Archive | Featured Microsite Articles
MPD planning: How much is enough?
Posted on 30 October 2009 in 2008, Innovating While Drilling, September/October
By Paul Spriggs, Philip J Frink, Blade Energy Partners This article addresses the key drivers and risks associated with the use of applied backpressure managed pressure drilling. One of the two key issues that must be understood early on is whether the well can be drilled statically overbalanced or if it needs to be drilled [...]
Deepwater trend pushes risk management to forefront
Posted on 30 October 2009 in 2008, September/October, The Offshore Frontier
By Katie Mazerov, contributing editor As oil prices surge and easy-to-tap reservoirs dwindle, the oil and gas industry finds itself venturing into complicated formations and much deeper waters, using technology that just ten years ago was unfathomable. Now, with the stakes higher than they’ve ever been, an already risky business has become even riskier, with [...]
Defining drillstring specifications to maximize safety, performance in sour service environments
Posted on 30 October 2009 in 2008, Innovating While Drilling, September/October
By Anne Sevignon and William Gamisans, VAM Drilling The evolution of drilling programs has driven the industry to develop more suitable solutions adapted to extreme and aggressive environments such as sour service. High-strength drill pipe is necessary to achieve deeper drilling objectives, even if the sulfide stress cracking susceptibility is an acknowledged concern starting with [...]
Coloring book takes safety message home to employees’ families
Posted on 30 October 2009 in 2008, Drilling It Safely, September/October
While workplace safety is a priority for drilling companies, as it should be, MB Century has identified one often-forgotten area where safety messages and efforts should be targeted – the home front. MB Century (formerly Century Resources), which provides drilling rigs to the Australian and Asia Pacific regions, has implemented several best practice safety systems [...]
Developing a mature safety culture: Everyone must step up to be a safety leader champion
Posted on 30 October 2009 in 2008, Drilling It Safely, September/October
By Ron Clem, Executive Training International Safety leadership has been the “buzz” phrase and a major focus for most companies over the last few years. Organizations strive to improve HSE performance by adopting new strategies, training initiatives and slogans to reach “Goal Zero” where “no one gets hurt.” Historically, the worldwide oil and gas community, [...]
IADC ASP Report: Industry achieved record-low LTI rate in 2007
Posted on 30 October 2009 in 2008, Drilling It Safely, IADC: Global Leadership, Global Challenges, September/October
The drilling industry set another record with the lowest ever lost-time incidence (LTI) rate of 0.53 in 2007, a 5% improvement over 0.56 in 2006. The number of fatalities decreased as well, from 29 in 2006 to 23 in 2007. These are worthy achievements in an industry where rig demand continues to increase, as do [...]
What does it take to be environmentally responsible in this industry?
Posted on 30 October 2009 in 2008, Drilling It Safely, September/October
By Ian Hudson, Transocean We have come a long way in the drilling industry over the last few years in both technology and HSE performance. As pressure mounts to find more petroleum and to open up new areas for exploration drilling worldwide, our industry is experiencing an unprecedented period of growth, with many newbuild offshore [...]
Service company geomechanics group: Knowledge integration is our objective
Posted on 30 October 2009 in 2008, Innovating While Drilling, September/October
In today’s high-cost drilling environment, the lack of integration of valuable pore pressure or other reservoir information can cost a company millions of dollars, said Colin Sayers, scientific advisor for Schlumberger’s geomechanics group. He cited an example of one oil company where the geophysics department never told the drilling department about a small fault above [...]
Working the pore pressure puzzle: Different Languages, same goal
Posted on 30 October 2009 in 2008, Innovating While Drilling, September/October
Pore pressure knowledge is critical when designing a well. It’s unlikely that anyone in this industry would argue with that. Pore pressure drives the casing design, which drives the well plan, including hole sizes and mud weight. An inaccurate pore pressure model could even lead to a well control event, causing financial losses or, worse, [...]
Case study: new concentric expandable reamer tool used in Gulf of Mexico
Posted on 30 October 2009 in 2008, Innovating While Drilling, September/October
By Steven Radford, Will Thompson, Hughes Christensen; Mark Jenkins, INTEQ In the deepwater Green Canyon section of the Gulf of Mexico, an operator lost 10,000 bbl of synthetic oil-base drilling mud in one well before finally abandoning the project. In cooperation with two Baker Hughes companies – Hughes Christensen and INTEQ – the operator began [...]
Recent Drilling News
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