Industry squeezes more from data

Computerized data management has not just replaced paperwork but also has brought operators a way of managing projects through their life cycle. Having realized the potential benefits of using data from preliminary design right through to decommissioning, one petroleum company is even working to run its entire organization in the same way. Paul Pestille, executive consultant at Intergraph (U.K.) Ltd., Swindon, said the life cycle concept of project data handling arose as operators sought to

Nov. 23, 1998

3 min read

David Knott
London
[email protected]

Computerized data management has not just replaced paperwork but also has brought operators a way of managing projects through their life cycle.

Having realized the potential benefits of using data from preliminary design right through to decommissioning, one petroleum company is even working to run its entire organization in the same way.

Paul Pestille, executive consultant at Intergraph (U.K.) Ltd., Swindon, said the life cycle concept of project data handling arose as operators sought to make each step of their projects cheaper and faster.

"They found," said Pestille, "that data hand-over from one phase to another is a major cost area. One contractor is typically not used from design through to operation, so there can be loss of knowledge along the way."

Until a few years ago, said Pestille, when a contractor handed a project over to its operator, a truck full of paper would arrive explaining how to run the plant.

"Data management was an obvious answer," said Pestille, "but even with this, the hand-over cost is significant. For instance, Statoil AS estimates that it costs $16 million for each hand-over during a project's development time."

Data costs

Over the next 20 years, said Pestille, Statoil has about 200 projects planned, so data management is worth investing in: "But data hand-over is just the tip of the iceberg."

Statoil decided that working on data hand-overs as they stood would just be moving an information bottleneck from one place to another in a project cycle.

Meanwhile, the Petrotechnical Open Software Corp. (POSC) provides the petroleum industry with a way of passing data from one company to another in a neutral format.

"Some of the more forward-thinking companies," said Pestille, "saw this as a way to exchange data without losing its 'intelligence.' Norwegian companies were the first to get together to apply this technology."

Statoil's plan

Statoil worked with Intergraph on a data management system for its Åsgard field development, later calling in partners Norsk Hydro AS and Saga Petroleum AS, contractor Kvaerner AS, and certification bureau Det Norsk Veritas.

"Using this information management framework as a skeleton," said Pestille, "we built a new data model that is effectively flesh that the petroleum industry can work with."

Now Statoil thinks the Åsgard data management system could be used to describe and manage everything in the entire organization.

"Only the Norwegians are doing this so far," said Pestille, "but everyone is watching them. Statoil is pulling other operations into the system as Åsgard progresses."

For example, Statoil signed a framework agreement under which suppliers provide up-to-date and accurate data on their products on Statoil's network, so Statoil engineers do not have to maintain their own equipment databases: "The driving force is price per barrel."