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Motive® Intro Video
Click the video to learn more on how the MOTIVE® Bit Guidance System reduces drilling costs
About Motive®
MOTIVE® Drilling Technologies is a company defined by a singular focus: providing unique disruptive technologies and services that lower the cost and improve the accuracy and performance of drilling operations.

Our scalable, proprietary software platform overcomes the challenges, obstacles, and risks associated with drilling today’s high-cost and complex unconventional wells.


Bit Guidance System

With MOTIVE®’s Bit Guidance System, turn by turn navigation instructions are automatically determined and provided directly to the driller in real-time. Performance Variability is reduced by eliminating the human element in directional drilling decision-making.

Automated Formation Top Correlation

MOTIVE®’s exclusive Marker and Formation Top Correlation module automatically correlates formation tops and markers with offset wells.   Directional Drilling target changes are made much sooner, resulting in less dogleg severity, more accurate well placement, and more cordial communications between the geologists and drilling engineers.

MOTIVE®’s commitment to your success extends well beyond designing and developing the industry’s foremost directional drilling bit guidance system …
We work with and stand by you throughout your horizontal well construction process, and remain at the ready for any technical questions or issues.

MOTIVE® Command Center

24 hours – 7 days a week – 365 days a year

Supporting the deployed Guidance Systems and providing directional drilling advice

(469) 729-6489


No Restrictions in compatibility have arisen thus far. Directional drillers from over a dozen different directional drilling companies have successfully guided wells with advice from the MOTIVE® Bit Guidance System, and many of them have set performance records with the first use of the system.

To further facilitate operational effectiveness and compatibility, MOTIVE® provides onsite training to directional drillers or rig drillers on the use of the Bit Guidance System.

Directional drilling control technology has been lagging behind other technical advances that led to the tremendous growth in horizontal drilling in North American shale plays. The most significant directional drilling problem identified has been the inability to consistently follow a prescribed well path and to hit and stay within the targets identified collectively by the company’s geologists, geophysicists, and engineers.

In an attempt to stay on a defined path, directional drillers often fail to properly compensate for variations in rotary walk and build, effective formation stresses, motor yields, hydrocarbon production potential, and tortuosity risks. There are, in fact, too many rapidly changing variables for the directional driller to consider and react to in real-time.

Attempts to compensate for deviations from the plan have often lead to increased tortuosity of the final wellbore, missed reservoir, sidetracks, or unnecessary bit trips. The consequences of excess tortuosity include increased drilling times, increased stress on downhole equipment leading to tool failures, future problems in running completion hardware, an overall reduction in total recovered hydrocarbons, and future production problems such as unanticipated high water production or liquid hold-up in low spots along the lateral section of the wellbore.

MOTIVE® Drilling Technologies has addressed these problems with the MOTIVE® Bit Guidance System, the industry’s first use of cognitive computing to guide the directional drilling process which considers all costs to the asset and the economic consequences of directional drilling decisions.

The MOTIVE® Directional Guidance System performs all of the standard directional drilling calculations that were previously done by the directional driller, but performs these calculations continuously and faster than is humanly possible.  In addition, the system provides a tremendous amount of additional analysis of the data (such as cost consequences), and automatically makes the directional drilling steering decisions based on parameters set by the operator.

The human directional driller does not have the capability to accurately consider all of the costs associated with increased tortuosity, potential lost hydrocarbon production, or to accurately determine the bit location in real-time. This automation of the analysis and decision-making process is only possible using advanced algorithms and high end computing.

The guidance system removes the variable human element that leads to the large variation in performance in directional drilling seen today, and instead provides consistency of high performance somewhat independent of the experience level of the directional driller.

The MOTIVE® Bit Guidance System can be used to scale the expertise of a high performing directional driller, allowing him to guide the operations on multiple wells simultaneously.   The Command Center tools have been designed for a single directional driller to be able to quickly review multiple operations and focus on the wells that need more attention.

The MOTIVE® Bit Guidance System keeps the entire decision making team (on the rig and in the office) informed about past, current, and future planned directional drilling activities through its distributed 2D and 3D visualization interfaces, dynamic reporting, and automated email and text notifications. By providing complete directional drilling transparency to the entire team regardless of location, the system returns operational control back to the operator.

The short answer is that The Bit Guidance System is a partial automation system with a focus on automating much of the analysis, report generation, and decision-making related to Directional Drilling and Geosteering.  Drilling Automation is not an all or nothing implementation. Sheridan and Verplanck have done a very good job of capturing different levels of automation from a fully human- based activity through to an activity where a computer makes and implements all decisions.

