bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Pumping Oil: 155 Years of Artificial Lift
Authors: Beckwith Robin 
Published: February 2015

History of Artificial Lift
On 27 August 1859, near Titusville, Pennsylvania, USA, “Colonel” Edwin Laurentine Drake found “rock oil” in a well he deliberately drilled to produce it.
It was not just the oil that ushered in the modern petroleum era, but also the rig and tools Drake and his driller, saltwater-well expert and blacksmith “Uncle Billy” Smith, used to drill and pump the oil from the well.
“[T]he production end of the fledgling oil industry was able to launch its phenomenal expansion,” writes hydraulic pumping pioneer Clarence J. Coberly in “Production Equipment” (History of Petroleum Engineering, American Petroleum Institute, 1961), “with the almost-identical tools and techniques that had been developed in the waterwell industry.”
The greatest influence on the initial production equipment used by the oil industry, writes Coberly, resulted from the cable tools used to drill the wells: “The oscillating walking beam—a simple and effective means of lifting and dropping the bit—was also well-suited for operating the bottomhole plunger pump once the well was completed. Both drilling and pumping loads were small enough to permit the use of wooden structural elements with a few pieces of iron to serve as bearing points. As crude as the rig was, it was effective and inexpensive.”
Coberly also notes that almost all advances in drilling and producing methods relied either directly or indirectly on the use of casing. The first cased well was likely in 1861.
Within 10 years of Drake’s discovery, well casing was routine and conventional pumping equipment was well-established as consisting of what is now known as the “standard rig front.”
History: Sucker-Rod Lift (Beam Pumping)
Pumping by combining a walking beam and sucker rods extends back at least to 476 CE, when the walking-beam principle was known to have been used in Egypt. In addition, archeologists—when excavating wealthier families’ homes that existed in the early days of the Roman Empire—have found double-acting pumps, made of cast lead, with plungers made of wood and leather. Roman sucker rods were made of wood and worked in compression.
Industry Challenges Drive the Need for New Business Models
Authors: Schorn Patrick 
Published: February 2015

Management
The increasing diversity of oil and gas resources presents technical challenges for our customers—and at the same time opportunities for oilfield services companies. The challenges range from reducing subsurface risk as exploration and appraisal begins, to increasing the ultimate recovery achievable when the reservoir reaches the end of its economic life. These challenges can be impacted by technology, workflow, people, global back-office support, software, and by business models, which are evolving as the demand for integrated operations has increased over the years.
Business Models Evolution
In terms of business models, the integration of products and services with workflow and process can take many forms. Fig. 1 shows the evolution of business models for our industry. As the pace and complexity of operations have grown, the traditional approach—typically known as “discrete” services—has become increasingly inefficient and expensive for our customers to manage. To control costs and minimize downtime, operators may solicit tenders for “bundled” services, lumping together several related discrete offerings from a single supplier for a lower total cost. While this “bundled” approach may reduce the price, it often fails to boost efficiency, especially when the entire product lines and in many cases, the individual service provider, continue to function independently.
Given these drawbacks and the magnitude of the challenges facing the industry today, both onshore and offshore, what we need are truly integrated operations. So you might be wondering: What is an “integrated” operation? Put simply, it is one in which the interactions among the parts are fundamentally different than they have been in conventional discrete or bundled services operations. In integrated operations, all the products, services, and personnel are streamlined and coordinated across the usual domain boundaries as if they were a cohesive system with a single objective.
As an industry, we need to integrate services in field operations, at the well site, as well as technologies and engineering workflows back in the office. The ultimate integrated operation would be one in which both parties—oil company and service provider—work together as one, removing the duplication of efforts that is currently taking place.
Our Integrated Project Management business is one example of this. It is made up of well construction and production management projects and we have a large organization that supports these types of projects. It was started 19 years ago to address a growing requirement to integrate services and technologies and has grown into a portfolio of multiyear, multirig contracts as well as into technically more challenging work in deeper and tougher wells. The majority of the contracts are long term. The evolution of these business models has changed from the mid-2000s to year-end 2013, with a trend toward integrated-type projects.
Soft Competency Development as a Global Challenge
Authors: Fattahi Behrooz , Milanovich N. , Howes Susan , Paccaloni Giovanni , Brett Ford 
Published: February 2015

