Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85

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Journal of Process Control

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jprocont

Flow and pressure control of underbalanced drilling operations using

NMPC
Torbjørn Pedersen a,∗ , Ulf Jakob F. Aarsnes b,c , John-Morten Godhavn d
a
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
b
International Research Institute of Stavanger (IRIS), Oslo, Norway
c
DrillWell – Drilling and Well Centre for Improved Recovery, Stavanger, Norway
d
Statoil Research Centre, Trondheim, Norway

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This work evaluates the use of non-linear model predictive control (NMPC) for multivariate control of
Received 1 April 2016 pressure and flow during underbalanced drilling (UBD) using a fit-for-purpose mechanistic model. Flow
Received in revised form 31 October 2016 and pressure control are instrumental to the stability, safety, and successful drilling of a well. Failure
Accepted 1 May 2018
to keep within the pressure envelope may have severe economic and environmental consequences. A
relevant drilling scenario with different control objectives is evaluated to show the impact of the tuning
Keywords:
and configuration of the control system. It is shown that with a sufficiently good model match, it is
Non-linear model predictive control
possible to achieve good performance with small deviations from the selected operational criteria, even
Underbalanced drilling
Multiphase-flow
when there are large changes in operational area. The multivariate control system manipulates choke
Drilling automation pressure, pump flow, and separator set-points to simultaneously achieve both downhole and topside
Drift-flux model objectives. The optimization problem is solved within the relevant time dynamics of the system.
Simulation © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction
1.1. Underbalanced drilling
The process of drilling for hydrocarbons consists of creating a
wellbore, sometimes extending several thousand meters into the
ground, until it reaches an oil or gas reservoir. Drilling fluid is
pumped into the top of a drill string, and is circulated out at the
bottom through the drill bit. It then flows up through the annular
section around the string, transporting the drilled formation parti-
cles, called cuttings, out of the well. The cuttings and any produced
fluids are separated from the drilling fluid before it is injected into
the string again.
Monitoring and managing the pressure of the drilling fluid in
the well is a primary concern during any drilling operation. The
pressure in the drilling fluid stabilizes the wellbore preventing col-
lapse, and balances against the fluids contained in the surrounding
formation.
Underbalanced drilling (UBD) is a variant of managed pressure
drilling (MPD), where the pressure in the open part of the wellbore,
intentionally is kept lower than the formation pore pressure [16].
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: torbjorn.pedersen@idletechs.com (T. Pedersen).
This means that the reservoir might be producing during drilling,
and that if the reservoir contains gas there will be complex mul-
tiphase dynamics affecting the pressures and flows of the system
[3].
Fig. 1 illustrates the pressure windows during drilling, in con-
ventional (overbalanced) drilling the pressure window is between
the pore pressure and the fracture pressure, while in UBD the win-
dow is between the collapse pressure and the pore pressure.
UBD is more complex and costly than conventional drilling as it
requires additional equipment and procedures, there are few cus-
tomized rigs, and additional crew and more training are needed;
and sometimes it is simply not technically feasible to drill under-
balanced. In other cases the economic gains are high enough that
UBD is the preferred method, and in some cases it may be the only
viable choice [7,12].
Rehm et al. [28] gives the steady-state, fundamental equation
for the bottomhole pressure as
pbh = phydr + paf + pc , (1)
where phydr is the hydrostatic pressure exerted by the drilling fluid
and the cuttings load, paf is the annulus friction pressure loss, and
pc is the applied choke back-pressure. Since the well is sealed, the
choke back-pressure can be adjusted by changing the choke open-
ing or by adjusting the separator pressure ps downstream of the
choke.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jprocont.2018.05.001
0959-1524/© 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
74 T. Pedersen et al. / Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85
Fig. 1. Comparison of well pressure limits.
To get an impression of the dominating variables for the pres-
sure in the well, Eq. (1) is expanded to get the (simplified)
expression
 Tvd  L
2f  (x)(x)vm (x)2
pbh = g (x) dx + dx + pc ,
0 0
da (x)
where  is the annulus mixture density, g is gravity, Tvd is the true
vertical depth, f is the friction factor, da is the hydraulic diame-
ter, vm is the fluid mixture velocity, and L is the well length. These
parameters vary with the position along the annulus, the current
flow regime, and other factors.
The influx from the reservoir can be modelled by a wide class of
models with different complexity and time dynamics. A very simple
linear influx relationship is given by [9]:
   the area of flow and pressure control. Flow and pressure control are
oh
qres = max 0, kpi · (ppore (x) − pbh (x)) dx
cs
where qres is the reservoir influx, kpi is the reservoir production
index (simplified lumped parameter for a range of physical vari-
ables), cs is the casing shoe (or the start of the producing part of the
reservoir), oh is the length of the producing part of the open hole,
