Research Project Startup at HSN

September 21, 2016

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.

automatisering_0516

MPD Conference in Galveston

April 11, 2016

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.

Read more about the conference here

Successfull flow loop testing

March 25, 2016

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.

 

Glenn-Ole Kaasa speaker at SPE MPD workshop in Rio

August 14, 2015

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.

Link to workshop

New R&D Engineer: Vinicius de Oliveira

June 1, 2015

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.

Kevin Wise presented at the MPD/UBO Conference

April 21, 2015

Kevin Wise held the opening keynote presentation at the IADC/SPE Managed Pressure Drilling & Underbalanced Operations Conference in Dubai this year. He is Chief Advisor at Kelda Drilling Controls and Senior Technical Fellow at The Boeing Company.

The presentation focused on the evolution and some of the challenges the aerospace industry has encountered over the years and also similarities to what challenges the drilling industry faces. His many years experience in development of autonomous systems makes us confident that we are on the right path in the evolution of the drilling operations today.

Kelda Drilling Controls is proud to have him on the team to Develop next generation MPD technology; Enabling operation by the driller as a Best Practice drilling operation.

Industrial PhD funding granted

November 1, 2014

Our two Research Engineers, Jon Åge Stakvik and Christian Berg, got their Industrial PhD funding granted by the Norwegian Research Council. Their topics will be “Adaptive model-based control of downhole pressure during drilling operations” and “Modeling for automatic control and estimation of influx and loss during drilling operations”.

New Research Engineer: Jon Åge Stakvik

June 28, 2014

JAS_Uten_slips_fvWe are proud to present Jon Åge Stakvik in our team as a Research Engineer in Kelda Drilling Controls.

Will work on his industrial Ph.D. with Kelda Drilling Controls and NTNU in the topic of adaptive model-based control of downhole pressure during drilling operations. Received his M.Sc. in engineering cybernetics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in the spring of 2014 within guidance and control of vehicles.