Advanced Rig Research Articles

SPE Board Announces Nominees for 2024 President and 2023 Directors

2024 SPE President Terry Palisch is the vice president of technology and engineering at CARBO Ceramics in Richardson, Texas. He began his career with ARCO, during which he served 4 years in Algeria and 10 years as a senior petroleum engineer in Alaska. Palisch joined CARBO in 2004 and in his current position leads a team of technologists developing and championing new products and services and advising clients on completion and fracture optimization. Palisch has been an active SPE member serving in various roles, including past chairman of the SPE Dallas Section, past chair of the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) technical program and former SPE Completions Technical Director. He is an SPE Distinguished Member and received the award for Distinguished Service, as well as the SPE Mid‑Continent Regional Completions Optimization and Technology Award and the Regional Service Award. In 2013, he was named one of the Top 15 Best Engineers by the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, and in 2015 he was named the SPE Dallas Section Engineer of the Year. He has authored more than 50 SPE technical papers and holds several patents. Palisch holds a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from University of Missouri‑Rolla (now Missouri University of Science and Technology) and was recently recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus. North America Regional Director Robert C. Martinez is president and CEO of Titan Rock Exploration & Production and president of Alpine Gas. He has more than 23 years of experience developing and optimizing oil and gas assets throughout the US, including conventional assets, unconventional horizontal development programs, and enhanced oil recovery projects. Middle East and North Africa Regional Director Mohamed Al Marzouqi is senior vice president of development at ADNOC Upstream Directorate. He has been with ADNOC since 2005. He joined ZADCO (ADNOC Offshore) as a petroleum engineer in field development to head the maximum-reservoir- contact (MRC) well-design team during which first production began through MRC wells from an artificial island. As a senior manager for reservoir development at ZADCO, he developed reservoir management strategy to redevelop a multibillion-dollar project in the Upper Zakum field through artificial islands. He led the team in the development of integrated reservoir management for ADNOC Group. Drilling Technical Director Robin Macmillan is the chief sales officer at Data Gumbo. He was previously senior vice president for business development at NOV, manager of Schlumberger drilling and measurements in Canada, and president at drill-bit company ReedHycalog. In his early career he worked in offshore and onshore drilling operations in several countries across North and Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. He is the current vice president of drilling services and a member of the Executive Committee at the International Association of Drilling Contractors, where he is also Chair Emeritus of the Advanced Rig Technology Committee and a member of the Drilling Engineering Committee. Health, Safety, Environment, and Sustainability Technical Director Susan (Sue) Staley is the sustainability director for vPSI Group LLC where she leads the company’s sustainability practice. Prior to joining vPSI, she was the general manager of soil and groundwater technology at Shell and held various positions there during her 18-year tenure. Prior to Shell, she worked as a consultant at ERM. Staley has been an environmental and safety engineer for 30 years.

The Ultimate Breakthrough for Drilling Automation May Be Simply Finding a Business Case

The biggest meeting of the year dedicated solely to the topic of drilling automation revealed that the ultimate barrier facing this emerging development is not the technology. It’s how the business of drilling is done. This is according to many of the technical professionals that participated in a recent symposium held jointly by SPE’s Drilling Systems Automation Technical Section (DSATS) and the IADC’s Advanced Rig Technology Committee. The annual event held in conjunction with the IADC/SPE International Drilling Conference and Exhibition departed from its usual format of speakers issuing well-rehearsed presentations. Instead, it took on the form of a multipronged focus group that saw dozens of participants hailing from operators, drilling contractors, and service companies who huddled into the four corners of a conference ballroom in Galveston, Texas. Their chief objective was to help update the DSATS’s “roadmap” that identifies which technological breakthroughs are needed to bring about a true step change in drilling automation by 2025. But as that year draws near, the odds of reaching most of the key milestones are dimming, and so, the symposium leaders decided to instead look toward what should be achieved by 2030. What DSATS wants to see become possible in the coming years is a rig in which “well plans are uploaded into an interoperable drilling system that automatically delivers a quality wellbore into the best geological location.” Though we have seen pieces of drilling automation come together in recent years—among others, this includes automated rig floors and automated rotary steerable systems (RSS)—we have not seen a truly automated rig as outlined above. And few of those attending the meeting expressed optimism that such a development is within reach. “We are not trending toward hitting this vision in 2025,” said Esben Thorup, who was speaking from the perspective of an offshore drilling contractor. “We see pilot projects heading in the right direction, but wide adoption of automation is not happening.” Thorup is the head of digital innovation with Maersk Drilling (and soon to be Noble Corp. upon the impending finalization of a $3.4 billion merger announced in November 2021). He was one of several panelists tapped to lead the four focus groups and offer back to the entire gathering some key points raised during those discussions. For Thorup, the biggest thorn in the side of drilling automation is the business case, or lack thereof. “We would absolutely love to put automation systems on all of our rigs,” he said while noting that some automated components have been deployed on Maersk’s rigs. “But we are not necessarily being rewarded often.” Dan Hoffarth, CEO of onshore contractor Citadel Drilling, led another group and seemed to echo his offshore counterpart in asking the big question of the day: “Does our business model work as individual companies?”

