computer models to improve safety planning yuck!...
TRANSCRIPT
January 2011 Issue 28
Drilling: time for betterdata?
Lessons from medicineand military
Are you competent incollaboration rooms?
Do you challenge yourcolleagues enough?
Computer models to improve safety planningYuck! Technical details
™
Associate Member
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January 2011 Issue 28
January 2011 - digital energy journal
Digital Energy Journal - keeping you up to datewith developments with digital technology inthe oil and gas industry.
Subscriptions: Apply for your free print or elec-tronic subscription to Digital Energy Journal onour website www.d-e-j.com
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Consultant editorDavid Bamford
Technical editorKeith [email protected]
Finding Petroleum London ForumsAdvances in seismic - January 25Advances in exploration technology - February 15Improving recovery from existing fields - March 16Digital oilfield - subsurface data - April 20Technologies to avoid another Macondo - May 17Digital Oilfield IT infrastructure - June 14Carbon capture and storage (TBC) - Sept 14Digital Oilfield and people - Oct 20Developments with deepwater - Nov 9Digital Oilfield 2011 - Nov 30
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1
Cover photo: Detroit company EOS Solutions,working together with Norisol of Norway, isdeveloping "4D" simulation tools for oil and gasinstallations, which can be used for planning andtraining purposes. Here they are being used to seehow fast a rig can be evacuated
David BamfordConsultant Editor, Digital Energy Journal
Time is money!
In earlier articles and blogs, I’ve suggested that
technology providers – especially those with nov-
el ideas – will see tremendous ‘pull’ from cus-
tomers if they can show that they will deliver one
of my “3R’s” – a major reduction in risk, a major
reduction in cycle–time, or a major reduction in
costs.
I have been asked several times what I
mean by ‘cycle-time reduction’ and as always,
the easiest way to explain is with a couple of ex-
amples.
Firstly, if we go back to the end of the
1980’s, 3D seismic technology was well estab-
lished but it took an outrageously long time. My
memory is that going from project inception,
through design, funding, contracting, acquisition,
processing and interpretation for a North Sea
‘postage stamp’ survey of a hundred sq kms or
so could easily take two years – and even then
not all the data would be interpreted.
In the early 1990’s, we began to transform
3D seismic so that much bigger regional or ‘ex-
ploration’ 3Ds were shot and turned around to full
interpretation in a matter of months rather than
years. The key technology components of this
transformation were the extraordinary new seis-
mic vessels that emerged, capable of towing a
large number of streamers, a move to on-board
processing, and the availability of high perform-
ance interpretation workstations.
It was noticeable that the key contributors
to this transformation were players who were
then quite small and entrepreneurial – PGS,
Geco, Geoquest, Landmark, for example. Bigger
companies were much less helpful - even the in-
house technology departments of the Majors –
where for example they were intent on develop-
ing their own processing or interpretation sys-
tems.
Nowadays of course such ‘exploration’ 3Ds
are the norm – the dramatic reduction in cycle-
time resulting in dramatic reductions in unit costs
($/sq km) and reductions in risk (increases in ex-
ploration success rate), and of course in the num-
ber of such surveys that have been shot. It would
not be overstating to say – considering the dra-
matic increase in size of such surveys and reduc-
tion in cycle-time, that there has been more than
an order of magnitude improvement.
Secondly, our friends at Bernstein Research
have recently highlighted another example which
is the dramatic increase in value which accrues
when companies can shorten the time from dis-
covery to first oil or, conversely, noting that “eco-
nomic value can be eroded by 50% for just a 2
year delay. A majority of upstream capex is allo-
cated to development, hence meeting targets here
is critical. Specifically, the NPV of a project can
easily be halved by a two year longer lead time,
equivalent to a $15/bbl drop in the oil price over
the entire life of the project.”
Of course, I need to remind everybody that
I am a non-executive director at Tullow Oil which
has just delivered first oil from the Jubilee field
in Ghana in significantly less than 4
years………..
Such a field development requires the com-
plex integration of many technologies – the FP-
SO, flow-lines, trees, drilling, completions, reser-
voir modelling, 3D seismic and so on – all of
which requires skills and “Know How” and the
ability to deal with folk (including non-executive
directors!) who tell you it can’t be done so quick-
ly. And the prize for acceleration is very large.
So where is there another piece of fruit to
be picked, preferably low hanging? No doubt oth-
ers will have their own favourites but here’s
mine…………………
Cutting the Gordian Knot!The mythology is of an intricate knot tied by
King Gordius of Phrygia and cut by Alexander
the Great with his sword after hearing an oracle
promise that whoever could undo it would be the
next ruler of Asia.
In modern times, a 'Gordian Knot' is taken
to mean an exceedingly complicated problem or
deadlock.
Here's my problem - how do we transform
onshore exploration success rates to the same lev-
el enjoyed offshore, especially in deep water?
Simples!
[At the risk of confusing any one who has
not seen the meerkat Aleksandr Orlov on British
TV!]
As noted above, the transformation in off-
shore exploration success rates, from the mid
1990's onwards, was brought about by the wide-
spread availability of remarkably inexpensive re-
gional or 'exploration' 3D seismic.
What we need to do now is to drive down
the cost of onshore 'exploration' 3D to the same
levels as offshore. The key is to be able to acquire
and process onshore 3D seismic far, far faster
than we can today.