and ppore is the reservoir pore pressure. It should be noted that the
equation is derived for steady-state flow.
Eq. (2) shows that the hydrostatic pressure phydr depends on the
mixture of the produced reservoir fluid and the injected fluid in the
annulus. The pressure loss paf also depends on the reservoir influx,
as the influx will change the friction parameters and the magnitude
of the flow in the annulus. The reservoir influx again depends on the
bottomhole pressure. There is thus a natural feedback loop which
may have multiple equilibria; see Aarsnes et al. [3] for a treatment
of the problem.
To maintain accurate control of pressures and flows at all times,
better models are needed than employed in our previous work
on linear model predictive control (MPC) for UBD [26,27]. This is
especially true when there are large changes in the process and it
moves between different states, or when not operating in a friction
dominated region.
1.2. Non-linear model predictive control
(2)
Underbalanced drilling systems have historically not been auto-
mated. However, increased interest in drilling automation due to
costs and safety aspects have sparked a new discussion about
automation solutions and control levels [14,8,20,31].
There are many different control challenges within the field
of drilling, including: vibration management, directional drilling
(geo-steering), automatic fluid mixing, rate of penetration (ROP)
optimization, and automatic pipe handling. This work is limited to
instrumental to the stability, safety, and successful drilling of a well.
(3) The work addresses UBD systems with injection of a (lightened)
fluid, and disregards foam, air and mist systems.
There are multiple reasons why good flow and pressure control
are needed during underbalanced drilling [21,29,12]:
(1) It is necessary to stay above the lower well stability limit
(collapse pressure); if the pressure gets too low parts of the
wellbore may collapse and the drillstring may get stuck.
(2) If the pore pressure is exceeded, drilling fluids (including solids)
will be pushed into the near wellbore region and might impair
future production.
(3) Keeping a low pressure will likely increase the ROP, i.e. the
drilling speed. There are different ways to increase the ROP and
it might be limited by other factors such as hole cleaning.
(4) Keeping a low pressure, or a large pressure differential between
the well and pore pressure (draw-down), will increase pro-
duction while drilling. High production may, or may not, be
beneficial depending on if produced fluids can be sold, or if they
must be treated and disposed.
 T. Pedersen et al. / Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85
Fig. 2. Simple schematic of the well and the topside equipment. The NMPC runs on top of a set of local control loops.
(5) It is necessary to lift sufficient amounts of cuttings out of the
well to ensure proper hole cleaning.
(6) It is necessary to separate liquids, gas, and solids leaving the
well.
(7) The pumped drilling fluid is used to power the downhole motor
and to cool the bit.
(8) The return flow is used to characterize the reservoir, identify
production zones, and to gain knowledge on how to most effi-
ciently perform well completion and production.
The main control objective for the separation system is to prop-
erly separate the returned fluids and to buffer large variations in
flow rate out of the well. This is indirectly achieved by controlling
the separator pressure (ps ), the level of the heavy fluid (drilling fluid
and water, (hdf )) and the light fluid (produced light oil, (ho )). Poor
level control may lead to unnecessary shut-downs, or undesired
carry over from phase to another, e.g. oil in the gas outlet. The two
systems are coupled, as the separation pressure will be a bound-
ary condition for the well, and the combination of well pressure,
reservoir conditions, choke position, and pumped drilling fluid will
determine the flow out of the system. If the systems are controlled
individually the result might be sub-optimal (or even very poor)
for the total system. Considering the total system as one allows
for both long-term adjustments, such as setting the correct bot-
75
tomhole pressure (and thus influx), and short-term adjustments
by adjusting the choke opening to handle flow transients.
Published research and solutions for drilling automation, with
a few notable exceptions, has mostly been focused on automating
single pieces of equipment or procedures. The goal of this work
is to take a more holistic approach and look at both the topside
and bottomhole processes as one, to produce a multivariable con-
trol solution capable of producing good overall solutions for the
entire plant. The control solution should naturally handle the many
objectives and constraints of underbalanced drilling, and should be
simple enough to be employed in the industry.
Fig. 2 shows a simplified schematic of the system. Drilling fluid
(with flowrate qp ) is pumped into the sealed well, and exits at the
bottom of the pipe. It flows back, together with the reservoir flu-
ids and cuttings, up through the annulus before it exits the well
through the choke manifold and is processed in the separation sys-
tem. There is a non-return valve (NRV) in the drillstring, which
means that gas will not flow into the drillstring, when the pumps
are stopped. The bit and bottomhole assembly are not shown in
Fig. 2, but they are included as a pressure drops in the simulations.
It should be noted that in this work we only simulate drilling in
the vertical part of the well. The control hierarchy has a super-
visory MPC top level control system which receives inputs from
the operator (or a real-time optimizer), for example the wanted
76 T. Pedersen et al. / Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85

