on one stretch, with person or agent and time. Entries cannot be edited or removed.

Queue of flat stretches read differently from the code typed, each with well, hours, cause, confidence and where it stands — **Queue by state**Stretches waiting for the engineer, for answers, in disagreement, ready to sign or signed, with late answers counted and held wells marked.

Drilling NPT root cause view: lost time by class coded against found, and repeat causes grouped by part, tool and rig — **Causes across wells and rigs**Lost time by class, coded against found, with the causes that recur on more than one rig and a request each can turn into.

Seven rigs with lost time as reported, re-read and signed, stretches found, spread rate and the selected rig's wells — **Rigs**Each rig with its share of lost time as reported, as re-read and as signed so far, and the selected rig's wells with their ringed stretches.

The agents' run over a year of drilling reports, step by step, with what each agent read, marked and handed on — **The year's re-read**7,305 reports read for 2,435 well days, 119 curves drawn, and 3 stretches held because a tour sheet was missing or unreadable.

Settings for lost time review: confidence floor, lot sample size, answer clock and flat stretch length on land and offshore — **Rules**The confidence floor, lot sample, answer clock and flat stretch lengths. Changes are proposed by the engineer and take effect once the superintendent has signed.

demoSample data, from the working solution.

The readers

Seven agents read tour sheets, and none decides who pays

Each passes its work along, in the end to someone by name.

Report reader

Reads each tour sheet and daily report hour by hour and keeps each hour's line.

Never changes a report
Never fills a missing day

Curve builder

Draws days against depth, plan against actual, and marks flat stretches.

Never smooths a curve or joins across a gap

Code checker

Compares the code typed with the words and proposes a code, class, hours and confidence, with passages.

Never edits a source code

Answer router

Sends the same evidence to both sides, keeps the clocks, and passes disagreements to the superintendent.

Never answers for a side

Contract reader

Applies the loaded repair time terms to signed rulings.

Never decides who pays
Never works out a sum on unsigned rulings

Cause finder

Groups lost time by part, tool, hole section and rig.

Never names a person as a cause

Record writer

Writes signed rulings to the performance record and builds the evidence file.

Never writes an unsigned change

What the reading draws on, from tour sheet to contract

All of it is read, never changed. The contract terms are the customer's own, loaded per rig.

Tour sheets and their remarksThe contractor's sheets, two a day, where the real reason usually sits

Daily drilling reportsThe operator's report and its remarks for the same hours

Maintenance records and service ticketsThe failed part, named by the people who fixed it

Well programsWhat was planned, so planned work is not called lost

Rig contractsRepair time allowances and rates, loaded per rig

Mud reports and tool logsSupporting evidence for what the rig was doing

What drilling teams ask about NPT analysis

What is NPT analysis?

NPT analysis measures non-productive time: rig time lost to trouble, waiting or repair. This NPT analysis reads tour sheets and daily reports hour by hour, rings flat stretches on each well's curve that the rig coded as normal work, and sends each one to both sides before a superintendent signs.

What is invisible lost time, and does this find it?

It is lost time that never gets a lost-time code, because the crew kept doing something while they waited. Here it shows up as a flat stretch whose remarks name a failure, a wait or the weather while the code says circulating or trips.

Does the software decide whether the operator or the contractor pays?

No. Agents propose a code and hours with the lines behind them. The company representative and the rig contractor both answer, a superintendent signs or settles, and only then does the contract's repair clause apply.

What if the contractor disagrees with a ruling?

The contractor answers before the ruling, and can acknowledge a ruling that went against it or dispute it under the contract. A credit stays out of any release until that happens.

How does it help reduce NPT on the next wells?

The cause finder groups lost time by part, tool, hole section and rig, so a failure that repeats across rigs shows up as one cause with its stretches, and can go into the planning review or a request to the contractor.

Can we use our own codes and contract terms?

Yes. The code list and each rig's repair time terms are loaded by the customer. Where a rig's rate schedule is not loaded, no sum is worked out for it.

Drilling, Wells & Decommissioning

Bring last year's tour sheets
for one rig.

We will ring the stretches its codes called normal work, and show you the words behind each one.

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NPT Analysis

Non-productive time that the codes call circulating

The Problem Today

The Solution

What You Get

31.5 hours typed as circulating: one NPT analysis ruling, start to credit

As typed, 11.8% lost time; as read, 17.4%; signed so far, 14.2%

The proposal keeps the first 1.5 h as planned cleaning and calls 30.0 h repair

The company man and the contractor get the same ten lines

The rig's own representative opens the marked lines and agrees

The contractor disagrees once: 27.5 h, because some circulating was planned

He rules 30.0 h: repair runs from fault to back in service

The credit waits until the contractor acknowledges the ruling

March on Rig 2 now carries 18.0 h at $0 and a $111,000 credit