Our Vision

Introducing: RAPID

The construction of wells is enabled by knowledge and technologies that facilitate greater time- and cost-efficiencies as well as excellence in operational execution. This is not only true for wells drilled for oil & gas recovery, but also highly relevant for wells drilled for geothermal purposes, subsurface waste disposal, underground CO₂ storage (as part of carbon capture, use and storage – CCUS), etc. With industry companies progressively reducing their efforts and spend on in-house R&D, there is a unique opportunity for academia to play a bigger role in technology development and application. Therefore, the time is right to (further) develop and embrace knowledge generation and technologies that help optimize well drilling and completion, automate well construction tasks for efficient and repeatable operational performance, and provide novel solutions for sustainable, alternative subsurface energy exploitation with an emphasis on decarbonization. This then is the main motivation behind the Rig Automation & Performance Improvement in Drilling (RAPID) Consortium, a multidisciplinary Industry Affiliate Program (IAP) at The University of Texas at Austin.

Vision & Mission

RAPID is an interdisciplinary group of researchers and students from multiple engineering disciplines (petroleum, mechanical, civil, computational, etc.) whose objective is to deliver novel solutions for any and every aspect of well construction with the overall goal of reducing drilling/completion time and cost (by >50%) and reducing the number of individuals at the rig site (by >50%). To accomplish this, the RAPID Consortium will:

Identify resources from both inside and outside the university, and actively pursue partnerships with other universities and research institutions around the world to progress well construction automation.
Develop well construction optimization, automation and data-analysis education and training for the next generation of well engineers who must have such expertise to facilitate technology transfer to industry (whether inside the oil & gas and geothermal domains, or outside of them).
Perform applied basic research, with the emphasis on the work being applied. RAPID will actively pursue the development of meaningful, practical knowledge and technologies that can be rapidly deployed by member companies.
Recruit and develop outstanding and diverse talent to advance well construction technologies and capabilities. Note there remains a large opportunity to leverage non-oilfield automation expertise for the oil and gas industry. Attracting outstanding student researchers in multiple disciplines is essential to the future of the subsurface energy business, because these will be the technology leaders of the future.
Provide access to outstanding researchers, new technologies, and students with interdisciplinary training in well construction, automation, data analytics, robotics, sustainable energy development and carbon footprint reduction, which motivates a broad range of companies to support this effort.
Provide a new and important arena for industry to come together to facilitate adoption, standardization and integration. RAPID has a proven track record, being at the genesis of the adoption of hole quality metrics, new data quality / cleaning capabilities, performing bit image analysis for automated dull grading (taken on board by IADC), etc. Moreover, RAPID consortium meetings are an excellent opportunity for member companies to provide input and guidance as well as prioritize research activities that account for the continually advancing capabilities from industry itself. Thus the consortium will effectively drive the adoption of advanced well construction capabilities not only generated by the university efforts, but also by its members and member affiliates.

RAPID Areas of Activity and Focus

RAPID focuses its efforts in 5 main areas: sensors and measurement systems, modeling/control/digital twinning, Data Analytics/ML/AI, Robotics, and Sustainability, which includes efforts dealing with geothermal wells (RAPID-GT), carbon capture, use and underground storage (CCUS), and repurposing wells for other purposes such as waste injection, CO₂ storage, or geothermal/hydrothermal purposes. The latter is also geared towards reducing asset retirement obligations (ARO) for operators. More details on RAPID’s activities can be found on our Research page.

Overview of RAPID’s 5 areas of focus and activity

Sponsor Interaction and Policies

Becoming a RAPID sponsor is simple. UT Austin has standardized the membership agreement for industry affiliate programs, which for RAPID can be found here. Once companies are RAPID members, they have access to all the deliverables generated by RAPID (reports, papers, software, etc.).

The interaction between UT-RAPID and sponsor companies is flexible and company-specific, i.e. it can be customized to fit sponsor company needs. RAPID aims to:

Hold 2 face-to-face meetings annually in Austin or Houston, usually in the Spring and Fall. All research will be presented to consortium members at annual symposiums where members will have the opportunity to interact with other consortium members and funded students and research staff. The ever-developing Covid-19 pandemic may interfere with meetings being held in person, and may necessitate updates to be done virtually.
Hold virtual meetings / webinars on topics of interest or to communicate recent results and progress. In addition, RAPID researchers are frequent contributors to industry webinars (organized by SPE, AADE, IADC etc.) as well.
Hold one-on-one company progress meetings, which can be of much frequency, e.g., weekly, biweekly or monthly, to guide maturation of new technology, track progress of – and expedite – research results, etc. It is a best practice for companies to have a dedicated focal point or team to interact with RAPID on particular topics of interest.

The policies of the RAPID IAP interacting with sponsor companies is as follows:

RAPID does not want to compete with sponsor companies (e.g., IP position) or compromise sensitive information (e.g., trade secrets, confidential data). All sensitive data provided by companies will be kept strictly secure and confidential. Member companies do not have access to data from other companies.
RAPID aims to complement and accelerate in-house company R&D and optimization efforts.
RAPID takes guidance from companies on R&D topics of interest. Please give us your top 3 or top 5 topics of interest.
RAPID provides excellent leveraging of R&D funding, combining the funding of 10-20 sponsor companies to cover a large number of diverse R&D threads (with over 20+ R&D topics covered to date).
RAPID is technology transfer & application-focused, i.e., we do applied basic research that should find its way to actual application in the field where it should add bottom-line value.
RAPID delivers technology ready to be trialed and transferred to be used and commercialized by members.
RAPID delivers high-quality analyses of historical and real-time field data with domain expertise.
RAPID delivers high-end software for internal use and potential external commercialization.
RAPID develops – and provides access to – unique, in-demand talent with relevant skillsets, facilitating internships & full position hires by sponsor companies.