To do this, the big step - the wielding of the
sword - is to replace cable seismic with wireless
systems.
I am hopeful that in our first two Finding
Petroleum Forums of 2011 – on January 25th and
February 15th – we will hear from the companies
that will lead such breakthroughs – visit
www.findingpetroleum.com of course for details.
And with that, a Merry Christmas and Hap-
py 2011 to all!
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3January 2011 - digital energy journal
Contents
Do you challenge your colleagues enough?One of the signs of a successful collaborative environment is that people feel comfortable challenging each other says Jim Kochan of VitesseSolutions, knowledge management consultant to Conoco Phillips
Yuck! Technical detailsIf you want to get people interested in the digital oilfield, you’ve got to get them interested in the technical details – something peoplenormally dislike, writes Dutch Holland
Software for oil industry real estateMany oil and gas companies could benefit from a more structured approach to facilities and real estate management, writes Phil Wales, CEOof Houston-based eBusiness Strategies
15
Production
14
Exploration
12
6
10
17
7
8
Leaders - Integrated Operations conference in Trondheim
Using object databases for seismic dataObject databases can provide much faster results than relational databases, when you are trying to look for complex patterns andrelationships within the data, as two major seismic companies have found out
GeoGraphix - software for independentsGeoGraphix, a brand of interpretation software geared towards the needs of independent oil and gas companies (particularly working onland), is no longer part of Halliburton’s Landmark software and services portfolio
4Drilling: time for better data?A conference session at the Integrated Operations conference in Trondheim (Sept 28-29)looked at how the data in drilling can be improved
Are you competent in collaboration rooms?Grete Rindahl of Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) has been researchinghow well people are using collaboration rooms – and what constitutes competentbehaviour
Lessons from medicine and militaryThe oil and gas industry might be able to learn a lot from how medicine and military useintegrated operations, and have some expertise to share, said speakers at the TrondheimIO Conference
Developments at Kongsberg, Shell, Petrobras, Saudi AramcoThe Trondheim Integrated Operations conference on Sept 28-29 included new ideas from Kongsberg, Shell, Petrobras and Saudi Aramcoabout how to get the most out of integrated operations
Innocentive – crowdsourcing ideasUS company InnoCentive is helping oil and gas companies find solutions to technical problems – by posting them on the web – but it takesskill and organisation to get the right result. VP sales Jon Fredrickson explained how it works at the Trondheim Integrated Operationsconference
13
Communications
NSI Upstream – your production on the webNSI Upstream of Louisiana creates a means for companies to monitor and manage their production from anywhere, including on theinternet, and has completed a large project for the 100kbopd Kikeh deepwater development in offshore Malaysia
US regulators might want real time data from rigsUS regulators might demand real time data from drilling rigs, according to Michael Bromwich, director of the US Bureau of Ocean Energymanagement, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM), speaking at a recent Platts Energy Podium event in Washington on October 12 2010
20
21
Computer models to improve safety planningEOS Solutions and Norisol are providing oil and gas companies with 4D processsimulations to optimize their operations and planning, to help mitigating risk 19
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digital energy journal - January 2011
Drilling: time for better data?A conference session at the Integrated Operations conference in Trondheim (Sept 28-29) looked at howthe data in drilling can be improved
“We have severe challenges with data quali-
ty and using models, and reliability of the
models we use,” said Tor Stein Ølberg, spe-
cial advisor with Sintef Petroleum Research,
and previously chief engineer and VP
drilling and well technology working at Saga
Petroleum, Norsk Hydro and Statoil).
“These models have limitations and we
don’t even consider them.”
“I don’t want to get more data – I would
like to see more reliable data,” he said.
“I’ve been drilling 25 years. When I
started in drilling, one of the first things I
saw was problems with quality data,” he
said. “Today we have the same type of prob-
lem.”
“Safety is totally dependent on quality
of data, he said. “The performance of drilling
and operation is dependent on data and in-
formation.”
“For example, [the point] where we
measure depth from. We normally measure
rotary kelly bushing although we don’t have
them any more. And on another rig – it has a
different rotary kelly bushing so depth will
be wrong.”
“Next you use a wireline and it has a
different elongation so you make measure-
ments of the same formation to a different
depth. Coiled tubing is another depth meas-
urement.”
Units also cause a data management
problem. “Degrees can be K C or F. Is meas-
urement depth in feet or metres. The systems
we use are very prone to take the numbers
and not accept the units.”
Taking periodic data readings could be
compared to driving to the airport and open-
ing your eyes only every 20 minutes, he said.
“We are drilling blindly.”
Matthew Spotkaeff, SchlumbergerMatthew Spotkaeff, Well Placement Domain
Champion for the North Sea with Schlum-
berger, said that for well placement, data is
needed to help evaluate the formation (iden-
tifying drilling hazards and working out
what kind of equipment needs to be installed
in the well such as sand screens); and for
steering the wellbore in the right zone.
This needs data being sent up to ground
from the drill bit.
Normally only mud pulse telemetry is
available, with data speeds of 1.5, 3 or 6 bits
per second, compared to over 1 megabit per
second data speed when using wireline tools.
With these data rates of up to 6 bits per
second, the company has to steer horizontal
wells thousands of feet long.
The low bandwidth availability “has a
very big impact on how we use the data,” he
said. “We have to be careful about setting up
data frames before we start drilling.”
