Tag Archives: centralizer placement

One Hundred Percent

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"I'll take fifty percent efficiency to get one hundred percent loyalty."
- Samuel Goldwyn (American Producer)

It’s well known that time and cost overruns are very common in the oil and gas industry. As a matter of fact, most projects deal with one or both problems, yet there is an alternative: the industry could reduce costs and accelerate projects by implementing advanced models that bring good benefits and are very efficient.

Being efficient means achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted efforts and/or expenses.

For a company to have an effective way in its productivity there has to be a change that influences its efficiency; a change that identifies the difference between doing the right thing and doing things right.

In the beginning process of developing a software here at PVI, we put into consideration what is effective for our clients but more so, what is efficient. We think of what can be done to make our clients' workload lighter yet progressive. With our software, casing wear can be predicted, centralizer placement can be optimized, torque and drag can be calculated, mud reporting can be simpler, and many other things can be performed. One of our priorities is to produce a software that gives our clients their desired or intended result.

A software that’s efficient is a software capable of doing processes that save time, money and efforts. That's a good characteristic to have in a software, because it helps the companies that use it to be effective at getting results.

Efficient | Drilling Software - PegasusVertex, Inc.

Instead of just striving to design an effective software, we strive to design a software that is efficient at being effective. Similar to what Samuel Goldwyn stated, instead of taking 50% of efficiency, we intend to take 100% efficiency to get 100% of loyalty from our satisfied customers.

Change of Plane

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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

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.

A Presentation on Centralizer Placement is Being Made

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I am preparing the presentation for the upcoming 2012 SPE Deepwater Drilling & Completions Conference and Exhibition which will be held at Moody Gardens Hotel, June 20-21. My topic is how to optimize the centralizer placement.

I am a semi-expert in this area, but I reserved one month to make the presentation. According to Nancy Duarte, the author of “slide:ology – the Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations,” the estimated time for developing an hour-long presentation of 30 slides is between 36-90 hours! Inspired by her book and other experts in communication, I made up my mind to try a totally new approach using some fresh, yet not-so-popular rules such as:

  • No more than 6 words on a slide
  • No more cheesy images
  • No font size less than 30
  • No dissolves, spins, or other transitions
  • No built-in theme
  • Make ‘em laugh
  • More fun
  • …

A few years ago, I bought a book titled “Presentation Zen: Simples Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery” by Garr Reynolds. Garr is an internationally acclaimed communications expert. You can easily find his videos on YouTube, too. That book was such an eye-opener for me. I was literally woken up from my old way of making presentations. I suggest every engineer get the book so we may improve our presentation skills.

It is hard enough to be an engineer. Now, we are required to explain our findings in a concise and artistic style. Most engineers use PowerPoint software. One would think that having all the raw materials ready is 80% of the job and it would just be a matter of time to put it in the format of slides. But if one really wants to make a difference and let his/her hard work shine, then putting one’s heart and mind into the slide creation will pay off. After all, it is the finish line of a 36-90 hour-long marathon!

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Nancy Duarte cutely changed the last word and it became: “… give him PowerPoint.”

My presentation at the SPE Deepwater Conference will be on Thursday, June 21st, Session 14 (Casing and Tubulars), in Hall A3 at 2:30pm. The paper number is SPE 150345.

I welcome you to join me and check my character.