The Norwegian Society of Graduate Technical and Scientific Professionals (Tekna), has an online magazine they use to tell different focused stories every month. Kelda Drilling Controls was in the October 2016 article one of their main companies to tell about with the headline “Here’s oil crisis profiteer”.
There is only this Norwegian version of this article:
A workshop marking the kickoff of the Industrial PhD Project HYDRA — HYdraulics modelling for DRilling Automation — was held at Kelda’s headquarters in Porsgrunn this week.
HYDRA is an R&D project under the Horizon2020 programme that includes 3 PhD studies on the topic of modelling for automated pressure control in drilling. The 3 PhD students will spend 50% of their time doing their research as part of the development team at Kelda Drilling Controls in Porsgrunn.
The objective of HYDRA is to develop a framework for multi-phase hydraulics modelling and model complexity reduction for drilling operations.
B.L: Linn, Ulf Jacob Aarsnes (IRIS), Prof. Will Schilders (TU/e), Prof. Nathan Van der Wouw (TU/e), Prof. Florent Di Meglio (Mines ParisTech), Glenn-Ole, Christian and Geir Arne. F.L: Harshit Bansal (TU/e), Mohammad Hossein Abbasi (TU/e), Jon Åge, Sajad Naderi Lordejani (TU/e) and Naveen Velmurugan (Mines ParisTech).
Our MPD control system Leidar® has been on its first onshore job on an HPHT well in the Middle East. The control system was installed with all three modules, Pressure Control, Real-Time Hydraulics Model and Influx Loss Detection. The system was integrated with the NOV control chair, with main operation from a touch screen panel in the driller's cabin. In addition to the MPD-specific data, the Leidar® Screen also displays data from the most important rig systems and sensors.
The performance of the control system in the field was excellent, and as expected, even better than the impressive performance in the flow loop.
In addition to the high performance of the control system, another aspect that was particularly appreciated by the drillers, was the ease of operation of the Leidar® Control System. Prior to the operation, our Straume® Hydraulics Simulator was connected to the Leidar® Control System and used to train the crew on the actual system. After a quick introduction, the crew had no problem to operate the system by themselves with ease. In operation, the driller actually preferred the Leidar® Screen for getting an overview over the drilling process in operation.
The MPD Choke Mainfold and Coriolis Meter.
University College of Southeast Norway (HSN) and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have received funding for research on new sensors and models for improved kick and loss detection in drilling. Kelda Drilling Controls is the initiator of the project and will contribute with in-house expertise and guidance together with other project partners from the drilling industry. The project involves four new PhD positions and has a budget of 20 million NOK plus in-kind contributions from the industry. Professor Bernt Lie and project administrator Håkon Viumdal were interviewed by Automatisering 05-2016 (see facsimile in Norwegian for details). Article on Automatisering.no. English version by Google translate.
Kelda will be on the Reform Energy Services stand and present a paper on this years SPE/IADC Managed Pressure Drilling & Underbalanced Operations Conference in Galveston.
Glenn-Ole Kaasa will present the paper on the Technology session on Tuesday at 15:15:
Adaptive Model Based Choke Control System for MPD Operations: Glenn-Ole Kaasa, Jon Åge Stakvik, Christian Berg, Kelda Drilling Controls, Ole Morten Aamo, NTNU, Urs Lehner, Reform Energy Services (SPE 179714)
This presentation will focus on vital aspects of how to test the sensitivity of a new adaptive choke control system for MPD, testing and commissioning of the system in the field and performance and lessons learned from flow loop tests. Further, the necessary steps for deploying the choke control system will be discussed, focusing on integrating the controller with a fit-for purpose hydraulic model to obtain estimated real-time downhole measurements.
We look forward to meeting you there.
We have now for seven months, in cooperation with Reform Energy Services, Air Drilling Associates and Al Mansoori, tested our Leidar® Pressure Controller (PC) in a large scale flow loop in Abu Dhabi. During the fourth testing phase in the flow loop, in early March 2016, the MPD Choke Manifold with the Leidar® Control System got tested with both single-phase and two-phase (nitrogen injection) flow. The test was a great success and several visitors got the chance to control the pressure and see how the system performed. For more details check out our Drilling Contractor article here.
Kelda Drilling Controls are joining Reform Energy at Al Mansoori’s stand to show the coming Automated MPD Manifold.
Glenn-Ole Kaasa, CEO at Kelda, will speak at the upcoming SPE Managed Pressure Drilling and Well Control Workshop in Rio de Janeiro this year. The talk entitled ‘Advances in Choke Control Algorithms for MPD’, will in particular address the topic of robustness of MPD control systems, and show examples of how adaptive control can make the control system gracefully handle severe disturbances such circulating out gas influxes.
We are proud to share the news that Vinicius de Oliveira is joining the Kelda team as a R&D Engineer this autumn. Vinicius is at the moment completing his PhD research at NTNU, where he’s been developing robust and adaptive control strategies to mitigate severe-slugging flow in oil and gas production.
Drilling Contractor published on their web page an article about the keynote presentation Kevin Wise had at the MPD/UBO Conference in Dubai.
Read the full article here: Complex control theory could produce autonomous drilling operations.