Talent & Technology
The global nature of the workplace in the petroleum industry has introduced a new challenge to our competitive business landscape: the development of soft competencies as a critically important element in driving productivity. Soft skills as an element of sustainability brings success to individuals and organizations in a variety of workplace activities, such as forging alliances, creating a team harmony that produces collaboration and innovation, and managing and using the human and system components to influence outcomes and achieve business goals. As the nature of workplace engagement shifts, soft competencies provide individuals with the ability to manage the social, cultural, technical, and environmental expectations of both the individuals and their organizations.
In an October 2013 JPT article, the Soft Skills Committee of SPE introduced the Soft Competency Matrix, which is governed by attributes stemming from progression in people capabilities and actions; growth and augmentation of human capabilities with age and experience; and socioeconomic, cultural, and traditional dimensions (Figs. 1 and 2). The authors noted that while the first two elements were governed by a continuing journey through time and personal maturity dimensions, the changes in the third element could be abrupt depending on the attributes needed for the new work assignment.
Global Challenge for SPE
The use of the matrix allows individuals to measure their soft competency level against the expectation to identify current gaps and chart an improvement path. This is obviously a starting point for engagement to better manage and prepare for the ongoing changes and to save time to autonomy for our industry professionals. Moving from a world primarily defined by the location business needs and technical capabilities to one that also emphasizes soft competency as a requirement for success allows the employers to assess the competency gaps in their employees’ soft skills.
Achieving Drilling-Performance Improvement in Horizontal Tight-Gasfield Development
Authors: Wilson Adam 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Special Publications Editor Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper SPE 166699, ’Achieving Drilling-Performance Improvement in Horizontal Tight-Gasfield Development,’ by Mohamed Najwani, SPE, Yaseen Najwani, SPE, and Hani Al Lawati, BP Exploration (Epsilon); Colin Cockburn, SPE, BP Exploration Operating Company; and Mohammad Reza Heidari, SPE, and Martin Sanderson, SPE, Schlumberger, prepared for the 2013 SPE/IADC Middle East Drilling Technology Conference and Exhibition, Dubai, 7-9 October. The paper has not been peer reviewed.
The full-field development plan for the Khazzan project in Oman is based on drilling approximately 300 wells targeting gas-producing horizons at measured depths of approximately 6000 m with 1000-m horizontal sections. The first attempt to drill these wells had to overcome many drilling challenges, including wellbore instability and drilling dysfunctions. This paper shows how the application of existing technologies and processes is leading to performance gains and improvements in wellbore quality.
Introduction
BP has embarked on an appraisal drilling campaign that targets a tight gas reservoir in northern Oman. The subject field is an area of approximately 2800 km2 and contains the Cambrian Barik, Miqrat, and Amin reservoirs.
The field-development plan is based on a deep-horizontal-well design. When the appraisal phase began, there was very limited experience within the country in drilling deep horizontal gas wells. Other operators in Oman were mostly drilling vertical gas wells. There were no analog data available on horizontal wells in the Barik reservoir.
The wells will be drilled vertically to approximately 4000-m measured depth before building up and landing to horizontal in the Barik or Amin reservoir. An 8½×8?-in. 1000-m horizontal interval is drilled, and a 7×4½-in. tapered liner is cemented in place before fracturing operations. Figs. 1 and 2 are schematics of the well designs.
The targeted reservoir is either Barik or Amin sandstone, both of which have a high unconfined compressive strength (exceeding 35,000 psi). The Barik sandstone is at the upper margins of the global rock-strength envelope. Indeed, when core samples were analyzed by the bit manufacturer, the strength far exceeded any of their global stock of reference rock samples.
Horizontal drilling in these hard-rock conditions presents several challenges:
Hard rock and slow rate of penetration (ROP)
High levels of shock and vibration
Polycrystalline-diamond-compact (PDC) -bit cutter durability
Drillpipe fatigue
Wellbore stability
Torque and drag management
High downhole static temperatures up to 143°C
Technology Focus: Sand Management and Sand Control (October 2014)
Authors: Wetzel R.J. 
Published: February 2015