bottomhole pressure and separator levels and pressures, and cal- tionships, empirical relations, choke models, as well as temperature
culates references for the lower level control loops. The lower-level calculations with energy balances.
controllers stabilize and reject disturbances. The control system is
further described in Section 3. 2. Modelling
Automated control solutions for UBD should handle multiple
input and state constraints and provide precise pressure control. 2.1. Reduced drift flux model
Linear feedback controllers (PID, linear MPC) are powerful, and can
be extended with gain scheduling to handle non-linearities. How- One of the most used models for two-phase flow is the classical
ever, NMPC is the industry standard solution for multi-variable drift-flux model (DFM) which can be formulated as [13]:
systems with constraints and severe non-linearities. In UBD, the
process gain between the choke pressure and bottomhole pressure ∂˛l l ∂˛l l vl
+ = 0, (4)
can change, and even switch sign, depending on the amount of gas ∂t ∂x
in the well [3]. Because of the slow propagation of gas through the
∂˛g g ∂˛g g vg
long annular wellbore there are high time constants, making it hard + = 0, (5)
for the driller to predict what will happen in the future. Further- ∂t ∂x
more, the consequences of human errors are considerable, where ∂˛l l vl + ˛g g vg ∂P + ˛g g v2g + ˛l l v2l 2f  m vm |vm |
+ = −m g sin (x) − , (6)
small mistakes may lead to costly periods with no drilling, and the ∂t ∂x da
consequences of large failures may be severe accidents. Good auto- where ˛g and ˛l are the gas and liquid volumetric fractions, l
matic control has the potential for reducing costs (by avoiding non and g the density of gas and liquid, m is the fluid mixture den-
productive time (NPT) and increasing drilling speed), minimizing sity (ignoring cuttings load), vl and vg in-site velocities, P the well
the risk of severe accidents, and enabling the drilling of otherwise pressure, x the position along the wellbore, and (x) the well angles.
undrillable wells. The closure relations are given by:
NMPC for bottomhole pressure control has been evaluated for
UBD systems, for example in Nygaard et al. [24,25]. NMPC has ˛l + ˛g = 1, (7)
also been used for multivariate control of MPD, as for example in
Asgharzadeh et al. [5]. This work looks at the larger, more holistic m = ˛g g + ˛l l , (8)
case, where the topside separation system and gas transport limita- vm = ˛g vg + ˛l vl , (9)
tions are included. A simplified mechanistic well model, presented
in Section 2, is used. To configure and solve the mathematical prob- P = g RG T (x) ≡ cG2 g , (10)
lem, we use the (N)MPC software package SEPTIC. SEPTIC is an
in-house control software developed by Statoil ASA, and has been where we note the ideal gas assumption of (10), which will over-
successfully used in many process control applications [30]. predict the gas density in high pressure conditions. To amend this,
SEPTIC solves the non-linear optimization problem through re- it is possible to introduce a gas deviation factor to obtain the equa-
linearization as the models moves between operation points. The tion of state as P = g zRG T (x) ≡ cG2 (x)g , where z is estimated from
software use a single shooting multi-step quasi-Newton method to correlations [10]. As an example, it is assumed constant z = 0.8 in
solve a sequence of quadratic programming (QP) problems at each Hauge et al. [15].
time step [23]. Meum et al. [23] describes the steps in the algorithm: Finally, the slip law is defined as:
An input-output linearization of the prediction model is performed vg = C0 vm + v∞ , (11)
around the nominal input sequence (computing sensitivities). A
search direction is then found solving a quadratic sub-problem for with the slip distribution parameter C0 = 1/(1 − ˛∗l ).
The critical
the linearized model using a dual method. For algorithmic conver- hold-up ˛∗l ∈ (0, 1) and v∞ ≥ 0 are constant parameters.
gence, a backtracking line search is performed along the search The DFM describes the distributed dynamics of the fast pressure
direction ensuring a smaller objective function value. If conver- waves and the slow propagation of the gas distribution through the
gence is not attained, the procedure is repeated. The method is well [19]. Due to the time-separation between these two phenom-
similar to Li et al. [17]. This adds a certain amount of tuning param- ena, and the assumption that in UBD the important effects are on
eters, such as the maximum number of iterations and the wanted time-scales slower than that of the fast pressure waves, it conse-
convergence criteria. quently have been suggested to lump the pressure dynamics to
It is possible to explicitly cancel unwanted interactions, or to obtain a simpler model [1].
define a minimum sensitivity level. The changes to the sensitivity In the present work we employ such a simplified model based
matrix can also be filtered. The software uses blocking of manip- on the derivation from Aarsnes et al. [2]. A desirable property of
ulated variables, as well as a limited number of evaluation points, this approach is that it enables expressing the pressure dynamics
to limit the size of the problem. This adds more tuning parameters, as an ordinary differential equation (ODE) on the form:
but can greatly reduce the calculation time.
∂pc ¯ 
ˇ 
Though state estimation is one of the challenges in NMPC it will = ql + qg + TXE (˛g , pc ) − qc , (12)
not be the focus of this paper. However, the standard methods ∂t V
apply. It is possible to for example embed an Unscented Kalman with the variables ql , qg representing respectively the liquid and
Filter (UKF) in the solution. gas volumetric flowrate entering at the bottom of the well, qc is the
Two different process models are used for the case studies: one volumetric flow-rate out through the choke, ˇ ¯ the effective bulk
is the reduced drift flux model presented later, i.e. the same predic- modulus of the total compression of the gas–liquid mixture in the
tion and process model; while the other simulations are performed well, and V is the volume of the well. TXE denotes the effect of the
with the Oil and Gas Simulator (OLGA) as the process model. OLGA is expansion of gas as it propagates up the wellbore into regions of
a commercial multi-phase simulator developed to simulate oil and lower pressure. The propagation of the distributed gas void fraction
gas flow in pipelines [6]. Since its beginning as a pipeline simula- ˛g (x, t) is given by a partial differential equation (PDE) on the form
tor, OLGA has seen substantial revisions and also supports transient
simulation of wellbore dynamics. It is built on many of the same ∂ ∂
˛g (x, t) + vg (x, t) ˛g (x, t) = EG (˛g , P) (13)
principals as a drift-flux model, but uses more complex closure rela- ∂t ∂x
 T. Pedersen et al. / Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85 77

