Monitoring of offshore drilling operations: the Italian “Black Box” system

This study illustrates the systems and procedures recently adopted in Italy for the collection and recording of relevant drilling data, in the light of the requirements of Directive 2013/30/EU. The Ministerial Decree (DGS-UNMIG) 15 July 2015, Art. 36 (e), already required “In offshore drilling, the Concession holder shall establish an electronic recording system, unalterable and protected in all conditions, of drilling parameters and drilling fluids data to be made available for control of the Safety Authority”. This system can be described, and was implemented, as a Virtual Black Box (VBB), a term and a concept inspired by the flight recorders installed on aircrafts. In the oilfield it is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) system coupled with the Mud Logging Unit (MLU). The mud logging Contractors adopt different operative systems for data acquisition, transmission and storage, and so a single VBB, composed of two servers, can manage only the data of a single Contractor. In case of more Contractors, VBB must be duplicated, implementing the Contractor’s specific operative system. In fact, so far each Contractor uses specific data format, acquisition software and data transmission systems. Data aggregation is possible thanks to WITSML, a transfer standard that translate data regardless of source format, giving the possibility to combine different data-sets. To ensure the integrity, availability and non-repudiation of the data, it should be guaranteed data redundancy and daily backup, performed by means of an external NAS device.