About Gefei Liu, PVI

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Change of Plane

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Gefei Liu, PVI

Milan was the last stop of my vacation in Italy. On my way back to Houston, I had to make 2 connections at Zurich, Switzerland and Amsterdam. The Zurich airport is still using buses to pick up and drop off passengers from concourses to airplanes.

Things were smooth for me to get into my airplane. After I sat down, a flight attendant made a short announcement: “This plane is flying to Amsterdam. Those of you, who are going to Munich, please come to the front.” Immediately a handful people, surprised and talking, rose from their seats. Then, everyone started laughing, including those in the wrong airplane.

They must have stepped into the wrong bus at the concourse, given that there were several buses leaving from the neighboring gates. A wrong bus could lead to a different city in a different country.

Personally, I only saw this kind of drama in movies like “Home Alone 2”. This is the first time I witnessed a similar situation, almost happened in real life.

We have developed a suite of drilling software, solving various engineering problems during drilling and completion phases. Our cementing software suite consists of CEMPRO (mud displacement model), CEMVIEW (cementing engineering toolbox), CentraDesign (centralizer placement) and CTEMP (wellbore temperature model).

Our clients have not mistakenly purchased wrong programs, but occasionally they forget to purchase the related model. Recently, a service company involved in pumping service purchased CEMPRO, which is geared for cementing job design and simulation. CEMPRO surely can assist them as engineering and marketing tool for their cementing teams. But after software training, they realized that for tender preparation, they also needed CEMVIEW, which calculates the volume requirements, material balance, amounts and costs of additives for all casing strings in a well. It creates casing schematic with cementing columns for each string and entire wellbore structure.

If we compare a well to a building, the end-of-well report with wellbore schematic from CEMVIEW is like a blue print of architecture.

CEMVIEW - Wellbore Schematic

For bidding purpose, CEMVIEW is an excellent tool for cementing companies to illustrate their job design and give cost estimation to their potential clients.

Finally, our client purchased CEMVIEW as well. We were happy to make a new sale and happy for them, because we know CEMVIEW will make their life easy.

CEMPRO and CEMVIEW are like wings of an airplane. With both programs, your cementing job will be a smooth flight and you do not need to change plane.

What Can We Do in 3 Minutes?

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Gefei Liu, PVI

There are millions of answers to this question. What I want to share with you is a story I learned in Dubai Museum.

At Dubai Creek in the early 20^th century, pearl diving was a way to make a living. There were about 300 pearl diving dhows with over 7000 sailors on board. The divers made very deep dives, with only a nose clip, a leather finger protector, a basket made of rope, a stone weighing about 5kg to pull them down and a rope to pull them up again. About 50 dives were made a day, each about 3 minutes long.

There was hard life. The museum display board has the following description summarizing the story: “50 daily dips in the sea, with all their associated difficulties made the joy of returning home more precious than the pearls collected by the captain in his ornate.”

The 3-minute diving made me wonder what we can do in the same period of time.

Cementing engineers can finish a mud displacement operation in a few hours. However, preparing a cementing job takes much longer than that, from slurry design, computer modeling to equipment arrangement. We have developed CEMPRO (mud displacement model) to reduce the time spent on job design stage. With CEMPRO, a cementing engineer can finish a job simulation within 3 minutes if he or she has necessary input data in hand.

Computer simulators like CEMPRO have allowed far better understanding of the cementing job than was previously possible. Many potential problems can be identified prior to the job and appropriate modification can be made.

CEMPRO - Mud displacement model

Computer program such as PVI software have amplified our skill and time so we can finish more tasks, such as completing cementing job modeling in 3 minutes.

Present Yourself with Passion

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Gefei Liu, PVI

I recently attended a concert by Andrea Bocelli at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. We had great seats – right on the floor – which allowed me to observe up close one of the most popular tenors in the world.