where the term EG (˛g , P) denotes the local gas expansion. Finally the 3. Control structure
distributed, quasi-steady, pressure P(x, t) is obtained by integrat-
ing the frictional and hydrostatic pressure components and adding The problem is formulated as a set-point stabilization problem
them to the choke back-pressure: with time-variant (or position) based constraints which fulfils the
 x
objectives of UBD. The main objective is to track a given bottomhole
pressure which may change with the position along the planned
P(x, t) = pc (t) + (˛l (x, t)l + ˛g (x, t)g )
L
well trajectory: e.g. with depth, length, and the expected pore pres-
 2f  vm (x, t)|vm (x, t)|
 sure; since the production is a function of both pressure and the
g sin (x) + dx. (14) amount of exposed reservoir. The goal is to maintain a bottomhole
da pressure within plus/minus 5 bar from the given set-point. Param-
eters such as pore and collapse pressures are uncertain, so large
The model is fully described in Appendix A. fluctuations close to the constraints are unwanted. Changes in input
It should be noted that the model is not valid with a closed choke variables are penalized to avoid too aggressive control actions.
(no choke flow), and that it cannot model liquid/gas separation or The controlled variables (y) are the bottomhole pressure (pbh ),
backflow. choke pressure (pc ), separator pressure (ps ), level of the oil (ho )
and drilling fluid (hdf ) in the separator, actual choke opening (zc ),
2.2. Separator model and the gas flow out of the separator (qg,out ). The state constraints
consist of:
The separator is modelled by a simple mass-balance in accor- pcollapse ≤ pbh ≤ ppore , (20)
dance with Mendes et al. [22]. The model is a simplified
phenomenological model of a three-phase horizontal cylindrical pc,min ≤ pc ≤ pc,max , (21)
gravity separator with an overflow weir. The tank is separated into qg,out,min ≤ qg,out ≤ qg,out,max . (22)
a first (1) and second chamber (2) at the weir. The drilling fluid is
let out through a valve in chamber (1), while the lighter oil exits at zc,min ≤ zc ≤ zc,max , (23)
chamber (2). The cuttings are assumed to follow the drilling fluid. ps,min ≤ ps ≤ ps,max < pc , (24)
The model is described by Eqs. (15)–(18):
ho,min ≤ ho ≤ ho,max , (25)
∂hl qdf,in + qo,in − qdf,out,1 − qo,2
= , (15) hdf,min ≤ hdf ≤ hdf,max . (26)
∂t 2 · L1 · hl · (D − hl )
Hole-cleaning, cooling and downhole mud motor constraints
∂hdf qdf,in − qdf,out,1 are formulated as a minimum requirement on pump flow. The
= , (16) maximum gas flow constraint is due to limitations in topside gas
∂t 2 · L1 · hdf · (D − hdf ) processing. The choke opening is included because we want to limit
the time the choke spends in a poor region of its operational area,
∂ho qo,2 − qo,out,2
= , (17) e.g. almost closed where the choke is subject to higher wear.
∂t 2 · L2 · ho · (D − ho ) We manipulate the reference opening for the main UBD choke
(zcref ), the pump flow (qp ), and separator valves (zo , zdf , and zg ).
∂ps (qg,in + qdf,in + qo,in − qg,out − qdf,out,1 − qo,out,2 ) Below the NMPC layer there is local stabilization of separator lev-
= ps , (18)
∂t Vt − Vdf − Vo els and pressure, meaning that the NMPC gives references for new
levels (href ref ref
o and hdf ), and pressure (ps ) for these inner loops. This
where df denotes drilling fluid, o denotes oil, l is the liquid (mix
gives constraints on the manipulated variables (u):
of oil and drilling fluid), and g is the gas. L1 denotes the length of
ref
chamber (1), while Vt , Vdf , Vo is the volume of the tank, drilling fluid zc,min ≤ zcref ≤ zc,max
ref
, (27)
in tank, and oil in tank. D is the diameter of the separator, h is height,
qp,min ≤ qp ≤ qp,max , (28)
and q is volumetric flow. Standard valve equations are used for the
separator valves (Eq. (19) with constant cv ). pref
s,min
≤ pref
s ≤ pref
s,max , (29)

href
o,min
≤ href ref
o ≤ ho,max , (30)
2.3. Other relevant equations
href
df,min
≤ href
df
≤ href
df,max
. (31)
The equation for choke flow is selected as [18]:

