Gas and oil wells near Oberlin, Ohio

The integrity of oil and gas wells.

Public concerns about oil and natural gas extraction these days inevitably turn to hydraulic fracturing, where millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals are pumped underground at high pressures to crack open rocks. Hydraulic fracturing often occurs a mile or more down, far from the water we drink or the air we breathe. The focus for safety and environmental stewardship should often be s...

Oil and Gas Wells in Michigan

Control structure design for stabilizing unstable gas-lift oil wells

Active control of the production choke valve is the recommended solution to prevent casing-heading instability in gas-lifted oil wells. Focus of this work is to find a simple yet robust control structure for stabilization of the system. In order to find suitable control variables, a controllability analysis of the system with different candidate control variables and two alternative manipulated...

Stabilization of gas-lift oil wells using topside measurements

Highly oscillatory flow regimes that can occur in gas-lift oil wells have been successfully treated using conventional linear control. However, these control systems rely on downhole pressure measurements which are unreliable or even unavailable in some cases. In this paper we propose a solution based on a high gain observer for the state of the process. The estimates are used to compute the do...

Energy Delivery at Oil and Gas Wells Construction in Regions With Harsh Climate

Energy delivery at well construction in regions with hard climate is distinguished by variable demand in electric and heat power. Energy consumption of drilling equipment, production and living facilities varies greatly during the year, depending on power load charts and climate conditions. Power supply of remote well construction sites is mostly accomplished by operating autonomous power sourc...