But using data compression techniques,
the equivalent of 100 bps can be sent through
a 6bps line. “So there’s a step change in
terms of the data we can get,” he said.
“The increase in data rate is a big boom
for drilling optimisation. We can do a full
formation evaluation analysis of the well-
bore.”
There can be goal conflicts between the
drilling engineer and geologist, with driller
wanting to keep the well as smooth as possi-
ble, and geologist wanting the well to be kept
within the payzones.
But if the two people are sitting togeth-
er and viewing the same data it is easier for
them to resolve the conflict. “A lot more col-
laboration is obtained from sharing data,” he
said.
The earth model can be updated using
data from the drilling. “You change your
model so it equates with the actual data and
see how this affects how you carry on with
the well – eg changes in drilling tools, pa-
rameters. Then record the lessons learned to
make sure we don’t fall into the same traps
again.”
When drilling through certain forma-
tions, the drill bit can start jerking, with
shocks of 8-10g (8 – 10 times acceleration
due to gravity). “This damages the tool. If
we can prevent shocks, we can prolong the
life of the tool until total depth,” he said.
“And replacing a tool can be a day or week
of rig time.”
If there is a decrease in revolutions per
minute of the mud pump, it can be due to a
washout, with drilling mud leaking through
the drillstring. If this isn’t picked up quickly,
the leak in the drill string can turn into a
breakage, and a lot of complex work fishing
or sidetracking to get the drilling going
again.
In one example, a company changed
the drillbit because the drilling was slow, but
after enduring this expense and non produc-
tive time, they found that there wasn’t much
improvement in rate of penetration.
But when the rock resistivity log was
The Drilling Session at the IO conference: on the panel from left to right: Jon Stærkeby, IBM;Matthew Spotkaeff, Schlumberger; Mike Herbert, ConocoPhillips; Halvor Kjørholt, Statoil (hiddenbehind microphone) and Tor Stein Ølberg, Sintef
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January 2011 - digital energy journal 5
examined, with data sent to surface by mud
pulse telemetry, it showed that the drillbit
had moved into a formation with a different
resistivity – and maybe the change in rate of
penetration was due to the mud interacting
with the different type of rock in a different
way. “So they changed the mud parameters
and solved the problem,” he said.
The next generation of drilling teleme-
try is wired drill pipe, where up to 50,000
bps can be sent to the surface, which enables
communications directly with the tools.
“Previously to change a tool setting it can
take 20 minutes by mud pulse, now we can
do it with a switch,” he said.
One of the reasons for the slow take-up
of wired drill pipe was because drilling com-
panies were initially required to buy a whole
set of drill strings before they could use it,
Mr Spotkaeff said. Now it is rented.”
Another problem with wired drill pipe
is that the signal degrades at over 6000m of
drill pipe. “They had to come up with re-
peater boxes. It’s something people have
been working on for quite a number of
years,” he said.
It is still a challenge is working out how
to get the most out of the data. “It’s not just
about getting 50 curves. It's orders of mag-
nitude different. That’s an issue which needs
to be overcome,” he said.
StatoilMarvin Hammervold, researcher drilling
technology at Statoil, talked about Statoil’s
pilot projects to try out ways to keep hy-
draulic and mechanical models up to date
during drilling using real time data.
“We need to change from reporting to
our proactive use of real time data,” he said.
“Take pore pressure gradient – we need
to have the models updating during drilling
– there are huge uncertainties behind these
models,” he said.
“The concept is we get sensor data for
surface and downhole, and all the configura-
tion data. “The data is coming from differ-
ent sensors, different vendors. We have mud
logging sensors, downhole sensors, rig sen-
sors. These are fed into the process models.
We want to use all this live real time data for
controlling the drilling.”
One of the hardest things is getting real
time drilling data which is high enough qual-
ity. “If the model is being fed bad data the
bad data comes out the other end,” he said.
“It’s a real risk taking bad data, putting it in-
to models and trusting them.”
“Small errors in data can have grave
consequences,” he said. “All these processes
can go very wrong if you have one bad data
point. And the models have their own uncer-
tainties and limitations,” he said.
Better data organisation is also neces-
sary. “It’s a jungle out there. We need to stan-
dardise on mnemonics (ways of tagging the
data). We need good housekeeping. We need
to build in some kind of diagnostics check,”
he said.
“All the vendors have their own data
acquisition system, but they’re not even on
the same timeline.
“And sensors are often very unreliable.
We need some redundant sensors, but not the
same sensors twice.”
“The biggest problem is getting good
mud data. Get that wrong and your model is-
n’t worth much.
One challenge is working out how to
persuade service companies to provide high-
er quality data – and if this should be includ-
ed in a contract.
Mike Herbert, Conoco PhillipsMike Herbert, integrated operations advisor
to ConocoPhillips in Norway, agreed that
one of the things we all struggle with is data
quality.”
“In drilling we are amazingly tolerant
of poor data. We needed to put that behind
us and really value quality” he said. “If we
don’t gather quality data the picture we see
is not very representative.”
“The lack of quality data means we
don’t really know where the well is. We have
huge uncertainties,” he said. “We find out
too late the formation fluids are entering the
well bore. We don’t know if we bypassed
some reserves.”
If people were better at communicating
with each other, they might find better ways
to improve the data, he suggested.