The difference between zcref and zc is because of simulated choke
(pc − ps )l dynamics. A time constant and a maximum rate of change is imple-
qc = zc cv , (19) mented. No pump dynamics is used.
m
In addition we impose constraints on the rate of change (u)
The choke model used is a single phase flow equation, and is for some of the manipulated variables. In total there are 7 con-
not ideal for multiphase flow. However, the main concern is for the trolled variables, and 5 manipulated variables. The local control
model to capture the qualitative effect of changes in the manip- loops consists of simple proportional-integral controllers (PICs).
ulated variables. The ideal gas law is used to calculate the gas The constraints are not equally important, and we will use dif-
expansion into the separator. ferent penalty weighting to prioritize the most important ones.
When OLGA is used as the process model, the valve constant cv Note that this is not necessarily optimal as the cost will be shared
is estimated from the choke flow and pressure measurements, and between the constraints. All constraints are soft, but there will be
a choke pressure bias is added based on the difference between the high penalties on important constraints. We use three different
estimated and measured pressure. tuning matrices Qy penalizing deviations from desired set-points,
The reservoir influx is calculated from Eq. (3). Simple time Qu penalizing deviations from ideal input values, and P penaliz-
dynamics are modelled to limit the rate of change in the actual ing changes in input variables. The weights are assigned in the
inflow. Note that we do not allow negative flow (into the reservoir). following order:
78 T. Pedersen et al. / Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85

(1) Lower well stability limit (collapse pressure). The basic control problem can then be formulated as Eqs.
(2) Choke pressure constraints. (32)–(36) [30]:
(3) Upper well pressure limit (pore pressure). T
minu ydev Qy ydev + uTdev Qu udev + uT Pu, (32)
(4) Gas transport limit.
(5) Separator pressure. umin < u < umax , (33)
(6) Wanted bottomhole pressure.
(7) Separator levels. umin < u < umax , (34)
(8) Pump nominal flow value.
ymin < y < ymax , (35)
(9) Choke opening.
ỹ = M(y, u, d, v), (36)

The use of soft constraints may lead to constraint violations.
Though most of the constraints during UBD are considered hard,
they have some uncertainty and most of the constraints can be
broken for a short period of time. The MPC software can be con-
figured with hard constraints, but this requires evaluation of end
conditions at long time horizons. Something that is harder with all
the uncertainty and unmodelled parts of the system, and because
there might not even be a stable end state. The tuning will decide
which constraints violations which will induce the largest control
actions. The tuning is usually strict and the penalties increases fast.
The constraint employed may also be stricter than the real con-
straint to ensure that the MPC will react fast enough. Even though
configuring the total set of penalties is a considerable amount of
work, it has been solved for many running process control applica-
tions.
where the transformation M indicates that measurements, inputs,
disturbances and constraints may be filtered.
3.1. Implementation details
SEPTIC uses a (non-linear) prediction model, which in this case
is interfaced through a functional mock-up interface (FMI). The
model is implemented in Modelica, and exported as a functional
mock-up unit (FMU) using a co-simulation set-up with an inte-
grated solver. FMI is a tool independent standard to support model
exchange and co-simulation, while Modelica is an object-oriented,
multi-domain modelling language for object-oriented modelling of
complex systems.
In this case study we chose to disregard the string dynamics and
inject fluid at the bottom as we are mainly interested in the annulus

Fig. 3. Configuration of the annulus for simulations.

 T. Pedersen et al. / Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85 79

and separator dynamics. We discretize the annulus in 20 sections
(for both models), and get the simplified sketch of the annulus as
illustrated in Fig. 3. The well is 2000 m long and vertical, meaning
each section is 100 m. We use a single point influx reservoir at the
bottom of the well at a pressure of 230 bar (23 MPa).
For the reduced model we run simulations with a perfect model,
but also with parameter mismatch. For OLGA we assume that we
have measurements of bottomhole pressure and the choke multi-
phase flow, as well as all other surface measurements. This would
require wired drill pipe (WDP) functionality, or very good esti-
mates. It should be noted that even though the standpipe pressure
is not available during connections, since there is no shut-in of the
well, we still are connected to the reservoir through the annulus,
even without WDP. Multi-phase choke flow could be estimated
from measurements and from separator levels and outputs.
The models are interfaced through a combination of FMI and
OPC. OPC is OLE (object linking and embedding) for process control,
a standard for transferral of real-time process data.
The control system is configured with input blocking, using 7
input blocks of increasing length. Each block has an evaluation

