Recently, a renewed interest arises in the application of nanotechnology for the upstream petroleum industry. In particular, adding nanoparticles to fluids may drastically benefit enhanced oil recovery and improve well drilling, by changing the properties of the fluid, rocks wettability alteration, advanced drag reduction, strengthening the sand consolidation, reducing the inter-facial tension and...

Downhole drilling motors or mud motors are frequently used during the oil and gas well construction, especially for construction of directional and horizontal segments. However, low operation life of the down hole drilling motors and high rate of wear in their working elements may constrain their application due to technical and economical disadvantageousness. In this work, a high-torque modula...

This paper considers the problem of extracting the relationships between two time series in a non-linear non-stationary environment with Hidden Markov Models (HMMs). We describe an algorithm which is capable of identifying associations between variables. The method is applied both to synthetic data and real data. We show that HMMs are capable of modelling the oil drilling process and that they ...

Coiled tubing is used in a variety of oil well operations including drilling, completions, and remedial activities. For each of these applications coiled tubing offers the benefits of reduced costs, speed, and reduced environmental impact. Coiled tubing possesses a limitation however, in that it may buckle in service. In this situation the tubing may be damaged, and operations may be delayed or...

Source: Franz Kockel et al. (1996) Geotektonischer Atlas von NVV Deutschland Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschalten und Rohstoffe, Hannover. In recent years, an increasing number of oil and gas projects involving drilling through salt have been presented by different exploration companies. It is important for underwriters, lawyers, regulators, financiers and engineers to have a clear understanding...

Traditional methods for the disposal of Oil-Based Mud (OBM) drill cuttings have included pit burial or leaving the untreated cuttings scattered in-situ. Increasingly stringent regulations and increased environmental awareness have required new and improved disposal techniques. Scomi Equipment Inc, with over twenty one years Drilling Waste Management experience, has developed a system to remedia...

Determination of optimum location for drilling a new well not only requires engineering judgments but also consumes excessive computational time. Additionally, availability of many physical constraints such as the well length, trajectory, and completion type and the numerous affecting parameters including, well type, well numbers, well-control variables prompt that the optimization approaches b...

A model for the calculation of the spreading and deposition of drilling mud and cuttings has been developed. The calculations are based on a Lagrangian particle approach, which means that the properties of the discharge are represented by moving particles in the model domain. The initialization of the particles is based on the output from an Eulerian near-field underwater plume model. In additi...

This paper attempts to provide a unified framework that takes into account various aspects of the oil and natural gas exploratory process such as the depletion of the resource base with time, uncertainty in drilling, changing economic incentives and the joint product aspects of the oil and gas exploration. The equilibrium in the market for oil and natural gas prospects is first described and th...

Emissions from the in situ burning of oil in the Gulf of Mexico after the catastrophic failure of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform were sampled for polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/PCDF). A battery-operated instrument package was lofted into the plumes of 27 surface oil fires over a period of four days via a tethered aerostat to determine and charact...