“We’ve obsessed with graphs – I hate
graphs. I think in pictures. We can visualise
completions drilling, production drilling,
down hole tools. One of the most important
things is communication and it’s much easi-
er in pictures. Simple.”
“We need to fix the basics – depth,
weight on bit, mud properties,” he said.
“Let’s start with these. “I think we should
have an industry goal to get the basics right.
If we can get some of this right we can start
having a much more integrated system.
“We need to clarify our expectations
with data – we need to reward good quality
data,” he said.
Updating data models does not neces-
sarily require more data. “Some of the infor-
mation we need to make a real time hy-
draulics model – we might only get that
twice a day,” he said. “We can do less data
and more quality.”
“We’re making so much effort around
data quality. It’s very labour intensive and a
lot of this should be automated,” he said.
Audience discussionOne audience member noted that drilling is
not the only industry in the world which has
to deal with complex and sometimes unreli-
able data.
There are also technical ways to im-
prove data. “If there’s noise you have to
work out what kind of noise there is and how
to filter it. This has been done in a lot of dis-
ciplines.”
Roar Nybø, research scientist at SIN-
TEF, suggested that people don’t take data
quality seriously enough.
“When we have drilling problem like
losing fluid we call that a drilling problem
and we have alarm systems. But when the
sensor is not functioning we call it a data
quality problem,” he said.
“It would be very nice to have our own
system which says “sorry your sensor is
wrong, you’ll have to stop your models be-
cause you can’t trust them.”
Michael Golan, Professor of Produc-
tion Engineering with NTNU Norwegian
University of Science & Technology, said
that it would be helpful to have systems that
would provide a quick view of what was
happening, to help people make quick deci-
sions – because many decisions in the
drilling process are made very quickly.
Coffee time at the Trondheim IntegratedOperations conference
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Leaders
digital energy journal - January 2011
tion room. “That’s a challenge, particularly
if you are an expert or have something im-
portant to share,” she said.
“New people tend to hide outside the
camera angle because that seems safer, but
it’s not very good for trust,” she said. If
you’re collaborating with a group in a re-
mote site and someone in the remote group
suddenly starts talking and you didn’t even
know they were there, it can be disconcert-
ing.
“People often look at their own PC be-
cause they are at home there, rather than look
straight at the camera.”
“People with high technology literacy
will speak a lot slower and wait for the mi-
crophone. If you are new to this, the tempta-
tion is to speak fast and quickly,” she said.
Working on a shared “surface” also re-
quires skill. All people working on the screen
have controls to share the screen, but if they
all start moving the mouse and changing the
screen at the same time it gets tricky.
One problem is when conflicts start to
arise and people end up collaborating against
each other. “We want a united meeting,” she
said.
When working together with other peo-
ple in different parts of the world, it is im-
portant to make yourself easy to understand
and use the same language other people do.
“It is very important to focus on precise use
of new technology,” she said.
When people used plenty of abbrevia-
tions and local terms, IFE classified the be-
haviour as “incompetent”.
IFE also analysed group leadership be-
haviour. If the leaders were either passive
(doing nothing) or dominated the discussion,
their behaviour was classified as “incompe-
tent”.
“More skilled people focus equally on
all participants – both local and remote. In a
really good meeting the meeting leader will
evaluate the collaboration,” she said.
Good leaders will ensure that final de-
cisions are agreed during the meeting not af-
terwards.
There are still challenges with getting
everyone to participate, particularly when
there are groups from different parts of the
world involved.
“Extrovert people are easier to train
than introverts. The only way to do that is by
encouragement and training the meeting
leader to involve people. Cultural diversity
is a huge challenge,” she said.
Another problem is encouraging peo-
ple to develop new skills, when they are go-
ing to lots of other courses already (‘training
fatigue’).
“You have to make it relevant to what
they do every day and avoid academic ex-
ample,” she said.
Grete Rindahl, a senior researcher with the
Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology
(IFE), has been watching workers on the
North Sea’s Gjøa field collaborating remote-
ly and analysing how well it is going.
She was speaking about her work at the
Trondheim Integrated Operations conference
on September 28-29 2010.
The Gjøa field was discovered in 1989,
and operations will begin in November
2010. Partners in the field are Statoil, Shell,
RWE-DEA, Gdf Suez and Petoro (represent-
ing Norwegian government).
Staff on the field have been organised
into multidiscipline teams, with some peo-
ple working offshore and some onshore, but
they come together regularly for collabora-
tion meetings.
The meetings use a ‘common virtual
workspace’ – with the workspace being sim-
ilar to one PC screen – so it is like 10 people
working on the same PC screen at the same
time.
The great thing about collaboration is
that it enables many people from different
backgrounds and cultures to work together.
But the diversity of people can make it hard.
“These are diverse people – with different
skills and attitudes, and they have to collab-
orate through technology,” she said.
The technology and collaboration
rooms themselves do not make people col-
laborate – that can only be achieved through
building teams of people, she said. “It’s very
difficult to understand IO without actually
doing it for a while,” she said.
IFE set up a research project called
SOFIO (“Structured observations with feed-
back of IO interaction”) to try to work out
how the collaboration was going and try to
help improve collaboration at Gjøa.
