US 11,939,827 B1
Measuring bottom-hole pressure with smart polymers
Mohammed Albassam, Al-Khobar (SA); Arturo Magana Mora, Dhahran (SA); Chinthaka Pasan Gooneratne, Dhahran (SA); Mohammad Aljubran, Dhahran (SA); and Peter Boul, Houston, TX (US)
Assigned to Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Dhahran (SA)
Filed by Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Dhahran (SA)
Filed on Oct. 4, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/959,405.
Int. Cl. E21B 21/08 (2006.01); E21B 44/00 (2006.01); E21B 47/06 (2012.01); E21B 47/12 (2012.01)
CPC E21B 21/08 (2013.01) [E21B 44/00 (2013.01); E21B 47/06 (2013.01); E21B 47/138 (2020.05)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
inserting, by a monitoring system, units of smart polymers into drilling fluid pumped into a well during a drilling operation, wherein the units of smart polymers are pressure-responsive;
storing, by the monitoring system, an insertion timestamp associated with each unit, each insertion timestamp indicating a time that each unit was inserted into the drilling fluid;
capturing, by a camera positioned at a sensing location and linked to the monitoring system, continuous images and observed characteristics of drilling mud exiting through an annulus of the well and containing the units of smart polymer;
determining, by the monitoring system and using the continuous images, the observed characteristics and the insertion timestamps associated with each unit of smart polymer, an estimate of a bottom hole pressure (BHP) at a drill bit of the drilling operation, wherein determining the estimate is based at least in part on executing image processing algorithms, machine-learning models, and deep-learning models; and
suggesting, by the monitoring system and based at least in part on the estimate of the BHP, changes to be made to drilling parameters for the drilling operation.