Daily Drilling Report
The daily drilling report is also known as the morning report since it is submitted very early in the morning to the engineer in the home office. It is a summary of the prior day’s operations usually on a 24-hour basis from 6 a.m. to 6 a.m. It has been traditionally called or radioed in or sent by fax or email. That is why the engineer is usually the first person to arrive at the home office to make coffee and receive the report. The report keeps all parties (accounting, investors and management) up to date on the well’s progress. It allows for helpful recommendations if needed from the home office. The morning report operations can be for a drilling rig, completion rig, workover rig, location construction or production.
The daily drilling report will normally include: the AFE number, the date, the well’s name, area and location (by latitude and longitude) (county and state) of the well, the API/UWI well control number, rig contractor name and rig number, spud and rig release dates, weather and temperature, road condition and hole condition, and name of the person submitting the report.
The daily drilling report will usually include: bits used (with size and serial numbers), depths (kelly bushing depth, ground elevation, drilling depth, drilling depth progress, water depth), drilling fluid losses and lost circulation, estimated costs (usually a separate document), fishing and side tracking, mud engineer’s lithology of formations drilled and hydrocarbons observed, daily drilling issues, tubulars (casing and tubing joints and footages) run and cement used, vendors and their services, well bore survey results, work summary, work performed and planned.
The daily drilling report has the hourly breakdown duration of single operations with codes that allow an instant view, understanding and summary of each phase, e.g., rig up and rig down hours, drilling tangent (vertical), curve drilling (to change the direction of the drilling from vertical to horizontal) and lateral drilling (for horizontal wells), circulating the well, conditioning the mud, reaming the hole for safety to prevent stuck pipe, running casing, waiting on cement, nipple up and testing BOP’s, trips in and out of the hole and surveys.
The Daily Completion Report is the same as the Daily Drilling Report except it documents the daily operations after the drilling rig has been released.