Nineteen thousand people listened as Mr. Bocelli’s voice filled the interior of the building and the hearts of his devoted fans. He didn’t waste time with inane chatter like, “Good Evening! How are you, folks?” as so many lesser performers do. We came to listen to him sing, not talk, so as soon as he opened his mouth, it was like birds in the springtime flying over us.

The audience responded warmly with frequent and long-lasting standing ovations. The power of his angelic voice touched us all.

What sets him apart is that his voice and his songs are more than just lyrics; they are his heart poured out through his mouth. He sings from his heart directly to ours. He communicates and connects with us through his voice as if it were an extension of his inner most being.

When he sings, we feel what he feels, we hear what he hears and we know what he knows, whether it is joy or sadness, we are there with him at every note. He takes us to the top of the world with him when his passionate rendition of a composer’s song becomes his song alone. It is truly a gift that few performers possess, let alone own the way he does.

I was disappointed that I did not get the chance to shake his hand, but I experienced him physically, as if I touched him, through his passionate songs. His deep enthusiasm for telling stories of earthly desire and heavenly love with his voice left me breathless as if I’d run a thousand miles with him as he sang. And yet that passion both exhausted and renewed me as I left that night.

Our passion, no matter what we do, should both exhaust and renew those around us. We should be 100% present in our personal and professional lives. There should never be a time that we don’t leave 100% of who we are on the table for everyone to see.

Are you like the great Boticelli? Do you live with passion when presented with an opportunity? Do you prepare your performance with great content (beautiful songs), passion (heart) and engagement (enthusiasm)? Does your audience (boss and co-workers) applaud and appreciate your efforts? Or are you just showing up and sitting there? Do you bring everything you have to every person you meet? If not, why not?

Sophisticated Yet Simple

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Gefei Liu, PVI

While visiting Calgary, a colleague and I spotted a quaint 2-story red house in a forest of towering downtown concrete redwoods. It was so out of place, we were instantly drawn to it and crossed the street to investigate.

“It is a Rolex shop,” my colleague said.

We were intrigued so we decided to check it out.

My colleague’s excitement was evident as we entered the store. Everywhere you looked, there were arrays of Rolex watches, all mounted inside glass walled cabinets. Everything gleamed and sparkled. I felt like a kid in a candy shop. I marveled over the beautiful craftsmanship of the watches more than their prices. Actually, I tried not to think about the prices at all.

Were they too expensive? I don’t know. I never did much research on Swiss watches or compared various luxury brands to see what is or isn’t a good value. But I imagine time is more precious and valuable when it is told on a Rolex. I’m not sure I value time enough to pay $36K for the Yacht-Master II we found on the second floor of the shop though.

A Rolex watch is all about harmony, sophistication and simplicity of operation - three sides of the same coin, if you will. Some have transparent backs so you can see the tiny rotors and gears running around perpetually and perfectly. This phenomenally sophisticated machine is actually an amazingly simple concept – one gear moves another that moves the hands of the watch, all with only your body movement as the power source. It is the ultimate balance between aesthetics and practicality.

The watchmakers at Rolex have a tradition of designing fine watches – watches designed to create an experience, not just tell time. PVI’s drilling software packages are like Rolex watches too. Not only does our drilling software perform all the needed functions you expect, each also is designed to create the optimum user experience.

This is the formula for making the perfect chocolate chip pancakes.

Drilling engineering calculations are complicated, but the design of the software doesn’t have to be. It is easy to make simple things complicated, but it is very difficult to make complicated things simple. It’s a dirty job we software developers are happy to do for you. Our goal: sophisticated yet simple drilling software.

A New Definition of Insanity

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Gefei Liu, PVI

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. No one likes to do the same thing over and over again if someone or something else can do it, even if it gives the same results. And since mud engineers love automation and hate repetitive calculations, PVI came up with a software package that does calculations for you. We call it MUDPRO.

