Verdande releases DrillEdge 3.5

Friday, July 13, 2012

Verdande Technology, the Norwegian company which develops case based reasoning technology for drilling, reports that it has released version 3.5 of its DrillEdge software.

The new release includes a system for spotting differential sticking, when the drill string gets stuck, due to a pressure differential between the drilling mud and the formation. The differences in the pressures might not be very high, but the force pushing the drill string against the well wall can be high because this differential pressure is applied over a large area, perhaps the entire length of the drill string.

Differential sticking is, for most drilling organizations, the greatest drilling problem worldwide in terms of time and financial cost, according to Schlumberger's oil and gas glossary.

The DrillEdge software analyses real time data from the drilling rig, and compares it to data from past drilling projects, to try to work out if the drill bit is about to get stuck.

DrillEdge already has solutions for spotting twist-off, monitoring of hole cleaning, stuck pipe, lost circulation and early washout detection.

The system provides the user advance notification in real time of a potential costly problem, via email and SMS messaging.