Following our retrospective journey, we are pleased to share our successful work with Finesse Control Systems, Safe Influx’s key supplier. Finesse Control Systems is a specialist equipment controls’ designer located in Arbroath, Scotland, with an excellent long-standing reputation for delivering control systems to the oil and gas industry.
Our knowledge and experience in wells operations, together with Finesse Control Systems expertise in control systems, enables us to provide innovation in high-quality systems. Working closely, we designed a bespoke control system that fully automates influx detection and shut-in sequences. The heart of the Automated Well Control system is a controller, which is the size of a filling cabinet and an HMI screen, which sits in front of the driller. The initialisation protocol has been designed to follow the existing driller’s process. When an influx is detected, the machine code instructions enable simultaneous commands to be issued and executed precisely.
“We’ve developed a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) based system, which monitors the instrumentation on the rig and takes the logical decisions about what to do and replaces the decision making that the driller would have to make normally to bring the rig into a safe condition, following the detection of an influx”, said Fraser Dunphy, Founding Director at Finesse Control Systems.
Bryan Atchison, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Safe Influx, said “Safe Influx and Finesse have been working together since our company was incorporated. Back in 2019, we installed the Automated Well Control system in a traditional land rig and demonstrated that the technology works seamlessly on a real rig”.
“Focusing on safety and reliability, we have also been performing a series of bench tests at the Finesse Control Systems facility throughout 2020. These successful tests have demonstrated the functionality and versatility of the Safe Influx Automated Well Control technology.”