The researchers aimed to analyse peo-
ple’s mindset while engaged in collaboration
(if they understood the strategies and princi-
ples behind the collaboration); their technol-
ogy literacy (eg if they understood the im-
portance of sitting so they could be seen by
the video camera); the precision of their
communication (if the message sent is the
one which got received); and the teamwork.
Also how well they work under pressure and
how they build trust among the groups.
An important factor is people’s technol-
ogy literacy. Some people can be visibly un-
comfortable when working in a collabora-
Are you competent in collaboration rooms?Grete Rindahl of Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) has been researching how well people areusing collaboration rooms – and what constitutes competent behaviour
The audience at the Trondheim Integrated Operations conference
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January 2011 - digital energy journal 7
Alan Lumsden, Professor and Medical Di-
rector, The Methodist Hospital in Houston,
talked about the similarities between medi-
cine and the oil and gas industry.
He was speaking at the Integrated Op-
erations conference in Trondheim on Sep-
tember 28-29, organised by Norges Teknisk-
Naturvitenskapelige Universitet (NTNU).
“I work in the world of cardiovascular
disease. So do you – you don’t know it,” he
said.
Houston is home of the largest medical
centre in the world, with 6,500 hospital beds.
The two biggest “businesses” in Houston are
oil and gas and medicine. Yet there is very
little contact between the two groups, he
said.
“I’d be working on a PowerPoint on a
plane out of Houston and the person next to
me would say ‘what are you doing’”.
“We pick targets, drill holes, try to in-
terfere before pipes blow apart and interfere
after they blow apart every now and again.”
“People joke, next time I have a heart
attack filling up my tank someone will fix
it.”
“But I don’t get to see inside your
toolkit and you don’t get to see inside mine.
People work in like and fundamentally dif-
ferent fields.”
The Kimray Greenfield Filter, a filter
for a blood vessel, has been “implemented
on hundreds of thousands of patients world-
wide,” he said. It used some expertise about
filtering pipes developed from the oil indus-
try. “Kimray was an oilfield engineer”, he
said.
There has not yet been any use in the
medicine of pigs – robot devices which trav-
el along pipes
and assess their
interior condi-
tion. “Could we
use something
similar in blood
vessels?” he
asked.
The med-
ical industry
does have endo-
luminal ultra-
sound, a device
which gathers
360 degree radi-
al images from
inside a blood vessel. It is fitted inside a
catheter (a tube which can be inserted into
the body).
The medical professional does have ex-
perience with 3D imaging, remote monitor-
ing, and managing large amounts of data, he
said.
“Computational fluid dynamics is mov-
ing into medicine from oil and gas,” he said.
“The lining the inside of wells is almost
identical to lining the inside of body ves-
sels,” he said.
The Methodist Hospital has run tours
for petroleum engineers through its medical
centre, he said.
As a result of one of these tours, one oil
company started research into using a Mag-
netic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to
get a better understanding of fluid flow
through a gravel pack.
The medical profession could be very
interested in learning more about how the oil
and gas industry uses swellable elastomers,
because it might be possible to adapt the
technology to develop something which can
block body vessels.
Other technologies developed in oil and
gas which could be useful for the medical in-
dustry are battery technologies, visualisation
and robot steering, he said.
“There is a huge overlap between both
of our industries. We have to begin to start
understanding there’s a huge opportunity for
your knowledge to help our patients,” he
said.
Both industries also have big chal-
lenges with regulators, particularly in the US
– which often means that companies have to
do medical research in other countries.
The mindset of typical oil and gas en-
gineers, and medical researchers, is also dif-
ferent, which can lead to different ways of
solving problems.
Better decisions at NATOMajor Dag Ola Lien from the Royal Norwe-
gian Air Force Academy, talked about his
previous job assignment in NATO, where he
worked with decision making as an Air
Weapons Controller on NATO AWACS, and
how the oil and gas industry could maybe
apply similar thinking.
Major Lien has flown with NATO for
over 1300 flying hours on NATO AWACS,
and now works with the Norwegian Air
Force on leader-
ship develop-
ment and co-op-
eration, particu-
larly around
NATO's flying
radar stations,
known as an
"airborne early
warning and
control system"
or AEW&C.
“Like the
oil and gas in-
dustry, the Air
Force tries to set
up ‘Integrated
Operations,’ but our related term is ‘Network
Centric Warfare’,” he said.
In the Air Force, the emphasis is on
speed - reducing time between making ob-
servations to decisions. "From detecting Tal-
iban to engagement by a fighter takes min-
utes. Time is critical," he said.
Fast decisions are critical during a mis-
sion, a battle commander views everything
on a big screen and makes decision of where
to bomb. "But even if he made the fastest
decisions in his life - the person in the fight-
er or the AEW&C are saying 'hey come on
give us the clearance'", Major Lien said.
"The battle commander says, hey come
on give me some time. The perception of
time is different."
There are staff from 13 different coun-
tries working on the AEW&C. In most cas-
es, each individual mission ends up with a
new group of personnel, and they all need to
get on running the operations straight away.
However, missions run by the RAF
AWACS flew with fixed crews on every mis-
sion, he said. "No-one can see that fixed
crews are fundamentally better than mixed
crews."
"A lot of effort is put into team build-
ing. We build up the soldier to be robust," he
said.
"Personnel are encouraged to give feed-
back. A fighter pilot can admit mistakes or
dangers, situations to his colleagues without
getting his head cut off."