On the Extrapolation of Rim Sealing Performance From Test Bench to Real Engine: A Numerical Survey

Abstract The main annulus hot gas ingress into turbine wheel-spaces is still one of the most challenging problems designers face. During the decades, several experimental test benches were developed worldwide to improve the knowledge associated with the rim seal flow physics. Even if in some cases quite complex and advanced rig configurations were proposed, limitations in the operating conditions and in the reproduction of the real engine geometries/characteristics into the rig are present. In this paper, validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computations are used to explore the impact of some experimental rigs design choices/limitations on the sealing effectiveness prediction and their ability to mimic the real engine configuration behavior. Attention is paid on several test rig-related aspects such as operating conditions, flow path configuration (blade and vane count), and accuracy in the real engine rim seal geometry reconstruction applied to the rig. From the computations, it emerges that a scaled geometry operated at lab conditions is able to mimic pretty well the real engine sealing performance when rig and engine experience the same flow path ΔCp. The ability of the rig to match the engine data is not affected by the differences in main annulus Mach number between test bench and engine. A further result that emerges from the computation regards the fact that the Φ0 − ΔCp0.5 curve is not linear, proving that the linear extrapolation of rim sealing performance from test bench to real engine when rig and engine are characterized by different ΔCp0.5 values is not of general application and an alternative approach is given. Finally, it is found that the impact of vane count on the rim sealing effectiveness is significant, making the extrapolation of data from rig to engine difficult.

Guest Editorial: Isn’t It Time for Our Own Spielbergian “Idea Summit”?

Guest editorial Three years before the 2002 release of his science fiction film Minority Report, director Steven Spielberg brought together an ad hoc think tank to help him realistically imagine how the future might look in 50 years. More than a dozen visionaries and futurists came together for the 3-day event, an “idea summit,” which proved surprisingly prescient. Several intelligent technologies envisioned in the film have since been developed—including biometric iris scanners, robotic insects, crime prediction software, multitouch interfaces (you probably have one in your pocket or purse), and autonomous or self-driving cars. At almost 2 years into the oil industry downturn, I believe now is the ideal time, a pivotal moment, to come together for our own “idea summit” and begin to realistically imagine the future so that we can respond to the “upturn” in the oil and gas industry when it arrives, as it inevitably will as we have witnessed in the past cycles. The seventh SPE Intelligent Energy International Conference & Exhibition will meet for 3 days this September in Aberdeen to consider how we can take emerging digital technologies, big data analytics, and intelligent and autonomous systems to create our own future. This will enable us both to survive our current challenges and to thrive in the years to come. Consider the difference between invention and innovation. Invention develops new ideas and concepts; innovation combines existing elements and applies them in new ways. Today we need innovation to take advantage of the technological inventions that we already have, and we need inventions to sustain the future. Of course, we also need to leverage human potential, processes, and organizational ingenuity. To shape this future vision, we will bring together the industry’s brightest scientists, engineers, and visionaries, as well as executives and decision makers who can implement new corporate strategies and business models that will catalyze technological and organizational changes. This conference is organized to enable us to engage in candid conversation, ask one another hard questions, dream out loud, and open ourselves to fresh possibilities. Take, for example, the application of digital technology in my area of expertise, drilling: I believe one way out of the current downturn to a stronger future is to embrace digital innovation and new levels of automation. I’m not alone. Last fall, a survey conducted at the International Association of Drilling Contractors Advanced Rig Technology Conference indicated that many of its members believe now may be the best time to adopt new technology. Forty percent said a down market encourages automation. Another 38.5% agreed, as long as automated processes are properly deployed to meet specific operator requirements. Only 17% felt a down market discourages automation, largely because companies cannot afford new investments. This would not be the first time the drilling industry has innovated in a downturn to profit in the upturn. During a previous downturn—the oil price collapse of 1998—one major contractor developed next-generation, semi-automated land drilling rigs. Even charging a premium coming out of the downturn, these high-tech rigs lowered the drilling cost per foot by nearly “two-thirds.” They consistently drilled record wells. A second effect, revealed by a Schlumberger study several years later, found that downhole tool reliability improved almost “threefold” on these rigs. While it took tremendous courage to innovate in such an economic environment, ultimately it paid off, not just for one service provider, but for the industry as a whole.

