Robert Ziegler

What a difference a year can make. Oil and gas prices have reached and stabilized at levels that have not been seen for over half a decade, demonstrating that the adage “low oil prices are the remedy of low oil prices” is still true.

For the past several months, the rig count in North America has been slowly but steadily improving and some pockets of deepwater operations are finally showing some activity, especially in Central and South America and Africa, where interesting discoveries continue. Arctic operations also are picking up, though not in North America, where a new administration in the U…

One would think that, in these challenging times, high-pressure/high-temperature technology and projects would be put on the back burner, with everybody chasing zipper-fractured barrels from shale. Well, it is not so.

We must concentrate our paper selection on technology and operating methods that make HP/HT drilling operations faster, safer, and more cost-efficient. If above-threshold drilling costs shelve a project, the project will not fly. And without projects, HP/HT know-how and equipment quickly disappears.

Some technologies important for HP/HT have steadily developed and have seen increased uptake even throughout the downturn. These technologies have the potential to revolutionize the performance and safety of HP/HT drilling operations.

Instead of selecting papers that were dedicated to material selection, I considered works that concentrated upon best practices and recently developed technologies that make operations in these difficult environments more efficient and far safer for crews and for the environment itself.