It's a challenge to get people from dif-
ferent cultures, different "glasses" (how they
view the world around themselves) to work
together.
Lessons from medicine and militaryThe oil and gas industry might be able to learn a lot from how medicine and military use integratedoperations, and have some expertise to share, said speakers at the Trondheim IO Conference
Major Dag Ola Lien fromthe Royal Norwegian AirForce Academy
Alan Lumsden, Professorand Medical Director, TheMethodist Hospital inHouston
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8
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Torbjørn Forthun, managing director of
Kongsberg Drilling Management Solutions,
believes that oil and gas companies need to
develop more sophisticated ways of doing
business with drillers.
Drilling companies get punished if they
cause downtime, but they don’t get any re-
ward for their efforts in keeping the drilling
as effective as possible, or the ‘quality of the
uptime’, he said. “There is a need for change
in the contractual regime.”
Also, drillers companies are not chal-
lenged by their colleagues as much as per-
haps they should be. “The rest of the organi-
sation is more or less accepting what the
drilling domain is claiming,” he said.
Meanwhile, there has been a focus on
‘integrated operations’, but it is mainly
geared towards being able to drill with less
people on the platform, rather than improv-
ing the quality of the relationship and find-
ing ways drillers and their customers can
gain value.
Mr Forthun was previously responsible
for the integrated operations department at
Odfjell Drilling Technology, which was sub-
sequently acquired by Kongsberg Oil and
Gas Technologies in September 2010.
Marathon, Hydro, Statoil and Conoco
Phillips all worked with Odfjell on integrat-
ed operations.
Kongsberg is trying to integrate all of
the systems for planning and reporting into
one drilling suite, which can be used by both
drilling companies and their customers, so
they can collaborate together.
For one customer, the integrated opera-
tions technologies enabled an oil company
to save $23.5m a year, although the invest-
ment in the technology was made by the
drilling company, he said.
Value at ShellShell has now implemented ‘smart fields’
technology at 50 assets around the world, in-
cluding in Brunei, Oman, Salinn (W
Siberia), UK, Nigeria, Gabon, Canada,
Netherlands, Norway, Sakhalin, said Frans
van der Berg, smart fields operations leader
with Shell.
The company quantifies value from the
project in terms of increased recovery and
financial savings it makes (such as from be-
ing able to develop fields cheaper or having
to purchase less capital equipment), he said.
One field in Brunei could only be de-
veloped using smart wells technology, be-
cause it was too complex to develop other-
wise, with hundreds of reservoirs faulted up.
On the Nelson field, Shell has a system
to optimise the gas lift, which enables it to
start-up operations in 18 hours instead of 24
hours after any shutdown, providing a whole
quarter day of additional production.
The company has learned that there are
very little benefits to smart technology if you
can’t make any changes to the field as a re-
sult of the data you gather. “It’s no use know-
ing the water is going the wrong way if you
can’t do anything about it.”
With all smart fields projects there is a
challenge getting people to get enthusiastic
about them, when it is only one of a list of
priorities they have.
“From a workers’ perspective – if you
add another thing for them to do, they’re not
likely to do it. You have to take something
out,” he said.
Making it work also means making it
relevant to the people and what will help
them. “You need to choose which you im-
plement – don’t go for everything that seems
nice,” he said. “Training needs to be adapted
to the people. And it is the closest people that
they have trust in that should deliver train-
ing.”
Mr van der Berg said that the technolo-
gy is “easy – we can make it work. The em-
bedding is the hard work. The people are not
the problem – the problem is created by the
fact that they need to change the way they
work. It creates resistance,” he said.
Shell uses coaches in the early stage of
a project and runs regular reviews of how
well things are going.
PetrobrasCristina Pinho, E&P Operation and Mainte-
nance General Manager, Petrobras, talked
about Petrobras’ integrated operation man-
agement project, “GIOP”.
Frans van der Berg, smart fields operations leader, Shell and Cristina Pinho, E&P Operation andMaintenance General Manager, Petrobras
Developments at Kongsberg, Shell,Petrobras, Saudi AramcoThe Trondheim Integrated Operations conference on Sept 28-29 included new ideas from Kongsberg,Shell, Petrobras and Saudi Aramco about how to get the most out of integrated operations
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Leaders
January 2011 - digital energy journal 9
The plan is to install GIOP at its off-
shore production facilities following a 4 year
plan running from 2009 to 2013.
“We think communication is so impor-
tant we have a very structured plan to com-
municate,” she said.
It builds on a research project, called
GeDig. In GeDig, “we tried 6 different tech-
nologies, with pilots at 6 different compa-
nies,” she said. “Some of it didn’t work at
all. We realised technology is not so impor-
tant. You don’t need this fancy place to work.
People didn’t understand.
“GIOP is a natural evolution of other
projects,” she said.
“The complexity over the next two
years will bring new challenges. We have an
exploration area of 150,000km2.
“We will increase production 42 per
cent in 2010 to 2014 – from 2.1m bopd to
2.98m bopd, while the mature reservoirs de-
plete 10 per cent a year.”
This means there will be a lot of green-
field operations. Many people working in the
new integrated operations centres will be
new Petrobras employees.
Petrobras has become a partner of the
Centre for Integrated Operations in the Pe-
troleum Industry, a research centre which is
part of Trondheim University of Science and
Technology (NTNU).
