Kevin Wise elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering
November 7, 2018Kevin Wise, one of our Chief Advisors and Partners, was inducted by the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) on September 30 2018. Wise, along with two other engineers from Boeing, were among the 83 new and 16 international members inducted at the academy’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The academy acknowledged Wise for his application of optimal, robust and adaptive control to aircraft and advanced weapon systems.
The 2018 class of NAE
“National Academy of Engineering members are senior professionals in business, academia and government who are among the world’s most accomplished engineers,” said NAE President C.D. Mote Jr. “Their expertise, spanning all areas of engineering, is dedicated to providing advice on national needs to all areas of government. I congratulate and welcome the 2018 class of new members to the academy and look forward to our work together.”
The whole team of Kelda congratulates Kevin on one of the highest professional distinctions in engineering!
Kelda joins the Industry Master-programme
September 19, 2018Kelda has a long history of employing students as interns, and already has two PhD-candidates from USN and NTNU working as Research Engineers. This fall, Kelda again partnered with the University of Southeast-Norway (USN) and their Industry Master-programme, and employed Martine Alvestad as their first Systems Engineer Student.
All Industry Master-students from USN (Picture from USN.no)
The Industry Master-programme is designed to give students the opportunity to grow in the role of an engineer and become equipped to meet the industry's needs for efficiency and improved working methods. The students work and study 50/50 over the course of three years to receive their M.Sc in Systems Engineering. Martine previously has a B.Sc. in Mechatronical Engineering from the University of Agder and will be located at the Kelda main office in Porsgrunn.
For more information on the Industry Master-programme, visit the USN-webpage: Master of Science in Systems Engineering
Link to USN's article on the Industry Master-students immatriculation: Jobbar 50 prosent medan dei fullfører utdanninga (only in Norwegian).
First automated UBD operation in Russia
July 4, 2018Kelda's control system Leidar® has successfully been used for a fully automated Underbalanced Drilling (UBD) operation at the Archinskoe oil field in Russia. GNS and partner Air Drilling Associates performed the job for Gazpromneft Vostok. Watch the video below to see Leidar in-action (external link)
Completed offshore drilling in Indonesia
April 18, 2018A lot has happened since we completed our first onshore well in the Autumn of 2016. The times are busy with the development of new features and improvements of existing ones as we receive more feedback from the industry. We are extremely proud to announce that our MPD control system Leidar® completed its two first offshore operations in Indonesia the last quarter of 2017, drilling in total 5960 ft.
The performance of Leidar® during drilling operations made a strong impression on the experienced MPD crew. The capability of maintaining a constant bottom hole pressure during connections without operator intervention was also a great success. In the following screenshots made by the MPD crew, the consistent system performance of Leidar is shown in several connections.
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- Connection in downhole pressure control mode at 6413ft, with hole depth of 9460ft.
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- Connection in downhole pressure control mode at 7744 ft.
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- Connection in downhole pressure control mode at 8212 ft.
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- Connection in downhole pressure control mode at 8400 ft.
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- Connection in downhole pressure control mode at 8588 ft. The front tracker displays where the mud front is.
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- Connection in downhole pressure control mode at 8964ft.
Kelda Products (Kelda inside)
April 10, 2018
Funding from Oslofjordfondet
April 9, 2018
Another job, another success
July 24, 2017The team deliver more than ever and we see that both our core products are really getting traction and more experience every day.
Leidar® Control System has now been used in both UBD and MPD operations and we are working hard every day to make it the best there is out there. In addition to deliver the best control system, we now also design and deliver everything you need to upgrade your existing MPD/UBD package to perform beyond today’s standard. Nontraditional sensor packages, smart choke manifold solutions, electric actuators, control cabinets and backup power, all integrated in custom drilling packages is something we now do to make sure the user gets a system that works.
Straume® Hydraulics Simulator is, in addition to be used in everyday in-house testing and internal and external training of our Leidar® Control System, now the hydraulics engine in Oiltec Solutions hiDRILL Simulator. This joint venture project with Oiltec Solutions, partly funded through Skattefunn, is showing to be very promising and we hope to share more details on this in not to long.
Kevin Wise receives IEEE. Technical Excellence in Aerospace Control Award
December 25, 2016The whole team of Kelda would like to congratulate our Chief Advisor, Kevin Wise, with the IEEE. Technical Excellence in Aerospace Control Award of 2016, for the contributions to the flight demonstration of the Phantom Eye high altitude long endurance UAV using robust adaptive control.
Article in Teknamagasinet
December 5, 2016The 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:
Kickoff Workshop Industrial PhD Project
October 24, 2016A 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).
First MPD system operated by driller
September 26, 2016Our 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.
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- The driller changes the desired downhole pressure/effective desity.
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- Leidar integrated into driller chair.
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- Another driller is changing desired downhole pressure.
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.
Research Project Startup at HSN
September 21, 2016University 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.
MPD Conference in Galveston
April 11, 2016Kelda 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.
Successfull flow loop testing
March 25, 2016We 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.
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- On-site setup and training with drillers and Kelda personnel
Visit us at Al Mansoori’s stand at ADIPEC
November 9, 2015
Kelda Drilling Controls are joining Reform Energy at Al Mansoori’s stand to show the coming Automated MPD Manifold.