Fig. 4. Objective 1: Scenario with low pressure target. The MPC initially increases the bottomhole pressure to keep above the minimum choke pressure and to not drift too
far from the nominal pump value. At the end of the drilling window both the lower choke pressure constraint and the pump constraint are active, and it is no longer possible
to keep the target bottomhole pressure. The blue dashed lines indicate the plus/minus 5 bar band. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the
reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 5. Objective 1: The reservoir influx increases as time goes, until the system has to reduce the drawdown to keep within other constraints. The gas outflow constraints
are handled by increasing the separator pressure.
80 T. Pedersen et al. / Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85
Fig. 6. Objective 2: Constant bottomhole pressure. The ideal pump rate is kept for a much longer period of the operation.
point, where the input vector is optimized to minimize an object
function. There are many evaluation points in the near future, and
the distance between the evaluations increases gradually towards
the end of the horizon. The evaluations are aligned to match the
dominant time dynamics of the system, i.e. the fast pressure waves
in the near future and the slower gas dynamics near the end.
The prediction horizon is set at 1800 s. We explicitly eliminate
all interactions we do not want to use, e.g. the effect of liquid level
on separator pressure, or the effects of choke opening on liquid
level. This means that we do not for example use the choke to con-
trol the separator level. It is, of course, possible to include these
interactions if so desired. To ensure rapid response to disturbances
and model errors the system inputs should be updated at least every
5 s. All variables are scaled according to their acceptable deviations.
To avoid problems with linearization at non-smooth non-
linearities or discontinuities, the implemented model is somewhat
regularized, e.g. to use regularized versions of the square root
function and to approach saturation limits such that continuous
first-order derivatives are calculated.
A simple bias adjustment is used to update the output of the
prediction model based on the measured choke flow and pressure.
Tuning parameters such as block lengths, prediction horizon,
and evaluation points are selected to get a good trade-off between
calculation time and performance. The control system is tested with
re-linearization between each input change, but also with lineariza-
tion only at the first input change in each iteration. Priority tuning is
assigned according with the order described earlier and the objec-
tive of the scenarios. The bias updates are configured with time
constants which are higher than the fast dynamics of the system.
Even though there is a significant amount of tuning parameters,
most of the tuning is relatively easy. Some, like the block lengths
and time horizons are given by the system time constants. Other,
like the priority tuning can be calculated after the wanted priority
hierarchy and the individual parameter scaling has been deter-
mined (requires significant domain knowledge). The penalties will
be shared among different variables, and it should be noted that
finding an optimal set of tuning parameters is a much harder prob-
lem. To ensure small enough time-steps and convergence criteria
it may be necessary to make conservative choices and accept the
higher run-time (or use faster computers).
The volume of the well and the friction (as known by the model)
are not updated when the length of the well increases, but this could
easily be included.
4. Case study
4.1. Scenario
We will evaluate three different objectives:
(1) Drilling with minimum bottomhole pressure.
(2) Drilling with constant bottomhole pressure (increasing gas
influx).
(3) Drilling with increasing bottomhole pressure (constant gas
influx).
This will give insight into the behaviour of the control system
with different objectives and trade-offs. During the low pressure
case, the ideal value is selected at 5 bar above the lower constraint,
as this is how much variation we accept. In the constant bottom-
hole pressure scenario, the pressure set-point is set in the middle
of the window at 205 bar. During the increasing bottomhole pres-
sure scenario the pressure will increase from 190 to 220 bar. The
production index is assumed to increase linearly with length.
During the scenario four triple stands (pipe lengths) are drilled
and there are three connections. During the second connection
there is a pump failure, and it is selected to go to a near balanced
state for 25 min to limit gas influx as the problem is fixed. The
pressure set-point is set 3 bar from the estimated pore pressure,
as some overshoot can occur, and the pore estimate is uncertain.
During each connection, the pump is ramped down to zero flow,
a new stand of drillpipe is attached, pumping is restarted and
drilling resumed. The ramp-down time is 4 min from full pump
rate (2400 l/min). There is a short period (3 min) where drilling
fluid is circulated (without drilling) before every connection to
avoid problems with cuttings settling. The total connection time
is 10 min before the pumps are re-started. Swab/surge effects are
not simulated for the connection.
 T. Pedersen et al. / Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85 81