Water droplet erosion behaviour of Ti–6Al–4V and mechanisms of material damage at the early and advanced stages

In this study, the water droplet erosion (WDE) behaviour of Ti–6Al–4V and mechanisms of material damage were investigated. The WDE test was conducted in an advanced rig in accordance with the ASTM G73 standard. The influence of impact speed between 150 and 350m/s on the WDE behaviour was explored and the cumulative mass losses versus the exposure time/number of impingements were plotted. It was observed that the higher the impact speed the faster the erosion initiation time and greater the maximum erosion rate (ERmax). ERmax was also found to be related to the impact speed with an exponent of 9.9 in a log–log scale. SEM images showed that the early stages of erosion damage were mainly limited to the formation of microcracks, asperities and isolated pits of irregular shapes. It was found that the most profound mode of material removal during the advanced stage of water droplet erosion was hydraulic penetration. Sub-surface, side wall cracking and material folding/upheaving were also features observed.

E&P Notes (May 2015)

E&P Notes Lessons From the Aviation Industry on Automation Trent Jacobs, JPT Senior Technology Writer One of the defining features of the 21st century will undoubtedly be the changing relationship between humans and automated machines. The aviation industry has long been a champion of automation and in March, three experts from this field offered their insights to oil and gas professionals about how the technology continues to be qualified and adopted. The presentations were made in London at the SPE’s Drilling Systems Automation Technical Section (DSATS) and IADC Advanced Rig Technology symposium, which is held each year on the eve of the SPE/IADC Drilling Conference and Exhibition. Faster Recognition Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor A project to predict how much carbon dioxide injected into an oil field is likely to remain there forever set off the US Department of Energy (DOE) on a search for faster data analysis methods. Speed matters because making projections going out as far as 1,000 years using a probabilistic model (Monte Carlo) will require long computing times, which are costly. DOE is trying to limit the total time by seeking quicker, lower-cost ways to generate the required data inputs by finding reasonably accurate methods that are faster than multiple processing runs of a full-field reservoir simulation model. Tough Tracers Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor A new miniature pressure/temperature sensor comes packaged inside a tough small ball capable of traveling to the bottom of a well while drilling and returning with data on board. The outer shell of the ball allows electrical components printed on a circuit board to survive a trip in the drilling mud to the bottom of the well, survive a close encounter with the drill bit, and return with readings along the way that can be wirelessly downloaded. Creators of the balls are seeking a lower-cost alternative to logging tools located behind the drill bit. The tracer was created by a company started by Mengjiao Yu, an assistant professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Tulsa, with backing from Saudi Aramco. Corrosion Prediction Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor There are oil fields in Saudi Arabia with many, long-lived wells and not enough inspection equipment to frequently check all the pipes for corrosion damage. “With a limited number of corrosion logging tools, we cannot cover all of them in 1 or 2 years,” said Mohammed AlAjmi, a production engineer for Saudi Aramco, who estimated that it would take 5 years with the available equipment in a presentation at the SPE Digital Energy Conference and Exhibition in The Woodlands, Texas. To reduce the risk of undetected corrosion damage inside and outside the casing, AlAjmi developed a method to predict which wells were at the highest risk of damage using data-driven models and artificial intelligence methods.