“Petrobras decided to join IO mostly
because of the experience here [in Trond-
heim],” she said. “We are starting from
scratch and didn’t want to make huge mis-
takes.”
One of the biggest challenges at Petro-
bras s communication about IO to people
around the company at at managerial level,”
she said. “I thought it was easy to present
GIOP philosophy to the managerial level,
but some of them didn’t understand. We had
to come back and do it again. GIOP is not
easy at all to understand.”
“We must have the managerial level
with us. Without them it will be impossible
to make it different”.
Saudi AramcoMeshal Al Buraikan from Saudi Aramco's
Exploration and Petroleum Engineering
Computer Center, talked about how Saudi
Aramco has managed dynamic well tests.
Mr Al Buraikan says he personally
likes the following definition of intelligent
fields: “Remote capturing and utilisation of
real time surface and subsurface data to op-
timise upstream assets and maximise its
profitability”.
“That’s a definition I personally like.
Someone else in Saudi Aramco might give
you another definition,” he said.
Mr Al Buraikan sees the evolution of
the system to do more and more things simi-
lar to how cellphones have evolved. “The
cellphone started off with voice, now it’s an
entertainment centre,” he said. “There is a
network foundation.”
“The surveillance layer is where we
spend most of our time. That consumes
much of the budget,” he said.
Normally for well tests, the well needs
to be shut in for 2-7 days, to monitor what
happens as pressure builds up. The data gath-
ered during the well test needs to be filtered
to understand what is happening, because
otherwise it just seems to jump all over the
place.
“If you get a flow rate data per second
the data is all over the place,” he said. “So
you apply a filter and get it back per hour.”
Saudi Aramco had a project to reduce
the number of data points from 58,000 to
2,700.
It uses the Kappa Engineering “Dia-
mant Master” client server tool for reservoir
surveillance. It has been implemented on 13
fields, with 1027 wells and 5092 gauges.
“The challenges are data quality, stor-
age and access,” he said. “The problem is not
disk space but how to access it.”
The software also helps to manage the
well tests – in one example, Saudi Aramco
wanted to shut in 50 wells in a field at the
same time to see what happened.
Using IO for emergenciesCamilla Tveiten, a psychologist and re-
searcher at Scandinavian research organisa-
tion SINTEF, has studied how integrated op-
erations could help with emergency manage-
ment.
This covers into risk anticipation, ie
how well people are aware that something is
about to go wrong, before something actual-
ly does go wrong; and the communication
while the emergency is being handled.
Ms Tveiten analysed 16 actual acci-
dents, and in 11 of them, “We find deficien-
cies in anticipation of risk,” she said.
Also organisations do not learn enough
from the accidents. “Learning seems to be
not as it should be.”
There has been a reluctance to talk
about how integrated operations can help
with emergency management, she said. “It
has been a taboo in many ways. People say
IO is not about emergency management.
Emergency management needs to be left
alone.”
“In emergency management, sharing of
information plays a very crucial role,” she
said.
“We wanted to look at how new work
proceses and new technology can influence
emergency management.”
“Most people say in oil and gas, a cri-
sis doesn’t come suddenly, it evolves over
many days.”
Ms Tveiten suggested that companies
should put more effort into trying to antici-
pate risks, or emergencies which might be
about to occur. “We suggest there should be
a more focus on spotting risk,” she said.
In emergency handling, it can be im-
portant to manage the information flow.
“Too much information is not good,” she
said. “But if we put a lot of information in
the room it can turn to an information crisis
not an emergency crisis.”
But in most emergency communica-
tions, most of the communication is by tele-
phone.
The sharing of information is quite lim-
ited,” she said.
Meshal Al Buraikan from Saudi Aramco'sExploration and Petroleum EngineeringComputer Center
Sharing of information in emergencysituations is 'quite limited' - Camilla Tveiten, apsychologist and researcher at SINTEF
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Leaders
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Jon A Fredrickson, vice president of sales
with InnoCentive, talked about his online
service which enables companies to post
‘challenges’ and give rewards for people
who do them, thereby enabling anyone in the
world to participate in their research. Re-
wards can be between $5,000 and $1m.
The service does not aim to replace
companies’ in house research departments,
but aims to provide them a route to alterna-
tive expertise, for example someone who has
tried a similar problem working for a differ-
ent industry, or someone with a unique set
of ability and skills which the company does
not have with its in-house staff.
The name of the company posting each
challenge is not revealed on the website.
The oil and gas software company Par-
adigm posted a challenge on the site because
it wanted to find a better way to analyse 3D
fault data. Interestingly one of the Solvers is
a Swiss entrepreneur radiologist who had
been working out ways to look at bones in
3D.
In one example, NASA (the North
American Space Agency) wanted to find a
better way of predicting solar events, and
posted the challenge on InnoCentive. The
award was won by a retiree who had previ-
ously studied solar flares for the telecom in-
dustry. “NASA didn’t know this guy was
there, and never knew this research had been
done,” he said
In another example, the Oil Spill Re-
covery Institute in Alaska (OSRI) had a
problem with oil and water mixture from
spill recovery it was loading into barges,
which was freezing and becoming impossi-
ble to discharge.
The solution came from an Illinois
chemist and nanotechnology expert, who
had knowledge of how large fields of con-
crete are kept fluid, preventing the concrete
from setting by using a long vibrating rod,
who thought the same method could work
for a frozen oil and water mixture. The
chemist won $20,000 and gave half of it
back to OSRI.
