The Managing of the Mud

Drilling mud is used to assist the drilling of wellbore into the earth. Often used while drilling oil and natural gas wells and on exploration drilling rigs, mud is also used for much simpler wellbores. For instance, water wells. The three main categories of drilling fluids are water-based mud, oil-based mud, and synthetic mud. The main functions of the drilling mud include providing hydrostatic pressure to prevent formation fluids from entering into the borehole, keeping the drill bit cool and clean during drilling, carrying out drill cuttings, suspending the drill cuttings while drilling is paused, and when the drilling assembly is brought in and out of the borehole. The mud that is used for a particular job is selected to avoid formation damage and to limit corrosion.

On a drilling rig, mud is pumped from the mud pits through the drill string where it comes out of the nozzles on the drill bit, cleaning and cooling the drill bit in the process. The mud then carries the crushed or cut rock (better known as cuttings) up the annulus between the drill string and the sides of the hole

The drilling fluids carry the cuttings excavated by the drill bit up to the surface. The ability to do so depends on the cutting size, shape, density, and speed of the fluid traveling up the borehole, which is also known as annular velocity. The mud viscosity is another important property, as cuttings will settle to the bottom of the well if the viscosity is too low. Fluids that have shear thinning and elevated viscosities are efficient for wellbore cleaning. High density fluids may clean the hole adequately even with lower annular velocities, but may have a negative impact if mud weight is in excess of that needed to balance the formation pressure. For this reason, mud weight is not usually increased for hole cleaning purposes.

Mud density should be limited to the minimum necessary for well control and wellbore stability. If too great, it may fracture the formation. Depending on the mud system in use, a number of additives can improve the filter cake and therefore maintain the wellbore stability.

As we can see, mud is a vital part of drilling operations. How can mud be managed in such a way to have success in these operations? This type of mud contains carefully chosen additives to control its properties. It is the responsibility of the mud engineer to ensure that any new mud that is produced and added, meets the required specifications.

In the past, mud engineers used paper forms or Excel® spreadsheets to record mud properties, product usage, and inventory every morning. With these methods, engineers encountered problems such as disorganization of numerous daily reports and difficulty in generating end-of well recaps.

MUDPRO is a mud reporting software developed by PVI that complies with API specifications for field use.

MUDPRO - Drilling Mud Reporting Software With a backbone of databases, this all-inclusive model highly improves data gathering, sharing and management. MUDPRO is designed for mud engineers at the rig sites as well as the company men in the office. A mud engineer can use it to record mud data and generate daily reports. It can also be used by company men for reviewing and managing data, making an end-of-well recap, and comparing data between multiple wells.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

In 1964 Bob Dylan said:

The order is rapidly fadin'

and the first one now will later be last

for the times they are a-changin'.

Those words are more real today than ever before. Viewing it from a technological perspective there’s no doubt in everyone’s mind how the modern world has evolved.  The oil and gas industry as a whole is in an accelerated and continuous state of change due to a combination of engineering, technology and innovation. This change has left no part of the industry untouched.

For instance before, mud engineers most likely did not have time to enjoy a good cup of coffee in the morning when making a mud report due to the amount of time they had to put into it to have it ready on time. As technology advances the story about the cup of coffee is a lot different. Thanks to technology mud engineers now with the help of software can make mud reports in less time and enjoy their coffee while the software does the work.

Change equals progress and progress equals success and that’s the case of our drilling mud reporting software, MUDPRO.

MUDPRO - drilling mud reporting

From its first version to its latest, MUDPRO has come a long way and it is without a doubt one of our most popular software. Even from its first release in 2011, MUDPRO proved to be a great tool for mud engineers. The program allows you to generate daily mud reports, save all data in your computer for further reviews, and manage inventory and cost. MUDPRO also allows you to easily import and export well data, do a recap report in seconds, and perform engineering calculations among many other features. However the way MUDPRO has evolved is proof that here at PVI we are updated with the latest trends. Our priority is to keep our customers satisfied and to make their work load lighter. With software like MUDPRO, mud engineers can become multitasking experts.

Having said all of that, as the industry changes so must the people related to it. In order to thrive in these times, the companies in the oil and gas industry have to be ready for whatever changes and challenges lie ahead. It’s time to keep evolving, because the times they are a-changin’.

As Smooth As A Cruise

“For the next four days and nights, you do not need to worry about making meals, washing dishes, finding restaurants or driving around. You are on vacation!” The host of the first night show in the Disney Wonder Cruise ship disclaimed, while everyone in the audience including me bursted into cheers.

With the exception of those of us who are obsessed with cooking and do not want to take breaks from our daily routines, most people love cruise vacations because they free us from those tedious work and bring us to remote places.

Smooth cruises are as fascinating as exotic destinations. Vacationers are looking for fun, excitement, stimulation and pleasant surprises. The expectations of 2,680 passengers are met by 1,000 crew members. On Average, every 3 guests are served by more than 1 crew member. No wonder I felt the impeccable quality of services.

British writer Arthur C. Clarke made Clarke’s Three Laws. The last one of them is: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” My experience aboard the Disney Wonder Cruise reminded me of our drilling software and consulting services we provide to the drilling community.

