Douglas L. Zahniser
Oryx Energy Co.
Dallas
Robert W. Merritt
Elf Exploration Inc.
Houston
C.K. Chan
Shell Oil Co.
Houston
A project is under way to build data-loading tools and create an integrated oil and gas production data base using specifications developed during the last 3 years by the Petrotechnical Open Software Corp. (POSC).
The Industry Pilot Project (IPP) Phase 1 is a collaborative effort between seven oil companies: ARCO Oil & Gas Co., British Petroleum Co., Elf Aquitaine Inc., Mobil Oil Co., Oryx Energy Co., Repsol S.A., and Shell Oil Co.
The participating oil companies have provided a large set of data from a producing North American oil and gas field and money, hardware, and personnel. Over 30 vendor companies are assisting with the project.
Many companies have already streamlined their infill drilling processes and receive significant incremental benefits. But current information technology can often be a stumbling block.
Cross-disciplinary use of information is the key goal of these streamlining efforts, but much time is lost in finding, reformatting, accessing, and determining the quality of data. It is estimated that over half of the available time of an exploration and production (E&P) professional is spent searching for data. This project sets out to prove how POSC specifications can help reduce the cost and time for developing a field, improve the quality of the decision-making process, minimize the number of communication barriers and, most importantly, change technology from a hurdle to a seamless step.
The project demonstrates that POSC specifications are an enabling technology that can dramatically improve the way oil companies and suppliers operate.
In today's marketplace, software companies typically spend 60-80% of their time, effort, and resources building and supporting data management technology. By redirecting their efforts to building more sophisticated algorithms, the project opens the door for a new generation of software developers by lowering the cost barriers.
It also offers significant advantages to established software developers because it can reduce the staggering maintenance costs associated with their current portfolios. The rationale behind IPP is to provide a highly leveraged (seven to one for the oil companies) approach to reducing risk and cost in moving towards open standards. IPP's objective is more than just cost savings, it is business flexibility and improving the decision-making process with better, more timely information and managing data more effectively.
INFILL DRILLING
The project chose an infill drilling scenario to illustrate POSC technology.
The first task for the project was to define a "generic" infill drilling process, one that did not represent any particular company. This injected a degree of objectivity and made it easier for participants to look at opportunities that did not directly impact their organization. To arrive at a consensus, IPP used process reengineering techniques developed by CAP Gemini Sogeti with a group of engineers from BP, Mobil, Oryx and Shell.
The group began by agreeing on an infill drilling definition of a minimum one well, with a reservoir considered to be economic until the field is abandoned or sold.
Based on this definition, the group worked to develop a visual snapshot of the infill drilling process, including operational interfaces, field development plans, reservoir economics, facilities design, documentation, data sources, and work flow. In this way, the group outlined an "as-is" model of the infill drilling process.
Next, the group studied the model to identify any inefficiencies and issues that could be remedied to reduce costs and improve quality and responsiveness to the business. They then looked for ways in which technology could provide solutions. The integration of the reservoir/earth information became the center theme of the process.
As components and data were integrated, the group began to view infill drilling as a process instead of many discrete functions. Furthermore, a logical order of progression on how decisions about infill drilling take place became clear (Fig. 1).
Some benefits derived from the to-be" model are:
- Reduce the problem of information overkill
- Reduce personnel time searching for data
- Reduce reformatting problems
- Reduce reinterpretation work
- Reduce farm-in evaluation time
- Improve data access
- Improve data quality
- Improve communication
- Enhance teamwork, both intercompany and intracompany (partners, governments).
Most of all, the group felt the new model would help companies make the right decisions regarding speed, quality, and efficiency, and improve the field organization, e.g., drill the fewest number of wells required.
The POSC data specifications allow descriptions of both subsurface and surface facilities from the drill bit to the gathering stations and pipeline. This offers a way to integrate many key decisions about field development.The group realized that viewing field development as a set of integrated processes supported by integrated information and open access would offer a significant advantage for the commercialization of fields.
An innovative "story-boarding" technique was used to describe 11 views into the POSC data model. The views are:
- Initial reservoir model
- Run time reservoir model
- Well menu
- Base map
- Log cross section
- Seismic cross section
- Drilling well
- Well evaluation
- Documentation
- Regulations
- Time/event.
These sketches became the building blocks for a data viewer, which IPP constructed to help prove how technology can enable instead of hinder.
PROJECT IMPACT
IPP constructed this "to-be" process of field development not only to identify areas where information technology would help, but also to identify areas where technology becomes a barrier and try to discover ways to overcome that.
Because most companies view the processes of infill drilling as discrete functions, they also view the computer applications that support them discretely and think of data quality and availability as an after-thought, if at all.
But, as IPP discovered, an integrated process solution really dictates the availability of an integrated data environment to support it. In other words, you could redesign the process without changing computer technology, but the very technology would potentially become the barrier and cause it to fail or become very expensive to operate.
Therefore, open standards become a way of achieving process efficiency, especially if companies are looking for solutions in the marketplace that require an off-the-shelf integrated approach.
To address this issue, IPP hosted a software developer forum in Houston, with over 100 companies attending, to identify opportunities for testing their products in the IPP environment. Testing will form Phase 2 of the project, which will last 120 calendar days, beginning May 9. Also, Phase 1B will be conducted in North America (Houston), Europe (London), and potentially in Latin America. The European segment of Phase 1 began Apr. 25 and will use the tools, techniques, and knowledge gained from the North American segment.
IPP sees European involvement as vital because it will include additional companies, increase the leverage of industry take-up, and involve more oil and software companies. At the conclusion of the project, participating software companies should be able to offer potential products (very close to being commercialized) based on POSC specifications to oil companies. This will provide the spark for business transformation and illuminate the role that technology can play.
Participating vendors are Applied Terravision Systems Inc., AVS, Bluware, CAP Gemini Sogeti, Digitial Equipment Corp., Everest Technologies Inc., Focal Point Software, GeoScene Systems Inc., and Hewlett-Packard Co. Also included are Interactive Network Technologies Inc., IBM, Oilware Inc., Oracle Corp., SUN, Staffware, Sybase, UniSQL Inc., and Visual Alliance.
OPEN STANDARDS
OPEN STANDARDS ARE NON-PROPRIETARY specifications in the public domain that enable companies to concentrate on their core business.
An historical example of the benefit of open standards can be found in the early days of the railroad when each railroad company laid its own gauge of track. A company's rolling stock was essentially limited to that proprietary standard. With the advent of a national standard gauge, it transformed the entire transportation industry.
This essentially "opened" the door for the manufacturers, the railroads, and the customers to operate at lower cost and risks.
Copyright 1994 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