Every morning mud engineers collect data on drilling rigs, fluid properties and chemical inventories, do solid analysis, volume tracking and perform hydraulics calculations. It’s tedious to do it consistently and correctly every day. In the olden days, these tasks were usually done manually on pieces of paper. As things progressed, the computer and Excel spreadsheets eased some of the burden. But there were still challenges, like how to manage the large number of spreadsheets generated every day and how to get a single end-of-well report created from all the daily spreadsheets.

Here at PVI we felt your pain and initiated a project to automate mud reporting. There was lots of excitement among our software engineers as they solved mud reporting problems for you. We even had a big pizza party after we finished it to celebrate. Maybe we’ll invite you to the next one.

The result of all that pizza is a sophisticated yet simple mud reporting software called MUDPRO. The easy-to-use software bridges the gap between rig and office, and makes data collection and information sharing a breeze with just a few clicks.

MUDPRO reports make great wall decorations.

Right out of the box, you can start entering pertinent data into MUDPRO; it’s that easy to use. MUDPRO draws wellbore schematics, calculates the cost of materials and generates daily reports. And MUDPRO puts all your data into a database so later you can post well audits and create recap reports as soon as the well is completed without having to manually compile the data.

Personally, I hate keeping track of time and mileage because it’s just tedious. But automation makes my life simpler and less stressful. As a software developer, the geek in me is thrilled to see all that mud data tracked without mud engineers having to turn into bookkeepers. So now you can use your expertise and time more wisely using our MUDPRO software and save your insanity for the dance floor.

Don’t be a Fool, Stay in School

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Gefei Liu, PVI

I’ve noticed a troubling trend – college athletes are dropping out of college to pursue
professional sports careers before finishing their degrees. I know most of my readers are not falling into this trap because engineers, programmers and scientists already know the value of education.

But to those of you who know someone considering this option, my advice is get your degree! You have to have something to fall back on in case it doesn’t work out. And the
odds are it won’t.

The chances of making it in men’s basketball is 0.03% and a woman’s chance of a pro career is even worse at 0.02%. You can more than double your odds at a pro football career, where 0.08% will make it. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, your overall chances of making it in any pro sport (i.e., basketball, football, soccer, golf, tennis, equestrian, marathon running, etc.) is just 0.00565%*.

Graduation is more than a symbolic finish line of your formal education. It is the starting line of lifelong learning in a larger university called “the real world.” To borrow a concept from our software engineers, colleges “input” data into their grads and companies receive the “output.”

School of fish somewhere in the South Pacific

In drilling software, the quality of the output also relies heavily on the quality of the input, and on the algorithms and models used to create the software. We must constantly search for new ways to do things smarter, faster and better by using new tools, drilling methods and being open to changing industry trends.

A drilling software company that won’t expand their horizons is soon left behind. PVI’s goal is to continually learn from cutting-edge research, from our competitors’ best practices and from our customers’ comments and feedback.

Our innovation mindset means drilling software training, like our TADPRO training (Torque and Drag program), doesn’t just teach students how to operate the software, it also puts them backin the classroom to train them on basic pipe mechanics too. You learn friction factor, buckling, torque and more, and we use case studies that put you right into field operation conditions. TADPRO provides the bridge between field operations and classroom theories.

Both newcomers and seasoned drilling engineers benefit from TADPRO training. You can either knock it out in one day or spread it over two days based on your specific training needs.

So stay up-to-date or your friends will be telling you: “Don’t be a fool, stay in school.”

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* Statistics courtesy of: www.thesportdigest.com and www.collegetimes.tv

Shisha Time

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Gefei Liu, PVI

Despite being known for extreme heat, both Dubai and Abu Dhabi enjoy six months of beautiful cool weather. Surprise!

While these two cities basically have two seasons – summer followed by thermonuclear summer – they also have half a year of very pleasant weather. The kind of weather no one would ever complain about no matter what happens the other six months. But you rarely hear about it, because it really isn’t much fun to complain about nice weather, is it?