The production index is initially 10 000 standard cubic meter
per day/per bar drawdown, and increases gradually until it is four
times as high at the end.
4.2. Simulation results
4.2.1. Perfect model
Fig. 4 shows the result when the goal is to maintain a low pres-
sure in the well. Initially the deviation from the pressure goal is
small, however, as the well gets deeper (and has higher production
for the same drawdown) the MPC gradually gives up the bottom-
hole target as the penalty of deviating from the desired pump rate
increases. The deviation is shared between the ideal values for pres-
sure and flow. In the end both the pump constraint and the choke
pressure constraint are active and it is no longer possible to keep
the desired pressure. We note that during a connection the lower
choke limit is breached, as it is necessary to compensate for the lost
friction pressure with no pump available. From Fig. 5 it can be seen
that the gas transport limit (maximum gas volumetric rate from
separator) is active as the gas reaches surface after a connection.
This is handled by the MPC by increasing the separator pressure,
thus buffering more gas.
When attempting to keep a constant bottomhole pressure (in
the middle of the window), the behaviour in Fig. 6 is the result. Gen-
erally the choke pressure is higher, and it is possible to keep closer
to the desired pump rate for a longer section of the drilling window.
At the end of the drilling operation only the lower choke pressure
constraint is active. We can see from Fig. 7 that the reservoir influx

Fig. 7. Objective 2: The drawdown is constant, and the reservoir influx increases with uncovered reservoir. The gas constraint is handled by increasing the separator pressure.

Fig. 8. Objective 3: The bottomhole pressure set-point is increased together with the well length. There are no active pressure or pump constraints at the end of the operation.
82 T. Pedersen et al. / Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85

increases for the entire drilling window. The gas volume at surface
is higher than for the low pressure case, however, this is caused
by the use of the ideal gas law to calculate the gas rate into the
separator, giving a higher expansion than realistic for high choke
pressures. The MPC still only needs to use the separator pressure
to control the gas outflow.
For the last objective, where the bottomhole pressure is gradu-
ally increased to maintain constant reservoir influx, the result are
shown in Fig. 8. There are no active pressure or pump constraints at
the end of the operation. Looking at Fig. 9 we see that the gas trans-
port constraint is active. This happens even though the drawdown
is small. This is also because of gas expansion from a high choke
pressure to the lower separator pressure.
For all the simulated operations there are no issues keep-
ing within the desired operational envelope. In some cases, it
was not possible to keep all objectives, and it is shown that
the deviations arise in the specified order. The control perfor-
mance will degrade with noise and measurement biases. Good
estimation, and frequent model re-tuning should still ensure suf-
ficient performance. If we lose important measurements for a
longer period of time, and no estimate is available, the only
option might be to shut down the drilling operation. It will
thus be important to detect missing, or erroneous measure-
ments.
Level control in the separator is not an issue for the selected
scenarios, and the results are not shown here.

Fig. 9. Objective 3: The gas outflow constraint has become active at the end of the operation. This would probably not happen if we did not use the ideal gas law to calculate
separator gas flow.

Fig. 10. Objective 3: With OLGA as process model. With OLGA slightly worse disturbance rejection may be noted. It is still possible to keep all constraints.
 T. Pedersen et al. / Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85
Fig. 11. Objective 3: The system is only linearized for the first input value in each iteration. We note that system breaks the upper well pressure constraint and have larger
deviations from the desired set-points.
4.2.2. Model errors
When OLGA is used as the process model and objective 3 is
selected, the simulation produces the results shown in Fig. 10. The
process is still kept well within the constraints, and more or less
within the accepted deviations. The disturbance rejection is slightly
worse than specified when there are large changes in the opera-
tional area. It may be that the bias update is too slow to account for
these fast changes and that better state estimation would solve the
problem.
Similar results are observed when the reduced drift flux model
is simulated with parametric errors. As expected, the behaviour
deteriorates when the errors increase in size. Significant deviations
(for example 20 percent error in the production index) are handled
without problems.
4.2.3. Non-linear behaviour
Fig. 11 illustrates the results when objective 3 is simulated with-
out re-linearization between each change of manipulated inputs.
There are now larger deviations from the desired set-points, and
at the largest (and fastest) change of operation point the control
system severely breaks the upper well pressure limit. This indi-
cates that a linear model tuned for the initial state would not have
sufficient performance. However, it might be possible to use the
average of an ensemble of models, or to use some kind of gain
scheduling scheme to improve the performance of linear models.
Such a robust ensemble MPC for MPD is presented in Eaton et al.
[11].
4.2.4. Calculation time
The average calculation time for solving the NMPC optimization
problem on a simple multi-core system, using only a single-core
and no parallelization, is 3 s. The maximum run time is 9 s, and
is recorded at the large change of pressure set-point during the
simulated failure. Using dedicated hardware or by implementing
a simple parallelization scheme for each input block combination,
will bring the calculation time well within the acceptable range.
This would also allow for slightly longer prediction horizons, or
allow the parameters to change more frequently.
83
5. Conclusions
An NMPC solution for multivariate control of flow and pressure
in underbalanced drilling operations is presented. The system is
incomplete, in the manner that we have no full mechanism for
state updates. It is shown that there is good control performance
for the evaluated drilling scenario given a good model fit, and
that a simple linear model will not necessarily suffice. The NMPC
maintains sufficient performance even with large changes in the
process and when we approach an overbalanced state. The cal-
culation time is within the acceptable range, and could easily be
improved using faster hardware, or with a simple parallelization
scheme.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Pål Kittilsen and Stig Terje Strand from
the Statoil Research Centre in Trondheim for help with Dymola,
Modelica, and SEPTIC.
This work was supported by Statoil ASA, and the Research Coun-
cil of Norway (NFR project 210432/E30 Intelligent Drilling). The
work of the second author was also supported by the Research
Council of Norway, ConocoPhillips, Det norske oljeselskap, Lundin,
Statoil ASA and Wintershall through the research centre DrillWell
(Drilling and Well Centre for Improved Recovery) at IRIS.
Appendix A. Reduced DFM derivation
A simplification of the drift flux model was derived by Aarsnes
et al. [2] and employed by Ambrus et al. [4], where a lumped expres-
sion for the pressure dynamics is obtained by assuming that the
pressure dynamics is uniform in x, effectively relaxing the fast pres-
sure characteristics of Eqs. (4)–(6). However, the slow propagation
of the distributed gas profile is still retained.
For the derivation of the simplified model we start with the
classical Drift Flux formulation from Eqs. (4)–(11). First note the
relation from the slip law in Eq. (11):
˛l vl = (˛l − ˛∗l )vg − (1 − ˛∗l )v∞ . (A.1)
84 T. Pedersen et al. / Journal of Process Control 68 (2018) 73–85

