This paper presents lessons learned regarding design, testing, and installation of a completely integrated managed-pressure-drilling (MPD) control system on a deepwater drilling rig. For the installation described, all MPD control functions were installed permanently on the main drilling-control network of the drilling unit, providing direct access to high-speed data from other drilling machines that influence wellbore pressure. Moreover, the MPD control system has the ability to actively control these drilling machines.
Introduction
The authors have discussed in previous work that seamless integration with existing rig infrastructure will be instrumental in using MPD as standard operating procedure during drilling. Installing the MPD control system as an equal peer in the drilling-control network is key to this strategy.
