(Sand): Kuwaiti Engineer's Idea Transforms Decades of Well-Drilling Experience into Smart Knowledge in Seconds

By Khaled Al-Mutairi (News Story)

Kuwait City, Sept 28 (KUNA) -- In the oil industry, not all major innovations begin in technology laboratories; sometimes they stem from a simple question posed by an engineer while performing his duties: "How can I access the correct information from the right source at the exact moment I need it?"

In well drilling operations, the answer may indeed exist, but it is often scattered across thousands of pages of standard operating procedures, daily drilling reports, health, safety, and environmental guidelines, non-productive time reports, and lessons learned from previous wells and experiences. With each new well, data accumulates, but so does valuable human and institutional expertise built over years of operations, challenges, and engineering decisions.

From this context began the story of "Sind," a specialized knowledge assistant for drilling operations that relies on generative artificial intelligence. Sind was designed to make accumulated technical knowledge more accessible to engineers, faster to retrieve, and easier to use.

The launch of Sind was initiated by Yusuf Al-Shammari, Chief Drilling and Well Repair Engineer at Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), who saw an opportunity to use AI to address a recurring challenge in engineering work: the time and effort required to search through an increasing volume of fragmented technical knowledge. The importance of this challenge has grown with the expansion of operations; project documents indicate that drilling fleet activity is projected to grow by 51 percent between the 2022/2023 and 2025/2026 fiscal years, coinciding with increased operational volume and the need for faster, more consistent access to technical knowledge.

Speaking to KUNA on Monday, Al-Shammari explained that the idea originated from a challenge faced by drilling engineers. "At KOC, we have a vast reservoir of knowledge, expertise, and procedures accumulated over many years. I asked myself, why not make this knowledge come to the engineer, rather than having him spend a long time searching for it? From this question, the idea of Sind emerged."

Al-Shammari emphasized that the initiative received support from the beginning from Juma Bashir, head of the Fifth Drilling Team, who backed the concept and facilitated its transition from an engineering concept to a project that could be developed, tested, and implemented. Bashir noted that the project’s success required more than just a good idea and leadership support; AI directed at drilling operations also requires operational knowledge, engineering reference, and technological capability. This realization became one of the main strengths of the project.

According to Al-Shammari, the concept was strengthened by involving the Drilling and Well Repair Engineering Group to provide necessary knowledge, references, and engineering expertise, alongside the Innovation and Technology Group to contribute the digital and technological capabilities needed to transform the concept into an executable solution. Thus, Sind integrates three main pillars within KOC: the Drilling Group, which identified the operational problem and initiated the initiative; the Drilling and Well Repair Engineering Group, with its technical and engineering depth; and the Innovation and Technology Group, providing technological and AI capabilities.

He noted that project documents indicate the collaboration model expanded to include Corporate Information Technology to ensure alignment with institutional frameworks and governance requirements, helping Sind transition from a concept to a ready-to-use solution in the work environment. Al-Shammari stressed that from the outset, he believed the idea alone was insufficient. "In drilling, we know the operational challenge and what the engineer needs, but to turn the idea into a real solution, we needed technical depth from the Drilling and Well Repair Engineering Group and digital expertise from the Innovation and Technology Group."

He affirmed that bringing these experiences together around a single goal gave Sind its strength, summarizing the project’s journey with one phrase: "The idea was born from operations, strengthened by engineering, and turned into reality through technology."

Sind does not make decisions for the engineer nor does it replace human expertise; engineering judgment and responsibility remain with the specialists. The role of the technology is to reduce the distance between the question and the knowledge the engineer needs to make a more informed decision.

Al-Shammari further clarified that the development roadmap for Sind began in March 2025. Over the following months, the initiative moved through stages of forming a multi-disciplinary team, developing a prototype, implementing standard operating procedures and health, safety, and environmental standards, testing, verification, and implementation, leading to expanded usage and the planning of a second phase starting in 2026.

However, according to Al-Shammari, the project did not stop at proving that AI could answer technical questions. The harder goal was transferring it to a real institutional environment while maintaining information security, governance, and data integrity. Project documents show that collaboration among operational, engineering, digital, and IT groups enabled Sind to mature from a concept to a solution ready for operational use, with a focus on security, governance, and operational integrity.

He emphasized that the true value of any innovation in the oil sector is not displayed on a screen but when it faces actual working conditions. Sind was tested during the drilling of a producer well in the Lower Burgan reservoir, where a milestone was achieved by delivering the well 13 days ahead of the reference schedule. Operational savings related to the application of standard operating procedures amounted to 13 days and approximately 97,000 Kuwaiti dinars (about $295,000 USD) per well. It is estimated that applying the methodology to 47 similar wells could yield savings of up to 637 days and approximately 4.5 million dinars (about $13.7 million USD) annually, according to Al-Shammari.

He pointed out that Sind’s primary objective is to sustain institutional knowledge, stating, "Equipment can be replaced and systems updated, but the expertise an institution has built through thousands of decisions, operations, and lessons learned must be preserved. By making this knowledge available to current and future generations of engineers, we are not just saving files; we are preserving a part of KOC’s engineering memory."

Sind received the AI and Digital Transformation Award at the Kuwait Oil and Gas Exhibition and Conference in February 2026. Al-Shammari explained, "We did not design Sind to replace the engineer, but to support him. Humans possess expertise, understand reality, and bear responsibility for decisions, while AI provides the ability to access knowledge faster, aiding them."

The conclusion Al-Shammari reached is that true success is not measured by the number of questions the system can answer or the awards it wins, but by making the knowledge KOC has built over the years more accessible to its engineers, transforming that knowledge into more consistent decisions, more efficient operations, and a more sustainable future.

For his part, Juma Bashir, Head of the Fifth Drilling Team at KOC, told KUNA that awards and recognition are important because they reflect the project’s achievements. He emphasized that "the project’s added value is its impact on work; when innovation starts from a real problem and specialists participate in its development, the chances of its sustainability and expansion increase."

Bashir added that Sind aims to incorporate more historical, updated, and real-time drilling data, expand the user base to include engineers and field supervisors, and enhance its capabilities through integration with other drilling tools and systems. He also mentioned studying scalability into other areas of exploration and production activities.

He clarified that while there is a global debate about AI’s ability to perform functions previously done by humans, the Sind team offers a different perspective on the relationship between engineers and technology. He stressed that the relationship between humans and AI in the oil industry is not a replacement for human expertise but a support for it.

Bashir noted that support for Sind stemmed from its direct link to operational needs, rather than being treated as a technical experiment separate from work reality. He explained that Sind’s strength came from not being built in isolation from operations; the idea emerged from a genuine need of drilling engineers and was then supported by the necessary engineering and technological expertise.

He indicated that Sind was built using large language models and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques, a mechanism that allows the system to search within a specific knowledge base before constructing an answer. He noted that the knowledge sources used in the project include drilling standard operating procedures, daily drilling reports, non-productive time documents, and lessons learned, alongside technical content stored in various formats, including scanned documents and images.

Bashir explained that when a question is posed in Sind, the system searches for the most relevant information and adds it to the context used by the language model, then formulates an answer related to the retrieved content.

In conclusion, both Al-Shammari and Bashir expressed their gratitude and appreciation to KOC for its institutional support and for providing the resources, capabilities, and expertise that contributed to transforming Sind from an engineering concept into a practical reality. They also extended their thanks to Sheikh Mohammed Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, President of the Kuwait AI Association, for his continuous support of the initiative from its inception to its realization on the ground, noting that this support had a significant impact on the project’s progress and enhanced its chances of success and sustainability. (End) K.M. / H.T. / T.M.