Smart Monitoring and Decision Making for Regulating Annulus Bottom Hole Pressure While Drilling Oil Wells

Abstract

-Real time measurements and development of sensor technology are research issues associated with robustness and safety during oil well drilling operations, making feasible the diagnosis of problems and the development of a regulatory strategy. The major objective of this paper is to use an experimental plant and also field data, collected from a basin operation, offshore Brazil, for implementing smart monitoring and decision making, in order to assure drilling inside operational window, despite the commonly observed disturbances that produce fluctuations in the well annulus bottom hole pressure. Using real time measurements, the performance of a continuous automated drilling unit is analyzed under a scenario of varying levels of rate of penetration; aiming pressure set point tracking (inside the operational drilling window) and also rejecting kick, a phenomenon that occurs when the annulus bottom hole pressure is inferior to the porous pressure, producing the migration of reservoir fluids into the annulus region. Finally, an empirical model was built, using real experimental data from offshore Brazil basins, enabling diagnosing and regulating a real drilling site by employing classic and advanced control strategies.

Transient Open‐Closed Loop Experimental Validation of a Nonlinear Two‐Phase Flow Distributed System

“…[30,41,42] A smart monitoring technique based on in-line sensors, using a decision-making tool, employed classic feedback control and nonlinear predictive control structures in order to regulate annulus bottomhole pressure. [43] Disturbances such as stoppages for maintenance, pipe connection procedure, changes on the rate of penetration (ROP), viscosity and density fluctuations, kick, lost circulation, and stuck pipe must be rejected during drilling operations. Based in this perspective, the transient nature of the process and the need for a mutable control configuration is evinced.…”

“…[ 30,41,42 ] A smart monitoring technique based on in‐line sensors, using a decision‐making tool, employed classic feedback control and nonlinear predictive control structures in order to regulate annulus bottomhole pressure. [ 43 ]…”

A Fault-Tolerant Integrated Borehole Trajectory Location Method Based on Geomagnetism/IMU of MWD

“…In petroleum engineering, the oil-gas drilling is entered highly challenging operating environment, such as deep wells, extent reach wells and thin reservoirs, which put forward higher requirements on oil-gas drilling technology [1], [2]. At present, the oil productivity of conventional horizontal wells is unable to meet the increasing demand for oil resources in the world [3].…”