Technology Focus
In recent years, I have not seen any significant changes in the systems used for sand control, and I have been wondering why. It may have more to do with our confidence and comfort in our current approaches than with not having any Earth- shattering new ideas. The phrase “necessity is the mother of invention” is probably valid in this case.
The necessity has been evident in the ways that our industry has expanded the capabilities of the existing systems that we already use successfully. These expansions are in a great many areas—temperature, pressure, size, length, materials used, modeling capabilities, reliability, complexity, and more.
I think it is safe to say that the engineers and companies involved, in either building or using sand-control systems, have made significant strides and have added critical learnings to our industry. I expect that we will have another revolution or revelation in sand management or sand control. As an example, development of unconventional and tight-rock assets is causing our industry to develop novel approaches to the tools and the pumping processes that are used. I am already seeing some of those ideas showing up in the modifications to our proven sand-control systems.
In line with this broader scope of sand-control systems and methods, this feature, previously called Sand Management and Frac Pack, is being renamed. The new name is Sand Management and Sand Control. This new name recognizes that there is a range of systems and approaches that continue to be used by our industry as we work to provide the best approach for each asset that we develop. I am confident that you, our readers, will agree with this broader scope.
The papers selected for this feature focus on some remarkable adaptations based on standard systems and problems that we have faced for years. These papers highlight multizone applications, erosion tolerance, and shale stability and control. All of these are dealt with every day, in various ways, by completion engineers around the world. JPT
Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org.
OTC 24884 Single-Trip Multizone Gravel-Packing Case History Improves Anticipated Production From the Berantai Field by E. Damasena, Petrofac Energy Development, et al.
SPE 169440 Design and Validation of an Improved Shunt-Tube System by A. Bonner, Halliburton, et al.
SPE 168636 Evolution of Frac-Pack Design and Completion Procedures for High-Permeability Gas Wells in Subsea Service by Vibhas J. Pandey, ConocoPhillips, et al.
Energy's Struggle with Rapidly Changing Roles, Responsibilities, and Reputation
Authors: Mathieson Derek , Bryant Peter J. 
Published: February 2015

Guest editorial
Almost every aspect of modern society is supported or influenced by energy—and yet it is one of the least understood and possibly one of the most reviled industries on the planet. Whether we like it or not, the energy sector’s public image has been shaped over the past couple of generations to be synonymous with corporate profiteering, environmental disregard, and social abstinence. It is hard for those of us who work in this industry to rationalize such a reputation when we know that our collective programs on safety, the environment, corporate social responsibility, and technology innovation are among the best to be found in any sector.
This is the energy paradox, and in the face of an ever-growing and daunting demand for energy, it is apparent that the industry’s relationship with society has to change. But is it one that we can tackle on our own?
Changes at Scale
Nowhere is the energy paradox more evident than with the shale revolution in the United States. In just a few years, the industry has moved from initial experimentation to drilling almost 40,000 wells per year—changing employment and prosperity in many parts of the country, creating the potential for energy independence, and disrupting long-standing equilibria in the geopolitical landscape. In addition to this direct impact, the promise of sustained, accessible, and affordable energy is becoming a powerful economic multiplier, with an increasing number of new manufacturing plants replacing coal with natural gas, resulting in a marked impact on the reduction of carbon emissions.
The sheer scale of this activity, though, is stressing domestic infrastructure beyond design, overloading pipelines, roadways, and rail networks. More and more, these activities are expanding into private land and creating new engagements among companies that represent our industry and stakeholders in communities, local governments, and states. It remains to be seen to what degree these constituents are willing to deal with what is, in effect, the reindustrialization of the United States when it is in their own backyards.
Energy as a Foreign Language
We do have some strong indications that people are taking notice. Shale development today dominates the conversations and activities of a myriad of special interest groups, trade organizations, and government and community initiatives as well as industry forums. However, with more than 10,000 E&P companies working in this space in the United States alone, all of these activities, while important in their own right, are extremely fragmented and very few represent more than a few stakeholders.
It is at the interfaces among all these groups that the energy paradox is most obvious. The industry, mostly well intentioned, has typically developed messages that are too often meant to “teach” other groups about the “facts” of shale development. But these messages can be perceived as arrogant, condescending, and uncaring by stakeholders who have other, just as well-intentioned, viewpoints.
E&P Notes (November 2014)
Authors: Jacobs Trent , Rassenfoss Stephen 
Published: February 2015

E&P Notes
Testing the World’s First Modular Capture Vessels
Trent Jacobs, JPT Technology Writer
In response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident that claimed the lives of 11 men and led to the worst oil spill in United States history, the offshore industry devised new technologies and methods that would allow for a quicker response if a similar event was to occur again in the US Gulf of Mexico. Among the newest response systems are the conversion of two Aframax lightering tankers into capture and containment systems capable of handling 100,000 BOPD of oil and 200 MMscf/D of gas. The company that designed the emergency-response vessels said they are the first production facilities to be built with the hope of never seeing first oil.
“They are basically (floating production, storage, and offloading units) that are now available in the Gulf of Mexico for this application,” said Charles Miller, chief technology officer of Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC) at the recent SPE Deepwater Drilling and Completions Conference in Galveston, Texas.
Saudi Aramco Displays Reservoir Research Priorities
Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor
Saudi Aramco’s plan to create a global network of research centers is becoming a reality. It recently celebrated the opening of its Houston center that the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer Khalid Al-Falih described as “an upstream research center like no other.”
The opening of the Aramco Research Center in the heart of the energy technology center in Houston offered a look at how the national oil company is bringing in expertise from around the world to bear on maximizing output from Saudi Arabian reservoirs. The new research center is an extension of Saudi Aramco’s research hub in Dhahran, with complementary groups working on reservoir monitoring and imaging, as well as sensors and drilling. But there is something unique in the Houston center: unconventional reservoir research and development.
Stakeholder Issues Play Key Role in Shale Future
Authors: Parshall Joel 
Published: February 2015