Sheridan-Verplanck 10 levels of automation

  1. Human considers alternatives, makes and implements decision.
  2. Computer offers a set of alternatives which human may ignore in making decision.
  3. Computer offers a restricted set of alternatives, and human decides which to implement.
  4. Computer offers a restricted set of alternatives and suggests one, but human still makes and implements final decision.
  5. Computer offers a restricted set of alternatives and suggests one, which it will implement if human approve.
  6. Computer makes decision but gives human option to veto prior to implementation.
  7. Computer makes and implements decision, but must inform human after the fact.
  8. Computer makes and implements decision, and informs human only if asked to.
  9. Computer makes and implements decision, and informs human only if it feels this is warranted.
  10. Computer makes and implements decision if it feels it should, and informs human only if it feels this is warranted.

The MOTIVE® Bit Guidance System has advanced to level six automation.  At this level, the Guidance System offers a restricted set of alternatives and suggests one, but a human driller still makes and implements final decision by operating the equipment on the rig floor.

By automating the analysis and decision making tasks, the system has drastically improved directional drilling performance by reducing drilling time, reducing risk associated with tortuosity, and improving accuracy (leading to increased hydrocarbon potential).

The MOTIVE® Bit Guidance System could be used to set slide start and stop times and toolface orientation for mechanization tools that attempt to automatically set and hold the toolface at a user defined orientation.    This integration would be a further move toward full automation.

As a MOTIVE® customer, you will be provided with your own private customer portal website dedicated to all of your wells that are drilled using the MOTIVE® Bit Guidance System as well as any of your own historical or pilot well data used during Well and Geological Planning. Please contact Sales or Support for your Customer Portal website address.

For each individual well, you can choose to be automatically notified either email or text message (SMS) for the following: trajectory surveys, sidetracks, anti-collision events, BHA changes, well plan changes, deviations from the well plan, geological plan changes, specific wellbore events, and formation detection events.

Each notification can be turned on and off based on your preferences for a specific well.

Yes. If you are a current MOTIVE® customer, you can submit a request to receive access for installing MOTIVE® Bit Guidance apps on your iPad.

Interesting question ………. The MOTIVE® Bit Guidance System was designed as a support tool for the directional driller. The Bit Guidance System does not perform any of the manual tasks currently performed by the directional driller such as preparing the tools in the BHA, nor does it implement the decisions on the rig floor (setting tool face, sliding, etc.).

If other personnel on the rig are able to take on the manual directional drilling tasks, then the guidance system would allow a single directional driller to remotely advise operations on multiple rigs simultaneously. Since the Guidance System is deployed on the rig, it continues to operate and provide guidance to the driller even when communication may be lost between the command center and the rig.

Knowledge of particular formation characteristics is also provided by experienced directional drillers.  Until this knowledge is determined by the system or input into the system, the experience of local directional drillers is important.

The system has been used to reduce the normal MWD/Directional Drilling four man crew on the rig down to a two man crew (one day shift and one night shift) with no change in performance.  This is made possible since the system automates many of the tasks previously performed by the wellsite geologist, the MWD engineer, and the directional driller.

MOTIVE® provides a 24/7 Directional Drilling Command Center with experienced Directional Drillers monitoring and validating the decisions made by the Guidance System on the rig site.   The directional drillers in the command center are often able to provide guidance based on local knowledge.

With the Guidance System automatically performing all of the necessary calculations, a single directional driller can provide guidance to multiple wells simultaneously from a remote center.   Without the system, the directional driller could not keep up with all of the calculations required for accurate, safe, and efficient directional drilling on multiple wells.

The system begins the decision-making guidance process by determining an error from the prescribed well path each time a survey is taken. The system then evaluates literally millions of possible options for adjusting the well path back to plan. Each path is evaluated, considering the costs that are associated with each path’s predicted drilling time, risk due to predicted tortuosity, and ultimate hydrocarbon production potential.

The cost analysis utilizes dynamically determined parameters such as geo-drift (rotary walk and build), motor yields, current position of the bit, and individual driller performance. Absolute rules are defined by the operator such as limits on dogleg severity, anti-collision, and distance to lease lines. Cost curves apply proportional penalties for these limits and to other factors such as distance from the pay zone, or deviation in trajectory, azimuth, or distance from plan.

By setting parameters by region, the operator can ensure that the decisions being made on the rig site are in line with the drilling cost and production tradeoffs that the operator and asset manager see, rather than the individual directional driller’s discretion. The results are higher production yields, higher consistency of execution, fewer tool failures, and enhanced overall economics.

Thanks for learning about MOTIVE® Drilling Technologies!

We’ve combined decades of industry experience with superior technology to create the energy industry’s premier Bit Guidance System, and we’re eager to discuss how we can improve YOUR operations … Whether you’re a current customer needing support,or you’d like to find out even more, please get in touch by completing the form below.

Corporate Headquarters:
1807 Ross Avenue, Suite 460
Dallas, TX 75201

Phone: 469.729.6470