Following Gavrilyuk and Fabre [13], divide Eq. (4) by l , which is Eq. (A.12) allows us to recast Eq. (A.6) in terms of the pressure
assumed constant, and insert (A.1) to get profile, P(x):
 
∂˛l ∂(˛l − ˛∗l )vg ˛g (1 − C0 ˛g ) ∂P ∂P
+ =0 (A.2) EG = − + vg , (A.13)
∂t ∂x P ∂t ∂x
∂˛g ∂˛g ∂vg For deriving the velocity, we neglect the ∂P/∂t term from Eq. (A.13)
⇒ + vg = (˛l − ˛∗l ) (A.3)
∂t ∂x ∂x and obtain the distributed velocity as
where the first term on the RHS of Eq. (A.3) is due to gas expansion x C0 ˛g () ∂P
− d
which necessarily translates to acceleration of the gas. vg (x) = vg0 e 0 P() ∂ (A.14)
Employing the chain rule on Eq. (5) we have
  A.3 Lumped pressure dynamics
∂vg 1 ∂˛g g ∂˛g g
= − + vg
∂x ˛g g ∂t ∂x We use a lumped expression for the pressure dynamics. Con-
    (A.4)
sidering the pipe as a single control volume, and applying the mass
1 ∂g ∂g 1 ∂˛g ∂˛g
= − + vg − + vg . conservation law:
g ∂t ∂x ˛g ∂t ∂x
∂pc ˇ  
Inserting Eq. (A.4) into (A.3) = l ql + qg + TEG − qc , (A.15)
∂t V
 ˛l − ˛∗l
  ˛l − ˛∗l
 (˛l − ˛∗l )
  with qc the volumetric flow rate through the choke, and TEG the
∂˛g ∂˛g ∂g ∂g
1+ + vg 1+ =− + vg .
∂t ˛g ∂x ˛g g ∂t ∂x effect of in-domain gas expansion on the lumped pressure dynam-
(A.5) ics. The term TEG can be found by integrating the gradient of the gas
velocity along the well. Including the ∂g /∂t term in Eq. (A.6), TEG
Thus, defining the convenience variable EG : can be written as:
   L  
˛g (˛l − ˛∗l ) ∂g ∂g ˛g ∂P ∂P
EG ≡ − + vg TEG = A − + vg dx, (A.16)
(1 − ˛∗l )g
, (A.6) (1 − ˛∗l )P ∂t ∂x
∂t ∂x 0

we have from (A.5) and consequently, using the approximation of lumped pressure,
the TEG term can be split into a term which includes ∂pc /∂t and a
∂˛g ∂˛g remainder:
+ vg = EG . (A.7)
∂t ∂x  L
C0 ˛g ∂pc
TEG = TXE − A dx , (A.17)
A.1 Pressure profile 0
P ∂t
TXE = A(vg (L) − vg0 ), (A.18)
The distributed, quasi-steady pressure is obtained from Eq. (6),
discarding the transient and acceleration terms, and using the pres- hence we can write
sure boundary condition P(x = L) = pc : ¯
 ∂pc ˇ
x = (ql + qg − qc + TXE ), (A.19)
∂t V
P(x, t) = pc (t) + (˛l (x, t)l + ˛g (x, t)g (P))
L ¯ ≡ ˇL
  ˇ
ˇL

L C0 ˛g
, (A.20)
2f  vm (x, t)|vm (x, t)| 1+ dx
g sin (x) + dx. (A.8) L 0 P
da
¯
where we have defined the effective bulk modulus ˇ.
This expression is implicit in that it is dependent on vm which is
in turn dependent on EG (P), and g (P). To avoid this complication a
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