November in Abu Dhabi is a wonderful time to enjoy Shisha with friends, particularly at night when the temperature falls to a comfortable 60 degrees (Fahrenheit).

Shisha is a traditional Arabic water pipe used for smoking flavored tobacco. It’s a fairly simple device. A burning chock of apple flavored tobacco fills an enclosed chamber with smoke. The smoker draws deeply on the mouthpiece pulling the flavored smoke over a basin of water (filter), where it moistens the smoke to give it a heavier flavor. You get hot, flavored tobacco with a little water vapor. Obviously, hot air hitting your lungs feels better on a cool night than it does on a hot one!

It was by the pool at the Le Royal Meridian Hotel, that my friend Yahia and I enjoyed Shisha time with the traditional Arabic music playing in the background. It was like going back to the time of The Arabian Nights* where great storytelling continued deep into the night.

Yahia told me a popular local tale about the apple. Isaac Newton was so inspired by the apple that it led him to discover the First Law of Gravity. Steve Jobs was so inspired that he founded Apple Computers, makers of the Mac, iPhone and iPad. The Arabians were so inspired by the apple that they invented the Shisha to inhale the apple to their very core.

Both Yahia and I had traveled long distances to attend the ADIPEC conference in Abu Dhabi, so we shared our sentiments about having to travel so much.

“You know travel makes people younger,” Yahia said.

I was a little bit surprised.

“Travel makes people tired,” I reminded him.

“True. But when you travel your brain and body receive all kinds of stimuli,” he said. “Your mind keeps you young.”

His words made me think. We read about other people’s lives in other places, but when we close the book, it’s over. To truly appreciate a different lifestyle we must immerse ourselves in it. Everything is brand new and we are reborn like a baby. When we open our minds to new things, we see, hear, feel and experience things we may be closed to back home. I wondered how many times had I passed by something of extreme beauty or interest and totally missed it because I was not open to a new adventure.

I had to agree with my friend. Travel made me younger. I would bring that youthful spirit with me wherever I went from now on, whether it was traveling far away or in my own neighborhood. Life would not pass me by again.

We continued our chat into the night, enjoying the cool breeze from the nearby Persian Gulf. And in keeping with the spirit of people enjoying Shisha – who do never talk about business – I won’t mention our drilling software this time or about how amazing it is in saving you so much time that you will have more time for Shisha!

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* The Arabian Nights (a.k.a. One Thousand and One Nights) is about a Persian king, Sharyar, who finds out his wife has been unfaithful and is deeply hurt by it, so he has her executed. But he is lonely so every night he brings a virgin to his bed. Each morning he executes the virgin so she won’t be able to betray him. After killing all the virgins in his kingdom, the king only had one left – the daughter of one of his most trusted servants. His servant’s daughter, Scheherazade, agrees be his wife because she has a clever plan. Each night she tells the king a new story but doesn’t tell him the ending so he will have to keep her alive to hear the ending. This goes on for 1,001 nights. Some familiar stories in the book include, The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp and Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.

Above and Below the Surface

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Gefei Liu, PVI

On my recent trip to the Maldives, one of the most unique things is the water bungalow. Sitting on the deck and gazing out over miles of water, small worries dissolve into the vast clear ocean. It is a very tranquil scene above the water – sunny skies over a flat endless sea. Waves crash on the beach in the distance with only a hint of sound reaching my ears. Clouds recede to the horizon to avoid disturbing me.

There is not much happening above the sea. It is indeed a quiet and peaceful world.

But when I go snorkeling what I see beneath the surface is a totally different world. All around me the ocean teems with life. Fish of all sizes, colors and shapes swim, dance, fly, party and celebrate. Yet, the silence is deafening. The reef is their stage; each fish is a performer; each fish is the audience for the others. I am the intruder – an uninvited visitor from the human race.

As I swim past the edge of the reef, the cold current suddenly grips me. It is a silent world below but I hear my heart pounding in my ears. The reef drops away and the seabed is now far below. I feel like I’m stepping off the top of a skyscraper, saved from plunging into the abyss only by my life jacket. I laugh at being afraid to fall while being totally unsinkable. I’m glad only the fish are here to know my thoughts.

