Modern Well Design

Modern Well Design - Second Edition presents a unified approach to the well design process and drilling operations. Following an introduction to the field, the second chapter addresses drilling fluids, as well as optimal mud weight, hole cleaning, hydraulic optimization, and methods to handle circulation losses. A relatively large chapter on geomechanics follows, presenting methods for wellbore fracture and collapse modeling, including methods to interpret caliper logs.

Contains a new generalized fracture model suitable for deep-water drilling

The start of any well design is to collect data and establish the design premises. To this end, Chapter Four presents well integrity issues, methods to select depths of casing seats, and also some important completion and production requirements. This encourages the design of a plan to last for the entire life of the well, defining loads that it may be subjected to at later stages.

Chapters Five and Six describe actual well design in the North Sea and a sub-sea high pressure high temperature (HPHT) well. Chapter Seven also addresses issues related to well integrity, and presents statistics regarding failures with production and injection wells.

Written for those performing work related to petroleum wells, including drilling and production engineers, drilling supervisors, and exploration geologists, this book can also serve as the basis for curriculums in well design courses for engineers at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Bernt S. Aadnoy is a Professor of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Stavanger in Norway. He started in the oil industry as a trainee for Phillips Petroleum in Odessa, Texas in 1978. He later worked for Phillips Ekofisk operations in Norway. In 1980 he started working for Rogaland Research where he mainly built a full scale offshore drilling rig for research purposes. This facility called Ullrigg still carries out research both in well technology and in rig automation. Dr. Aadnoy worked for Statoil and Saga Petroleum and entered his present position in 1994. He developed the common Well Design Manual for the Norwegian oil companies, which also led to the book Modern Well design in 1996. He has performed consultancy work for many oil companies, including being an advisor for the Petroleum Safety Authority. In the period 1998-2003 he was adjunct Professor at the University of the Faroe Islands where he built a petroleum engineering program aimed at the coming deep water exploration activities. In 2009 he was a visiting Professor at the University of Calgary. Professor Aadnoy holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Stavanger Tech, a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wyoming, a MS degree in Control Engineering from the University of Texas and a PhD in Petroleum Rock Mechanics from the Norwegian Institute of Technology. He has authored more than 120 publications mostly within drilling and rock mechanics but also within reservoir engineering and production. In addition to Modern Well Design he has also authored Mechanics of Drilling and will soon publish Fundamentals of Rock Mechanics. He was chief editor for the new SPE book: Advanced Drilling and Well Technology in 2009. Aadnoy has received numerous awards over the years, amongst them he was the 1999 recipient of the SPE International Drilling Engineering Award.