On the service side, we do drilling engineering consulting to companies or individuals. It is normally one-to-one. Our drilling software, on the other hand, is often one-to-many. We develop a particular solution, such as MUDPRO (drilling mud reporting software), and provide it to mud engineers all over the world.

MUDPRO - Drilling Mud Reporting | Pegasus Vertex, Inc.

We also realize that many drilling fluid engineers actually make some mud reporting software using Excel spreadsheets to replace paper forms. These spreadsheets might serve the purpose of reporting to some degree. However, keeping track of numerous daily reports in terms of spreadsheets and creating end-of-well recaps are challenging, to say the least.

As a drilling software company, we always want to streamline the daily calculations such as mud reporting. MUDPRO is the solution to remove some of the burdens that mud engineers have to carry every morning and at the completion of drilling.

Drilling Mud Report Sample | Pegasus Vertex, Inc.

Like a cruise ship, MUDPRO is created by a team of petroleum engineers, graphical interface designers, programmers and software testers (quality controllers). Quite a few companies think that we have only a couple of genius developing MUDPRO. Far from that, we not only have a group of people involved, but also have spent a few years to arrive at our current level of comprehensiveness of mud reporting.

As software developers, we know that many engineers can program. It is our feeling that unless you love to code, you should leave that dirty and tedious job to some dedicated professionals like the folks at PVI, because we have an experienced team whose mission and passion are software creation.

Cooking meals, or washing dishes in a cruise ship? I don’t think so. Developing drilling software while drilling a well? That is the reason I recommend PVI drilling software for your next drilling project. This way you can be on cruise control; as smooth as the cruise journey I am taking.  Safe travels.

An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Cure

Recently, I had the pleasure of shopping in a well-established furniture store. The show room is huge with 2-stories of display space. The way they arranged sofas, tables and dimmed lights all created cozy environment. I bought a few items. The salesman made an extra effort by showing me the inventory and check-up places before delivery. The inventory occupies more space than show room. What impressed me the most is the spacious and well-lit check-up place. “We make sure all our furniture are in perfect condition before they leave our store.” That was the moment I felt I was taken care of. Then, I noticed a slogan in the delivery room as shown below:

An_Ounce_of_Prevention_is_worth_a_Proud_of_Cure_Pegaus_vertex

This triggered me to give a presentation to our development team and write this article.

We develop drilling software. When we demonstrate software, we spare no efforts to show the best sides of models, just as furniture stores create beautiful setting to display them. Before releasing the software, we often go to extreme to debug the code. This is similar to furniture stores’ effort to ensure the quality of goods, only that our products are sometimes used by hundreds of people. Take the example of our MUDPRO (drilling mud reporting software), we have about 500+ active users. If we can fix one bug in MUDPRO, we will eliminate 500+ complaints, replies and would-be frustration from users. This is power of lever: 1 hour of careful coding and testing from our side leads to 100+ hours of saving on both our developers and customers.

As software developers, we do not face our end users very often; however, our products such as MUDPRO meet them every day. In a sense, we are the software we develop and we strive to create a better “we”.

A friend of mine, John, after hearing the story of the slogan in the store, told me: “It may be better expressed: ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’” His suggestion became the title of this article. Thank you, John!

A Little of Everything

The Orange Show is one man’s vision of what a monument to the orange would look like. All of it is hand-built and adorned with what most people consider trash. It looks like a house and functions like a house but it is a piece of art, and a thought-provoking reminder of what one person can do when they set their mind to something.

The_Orange_Show

For one dollar, you can see…

Metal wheel rims from bicycles, wagons and old tractors are featured everywhere. They line the balconies and stairwells. They float in the air on the roof. They are multi-colored and of all different sizes. And don’t forget seats – rows of tractor seats – to sit in. And a wishing well so that you can get your wishes fulfilled too. Everywhere you look there are quirky signs, statutes and intricate tile work that includes colored glass and bottle caps.

The intricacies and details of the Orange Show reveal a lot about the character of the man who built it. A plaque inside tells the story of two frogs that fall into a butter churn. They can’t get out. One gives up and drowns. The other one kicks and kicks until the liquid around him turns into solid butter and he climbs out.

Twenty-five years of persistence by mailman, Jeff McKissack (1902-1980), to build the 3,000 square foot Orange Show is pretty amazing in itself. But when you consider he did all the intricate ironwork and tile work himself, you can see that sometimes there’s more to people (and things) than meets the eye.

Most of the Orange Show’s display is on the outside of the house. McKissack made ample use of the roof space and courtyard for most of his display. It is definitely an outside show. Anyone passing by will see it. It is impossible to miss. It was his bigger than life tribute to the humble orange.

It is also a testament to what one person can do when given enough time and no money to do it. Drilling software was like that for many years. Engineers who needed information simply had to find a way to get what they needed with no time or money to develop it. Today engineers have PVI’s MUDPRO software – a comprehensive mud reporting and data management system. It takes all the broken glass and used bottle caps of mud drilling and pours it into a database capable of handling daily well reporting data, engineering calculations, mud mixtures, operational functions, cost graphs, end-of-well recaps and more.

It literally is a little of everything all in one place.

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Visit The Orange Show at:
2401 Munger Street, Houston, Texas, USA
Phone: 713-926-6368
Directions: I-45 South, exit Telephone Road, bear to the far right, turn right on Munger Street (just before Telephone Road). The Orange Show is on the left.