Stakeholder Engagement
As the shale revolution changes the map of oil and natural gas development and shifts the balance of production between regions, public acceptance is an increasing challenge. The unconventional resource boom has brought intensive drilling and production operations to areas often unaccustomed to these activities and frequently more populous than traditional petroleum development areas.
A variety of public concerns have assumed a high profile, including the environmental issues of water use; perceived risk to groundwater aquifers; waste disposal; truck traffic, dust, and noise; and emissions.
While the success of production from shales and other tight-rock formations draws attention nationally and globally, its future depends much on the attention and reception it receives locally. As shale drilling has surged, public eyes may be more focused on the community impacts of oil and gas operations than ever before.
Some jurisdictions have imposed moratoria or even bans on the use of hydraulic fracturing, which is an essential component of the success of shale development. The risk of similar measures and additional restrictions spreading to other areas is real. There is increasing industry recognition of the need to reach out to communities, share information, and listen to stakeholders.
Enactments such as fracturing moratoria and bans are “the single thing that can stymie more development in these unconventional resource plays,” said Clay Bretches, chief executive officer of Sendero Midstream. Formerly vice president of E&P services and minerals at Anadarko, Bretches chaired the coordinating subcommittee of the North American Resource Development Study for the National Petroleum Council’s (NPC’s) report, “Prudent Development— Realizing the Potential of North America’s Abundant Natural Gas and Oil Resources,” presented to the United States Secretary of Energy in September 2011.
For the industry, Bretches and others said, sustainable success in field development demands an increased willingness and ability to engage all stakeholders, including communities and local governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and a variety of industry-related bodies. This is in addition to higher levels of government that are customarily involved. The need for increased stakeholder engagement was emphasized in the “Prudent Development” report.
Ultra-HP/HT Drilling-Fluid Design for Frontier Deep Gas Exploration
Authors: Wilson Adam 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Special Publications Editor Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper OTC 24830, ’Ultra-HP/HT Drilling-Fluid Design for Frontier Deep Gas Exploration in South Malay Basin,’ by Anuradee Witthayapanyanon, SPE, Kathi Chandramouleeswaran, Ahmad Bin Dollah, SPE, Dennis Clapper, SPE, Ronald Bland, SPE, and Akachai Kongsawast, SPE, Baker Hughes; and Michael Pepple, SPE, Khairul Anwar Nasrudin, SPE, and M. Abshar, SPE, Petronas, prepared for the 2014 Offshore Technology Conference Asia, Kuala Lumpur, 25-28 March. The paper has not been peer reviewed.
This paper discusses the laboratory evaluation of potential high-pressure/high-temperature (HP/HT) drilling-fluid designs considered for a deep gas exploration well in Malaysia. Laboratory testing included evaluation of rheological properties, fluid loss, sag, and electrical stability, along with chemical analysis. Properties were measured before and after extended dynamic and static aging, up to the expected bottomhole temperature (BHT) and bottomhole pressure. Formulations were adjusted and retested until acceptable results were achieved.
Introduction
Proper drilling fluid is a critical component in safe drilling in HP/HT exploration. High subsurface pressures are controlled by the elevated density of the drilling fluid achieved through high concentrations of weighting agents. However, high-density muds often possess high rheological properties and, as a result, exhibit high equivalent circulating densities (ECDs), lost circulation, and low rates of penetration. Formulating thermally stable fluid for extreme high temperatures is a challenging task because conventional oilbased- mud additives thermally degrade at approximately 400°F. Nevertheless, maintaining constant fluid density in extreme borehole conditions is essential for well control.
Well Background and Drilling Objectives.
The well was one of the first ultra- HP/HT exploratory wells planned for the South Malay basin. The objectives of the drilling-fluid design for this well were
No nonproductive time associated with drilling mud
Stable drilling fluid with low shear strength at static BHT (SBHT) for 16 and 48 hours
Stable rheological properties at SBHT
No excessive ECD associated with drilling fluid at bottomhole circulating temperature
Controlled HP/HT fluid loss as per program and wellbore conditions
Controlled salinity of water phase to balance formation
Drilling-Fluid Design for Ultra-HP/HT Deep Gas Well
The surface and upper-hole-section drilling- fluid plan for this well mainly consisted of high-viscosity sweeps of saltwater gel and potassium chloride water- based mud. Invert-emulsion drilling muds were used in the lower sections of the well.