A large school of black fish, about 200 of them, swim by me. They are cruising along the edge of reef at high speed. Without asking for permission, I join them. At times, I lose myself. I am one of them. Swimming below me, they change into birds with their fins opening and closing in the blue sky of water.

I enjoy this underwater world more than the above-water world. Below there are many things going on; the life is obvious beneath the surface. Above the surface, it seems as if nothing changes and that there is nothing of interest.

Unfortunately, most people only see the surface of the world around them. I am curious about the hidden things of this world, the things below the surface.

Our new salesman, Jerry Murphy (jmurphy@pvicom.com) spent two years on an aircraft carrier, living below the surface of the water. I want to ask him many questions about life below deck. How did the ship operate? What about the people who lived there? What did they do day to day? Did they get lost on such a big ship? Was the food really as bad as the tales make it sound?

Just as I have more questions about what is below than above, our software users may only see the surface of our finished products, while the inside of the program is teeming with life.

Our newest product, CEMLab, a cementing lab data management program, looks very plain on the surface – nothing but a CD or a web-link – but inside the program lives hundreds of tiny mathematicians, engineers, graphic artists and data entry people to do all your work for you.

Just kidding! The labor laws wouldn’t allow us do that so we used tens of thousands of lines of code, logic series, database structures, pre-loaded data, what-if statements, engineering calculations, tables and graphs to make the unseen come to the surface just when you need it.

From Sea to Sand

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Gefei Liu, PVI

I recently spent a couple of nights in the middle of the Arabian desert (close to Abu Dhabi) and then a couple of nights in the middle of the Indian Ocean in the Maldives. A 4-hour flight separates the two places.

Both these places bring images to my mind – mirages, surreal landscapes and things beyond this earthly world. If you could peer into my brain, you would see the contrasts imprinted there somewhere between breathtaking physical beauty and harsh reality.

What devoured all my thoughts was the extreme effort man has made to live in these extreme conditions. Whether it is an ocean of water or sea of sand, people have staked a claim and live in these places.

The world’s largest sand desert is called the Empty Quarter Desert. The desert spills over into Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. And it has earned its name. It is empty – very empty – except there are towns with hotels there too. It seems impossible that people living in such extreme conditions would even consider that someone would come to visit them!

Sea of Water: Indian Ocean in Maldives

Sea of Sand: the Empty Quarter (Rub al Khali) near Abu Dhabi

On my visit, our driver told us his tale of helping his co-worker get his car unstuck from the sand. Mind you, it was the middle of the day, in the middle of the Empty Quarter desert. Pulling the car out was the easy part. It required simple physics and two Land Cruisers to overcome the sinking effects of the sand around the tires. But the heated sand proved more challenging. Their feet, in their open sandals, got severely burned. In the end, they resorted to wrapping their feet with their shirts.

I had heard the crazy notion of cooking an egg on the sidewalk, so I asked him, “Can you cook an egg in the sand?”

“Easily!” he said. “You can even prepare tea in the sand.”

Imagine that! Boiling water by placing a container of it in the sand. That is extreme heat!

Such an inhospitable environment may seem like a terrible place to work, but the drilling industry has been drilling in deserts and oceans for decades. Rich resources seem to reside in remote areas.

Another remote and hostile environment for drilling is offshore, in the ocean. Offshore wells can be found in water depths over 10,000 feet. Presently, there are drilling platforms in nearly every ocean in the world.

When considering how hard oil companies have to work to get to oil reserves, I am reminded of the expression, “Where there is a will, there is a way.” I also like to think that, “Wherever there is oil, there is a well” too. Whether it is an ocean of water or a sea of sand, someone is drilling somewhere and needs a software solution to handle their well data. I like to think PVI will always be there with them in every environment, in every place around the world.

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