Page 7 - Air and Gas Drilling Manual

viii

Preface
Likewise, it is to give shallow drilling operations engineers and scientists
knowledge of some important technologies used in deep drilling operations.
The original illustrative example calculations have been carried using the
commercial software package MathCad. The authors feel this software provided a
very convenient calculation vehicle for demonstrating the solution techniques.
However, there are a several other commercial software packages that can accomplish
these solutions (e.g., MS Excel, MatLab).
The preparation of this book has been underway since 1997 and has required the
cooperation of engineers and scientists in many operating and service companies.
Specifically, the authors would like to especially thank the management and
personnel of San Juan Division of Burlington Resources, Phillips Petroleum
Company, OXY USA, Chevron USA, Patterson Resources, Oil Tools International,
Mountain Air Drilling, Symbol Incorporated, and MI Air Drilling.
There were many individual who assisted in the preparation of this book. Much
of the art work used in this book was prepared by Anna Edwards, Ann Gardner, and
Georgia Eaton. Many of the figures and tables were prepared by Tanya Cases,
Adrienne Garcia, Ryan Robinson, and Julie Seaman. Many of the illustrative
example calculations were carried out by Dr. Lyons’ students at the New Mexico
Institute of Mining and Technology. In particular, we would like to thank Heru
Danardatu who assisted in preparing many of the most difficult calculations.
The draft manuscript was read by three engineering graduates from the New
Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology who have been in industry or practice
for the past two decades. These individuals were Allen Hains, Chris Russell, and
Robert Schwering. These individuals gave the authors many important and valuable
suggestions. The authors would like to give our very special thanks to Laurie Barr
who was willing to read the initial drafts of nearly all of chapters in the manuscript.
She had to suffer through the many spelling and grammatical errors that the three
engineer authors made during the initial preparation.
The authors would like to thank the editors and staff at McGraw-Hill Company
and especially Sponsoring Editors Ken McCombs and Bob Esposito for their
encouragement and assistance during the preparation of this manuscript and Senior
Editing Supervisor Frank Kotowski Jr. for his expert conversion of the manuscript
into this book.
The authors would like to encourage comments on the book from engineers and
scientists in industry and practice. We also apologize for any errors that might be
still lurking in the manuscript. We know our book is not perfect, but we also know
that this edition is completed.
William C. Lyons
Boyun Guo
Frank A. Seidel