Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD) was introduced in 2000 as an adative drilling technology for pricely controlling the pressure profile in the wellbore. Although the technology has been around for 16 years, improper planning and design has minimized the benefits that gained from its use. MPD has been utilized with various levels of success on all types of rigs (land, platforms, jack ups and floaters) in an attempt to mitigate problems ranging from early kick detection, driling through narrow pore pressure/fracture pressure windows, reducing the probability of lost returns, identifing and eliminating issues of wellbore breathing (ballooning), pore pressure/fracture gradient mapping, enhanced cementing and well control. This lecture will describe the MPD planning and design process required to get the full benefit from MPD technology. Drawing from the lecturer’s long experience in MPD and his contributions to development of dynamic influx control methods, the lecture presents the material within both a theoretical and practical context.
