Please join the SPE Alaska section for another great in the Distinguished Lecture Series. This is the second of two DLs presenting in Alaska in the 2026/2027 season. SPE Alaska members voted for the DL's most relevant and interesting to you as Alaskan engineers in the upstream oil & gas industry. This was one of our top picks. Hope to see you all there!
Casing Design for a New Era: Historical Insights and Future Challenges
John A. Howard
President
Altus Well Experts
Abstract
Understanding how casing design theory and practice have evolved over time is more than a historical exercise. It provides essential context for recognizing where traditional tubular stress analysis – even those developed for High-Pressure/High-Temperature (HPHT) wells – struggles to meet the demands of today’s far more complex environments. Modern wells – including Extended-Reach Drilling (ERD), multistage-fractured unconventionals, subsea wells with sealed annuli and trapped annular risk, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) injecting CO2 with impurities, and the new generation of super-hot geothermal wells – introduce load conditions that fall well outside the assumptions that shaped the previous casing design models.
This presentation follows the journey of the evolution of casing design from the early load-case framework of the 1960s to the far more demanding wells we design today, showing how assumptions and design logic have had to evolve along the way. Yet even with powerful computational tools now available, many tubular failures still trace back to the same root cause: incomplete or inaccurate load descriptions, optimistic, or based on oversimplified pressure and temperature assumptions. Although the industry has never had a single universal standard, a consistent design process tends to emerge once the load cases are defined with enough rigor and realism.
By connecting the foundational practices of casing design with the realities of modern wells, this session offers practical insights into engineering judgment, innovation, and model selection. It shows how core design principles continue to adapt to HPHT, ERD, CCS, geothermal, and other lifecycle load requirements. Casing design remains a living discipline: its success relies on continually improving tools, more realistic load modeling, and engineers who are willing to challenge assumptions in an increasingly complex energy landscape.
Bio
John A. Howard is a board-certified petroleum engineer specializing in tubular design, well integrity, and applied engineering. As Co-Founder and President of Altus Well Experts, Inc., he has led the company to global recognition, supporting more than 80 major oil and gas operators. During his tenure at Enertech as Worldwide Sales Manager and Board Director, he helped develop WellCat™ into the industry benchmark for casing and tubing thermal analysis, significantly shaping modern well design practices.
John combines deep technical experience with a strong commitment to knowledge sharing. He speaks frequently at conferences and universities, bridging theory with field application. John has taught casing design courses in more than 30 countries across six continents. He has been an active member of the SPE for 45 years and has attended over 100 SPE Conferences, Forums, and Workshops around the world. John has served in numerous SPE leadership roles and currently serves as Technical Program Chair for SPE ATCE 2026 and sits on the ATCE 2026 Executive Committee.