During the period 1984-1987 I worked for Schlumberger Cambridge Research in the fluid mechanics department. The work was based on the fluid mechanics problems encountered by an oilfield services company. The work I was involved with related to mud hydraulics during drilling, mud displacement during cementing and two-phase flow during drill stem testing. My involvement required an understanding of the engineering problems, development of mathematical models and solution of the models by either analytic or more usually, numerical techniques. Both finite difference and finite element methods were used. The results were then be used to both understand the physical processes which dominated the engineering, and to obtain simplified engineering models of the processes. After being at Schlumberger Cambridge Research for just over a year, I was appointed project leader. This exposed me to the various aspects of project definition, planning, budgeting and monitoring, as well as liaison with Schlumberger engineering centres in France and the USA.
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