Detection and Automatic Handling of Gas Kicks

The main objective of the project is to develop drilling concepts that improve safety and efficiency of oil well drilling, and in particular investigate algorithms for early detection and automatic handling of gas kick incidents. 

During drilling, instances of unforeseen influx of hydrocarbons due to high-pressure pockets in the reservoir are inevitable due to the uncertainties related to predicting reservoir characteristics. Such instances of influx are referred to as kicks in drilling terminology. New and efficient methods for kick detection and handling will increase cost-effectiveness of drilling and increase safety for personnel and the environment. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident in the Macondo field off the coast of Louisiana was caused by a kick that went unnoticed by both offshore and onshore personnel, leading to a blowout causing an explosion on the rig and the largest accidental oil spill in the history of petroleum industry.

Conventionally, the skill and experience of the crew determines how quickly and in what manner kicks are dealt with. Severe events are often caused by insufficient planning, lack of information, and human misinterpretations leading to harmful decisions being made. Technical problems related to kick detection is reported to be the direct cause of 13% of well control incidents in the Norwegian petroleum industry [1]. An additional 13% are due to "misconception/cognitive error".

The goal of the project is therefore a fully automated kick handling system: Early detection and immediate automatic action to limit the size of the influx by coordinated control of choke and pumps.  

[1] Well control incidents in Norwegian petroleum activities -- causes and measures, SINTEF-report A22981, 2012

Publications:

                Journal papers:

1)      Anfinsen, Diagne, Aamo, Krstic: An Adaptive Observer Design for n + 1 Coupled Linear Hyperbolic PDEs Based on Swapping, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Vol. 61, Nr. 12, pp 3979-3990, 2016

2)      Anfinsen, Aamo: Adaptive Stabilization of n + 1 Coupled Linear Hyperbolic Systems with Uncertain Boundary Parameters Using Boundary Sensing, Systems & Control Letters, Vol. 99, January, pp 72-84, 2017

3)      Anfinsen, Aamo: Disturbance Rejection in General Heterodirectional 1-D Linear Hyperbolic Systems Using Collocated Sensing and Control, Automatica, Vol. 76, pp 230-242, 2017

4)      Anfinsen, Strecker, Aamo: Rejecting Unknown Harmonic Disturbances in 2 × 2 Linear Hyperbolic PDEs, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, to appear, 2017

5)      Anfinsen, Diagne, Aamo, Krstic: Estimation of Boundary Parameters in General Heterodirectional Linear Hyperbolic Systems, Automatica, Vol. 79, pp 185-197, 2017

6)      Anfinsen, Aamo: Adaptive Stabilization of Linear 2 × 2 Hyperbolic Systems From Anti-Collocated Boundary Sensing, Systems & Control Letters, Vol. 104, pp 86–94, 2017

7)      Anfinsen, Aamo: Adaptive Stabilization of 2 × 2 Linear Hyperbolic Systems with an Unknown Boundary Parameter from Collocated Sensing and Control, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, to appear, 2017

8)      Anfinsen, Aamo: Adaptive Control of Linear 2 × 2 Hyperbolic Systems, Automatica, to appear, 2017

9)      Anfinsen, Aamo: Model Reference Adaptive Control of n + 1 Coupled Linear Hyperbolic PDEs, Systems & Control Letters, to appear, 2017

10)  Anfinsen, Aamo: Adaptive Output Feedback Stabilization of n + m Coupled Linear Hyperbolic PDEs with Uncertain Boundary Conditions, SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, to appear, 2017

11)  Anfinsen, Aamo: Model Reference Adaptive Control of 2 × 2 Coupled Linear Hyperbolic PDEs, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, provisionally accepted, 2017