The primary use of technical computing in the oil and gas industries is for seismic imaging of the earth’s subsurface, driven by the business need for making wellinformed drilling decisions during petroleum exploration and production. Since each oil/gas well in exploration areas costs several tens of millions of dollars, producing high-quality seismic images in a reasonable time can significant...

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to assess short-term changes in pulmonary function in drill floor workers currently exposed to airborne contaminants generated as a result of drilling offshore. We also aimed to study the prevalence of pulmonary fibrosis using high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) scans of another group of previously exposed drill floor workers. METHODS Pulmonary functio...

Knowledge of the orientation of horizontal in situ stresses is important to some areas of oil and gas field development plans. Borehole breakouts observed in image logs and drilling-induced fractures are the main parameters for the determination of the stresses’ directions in situ. In this work, the orientations of borehole breakouts were investigated as a function of depth in oil wells A and ...

This work is devoted to the investigation of oscillations in a drilling system using an induction motor with wound rotor as a drive. It is motivated by the problems of drilling rig failures in the oil and gas industry. The study is based on a modified version of the mathematical model of a drilling rig proposed by scientists from the Eindhoven University of Technology. The model of drilling rig...

There are essentially three main categories of drilling fluids: oil based fluids (OBF’s), synthetic based fluids (SBF’s) and water based fluids (WBF’s). OBF’s have been traditionally been used for their high performance drilling characteristics but tend to have a poor environmental performance in terms of their ecotoxicity and their tendency to persist in cuttings piles on the seafloor. More re...

Bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) on their fall migration are exposed to oil exploration activities in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea. While previous research into the effect of industrial noise on whale behavior and distribution has noted significant responses, this research has often proceeded from a parametric statistical framework. To account for the presence of spatially autocorrelated and int...

The main task in oil and gas exploration is to gain an understanding of the distribution and nature of rocks and fluids in the subsurface. Well logs are records of petro-physical data acquired along a borehole, providing direct information about what is in the subsurface. The data collected by logging wells can have significant economic consequences, due to the costs inherent to drilling wells,...

most of the year kept prospectors at bay, there was little to regulate. But as global warming thaws the ocean’s layers, oil giants, shipping companies and even the odd enterprising tourist operator are casting their eyes towards the high north. The biggest boom could be in oil and gas. The US Geological Survey surprised some experts when it declared that a quarter of the world’s undiscovered re...