One chemical company which posted a
problem on the site received a successful so-
lution from an 18 year old undergraduate in
Kazakhstan, who won $25,000.
In a study done by Harvard, 70 to 80
per cent of the solutions come from people
some 2 to 6 degrees away from the normal
circle of talent the company would go to, Mr
Fredrickson said.
Of course, companies can always post
the challenge on their own websites, but the
value InnoCentive provides is to help com-
panies frame the question in a way that is
more likely to find a solution, and provide
ready access to a number of people who en-
joy complex technical or scientific problems,
Mr Fredrickson said. Additionally, the
added value of anonymity for a Seeker and
the inclusion of purchasing Intellectual Prop-
erty for the award posted for the challenge,
makes this model the fastest and most cost
efficient method for innovation in the world.
Mr Fredrickson said he was disappoint-
ed that the company was not invited by BP
to help try to come up with solutions to the
Deepwater Horizon disaster.
It ended up hosting online discussions
for its expert solvers to try to come up with
solutions anyway, even though no financial
award was offered. “Our solvers wanted to
share their solutions and they wanted people
to listen,” he said.
The solvers on InnoCentive were only
able to use data from the general media,
which was limited. They would have been
more likely to have been able to contribute
if it had more of the facts, he believes. “Our
solvers love facts,” he said. “Temperatures,
conditions, flow rates along with other key
data was missing as we had no access to it
from BP or other sources.”
BP tried to do organise its own system
for soliciting ideas and according to BP got
40,000 submissions, he said, which must
have made it very hard to sift out anything
useful. “The signal to noise ratio was out of
balance,” he said.
If InnoCentive had been involved, they
could have framed the question better, and
got a narrower list of responses, more likely
to provide a useful solution and taking less
time to sift through.
As a specific example of people who
might be able to help, there could be people
who work in the nuclear industry with ex-
pertise on containing radiation, which would
have been applicable to containing the oil-
spill.
Medical expertise could have been use-
ful. “The CEO of a manufacturer of medical
equipment asked all employees to give sug-
gestions by applying what they knew about
valves,” he said. “They had interesting ideas
that came in.”
“Someone else who was looking at sen-
sor technology maybe have looked at it dif-
ferently,” he said.
Another example of the strength of
“crowdsourcing” for solutions is the DARPA
(Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency) challenge to find 8 feet diameter
red balloons, where 10 red ballons were
placed in urban parks around the US, and
teams had to find them, for a reward of
$40,000.
The winner was a group from Massa-
chussets Institute of Technology, which cre-
ated a pyramid reward scheme for distribut-
ing the prize money, whereby the finder of
each balloon would get $2,000, and people
who connected people who found the bal-
loons with MIT would get $1,000, $500,
$250 and so on.
There have been other challenges post-
ed related to oil spill recovery, including for
oil spill tracking, and the best way to fit ves-
sels.
InnoCentive understands that it is cru-
Innocentive – crowdsourcing ideasUS company InnoCentive is helping oil and gas companies find solutions to technical problems – byposting them on the web – but it takes skill and organisation to get the right result. VP sales JonFredrickson explained how it works at the Trondheim Integrated Operations conference
Helping you find experts from other industrieswho might be able to you help you find goodsolutions - Jon A Fredrickson, vice president ofsales with InnoCentive
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12
Exploration
digital energy journal - January 2011
cial that the “seeker” gets engaged in the dis-
cussion, and takes the solvers seriously, and
is specific about what is needed. “You need
a process to engage unknown experts some-
where in the world,” he said.
Some companies find it difficult cultur-
ally to use solutions developed outside the
company, the well known ‘not invented here’
syndrome. Procter and Gamble went to steps
to change this culture within their organisa-
tion, saying projects should be labelled
“proudly found elsewhere,” he said.
“The cultural issues are big,” he said.
“People say, culture eats strategy for lunch.”
About InnoCentive, Inc.
Since 2001, InnoCentive has helped cor-
porate, government, and non-profit organ-
izations to better innovate through crowd-
sourcing, strategic consulting services and
internal Software-as-a-Service offerings.
The company built the first global Web
community for open innovation where or-
ganizations or “Seekers” submit complex
problems or “Challenges” for resolution
to a “Solver” community of more than
200,000 engineers, scientists, inventors,
business professionals, and research or-
ganizations in more than 200 countries.
Prizes for winning solutions are financial
awards up to US $1,000,000. Committed
to unleashing diverse thinking, InnoCen-
tive continues to introduce new products
and services exemplifying a new corpo-
rate model where return to investors and
individual passion go hand in hand with
solving mankind’s most pressing prob-
lems.
www.innocentive.com
Using object databases for seismic dataObject databases can provide much faster results than relational databases, when you are trying to lookfor complex patterns and relationships within the data, as two major seismic companies have found out
Seismic interpretation and reservoir charac-
terisation company Fugro Jason, along with
another unnamed major seismic company,
have moved to using object orientated data-
bases to manage their seismic data, because
they believe it gives them faster results.
The database provider is Objectivity, a
company based in Sunnyvale, California.
One (unnamed) seismic research com-
pany has used the database for their data, to
run under their acquisition and processing
modules.
The database collects all of the sensor
data, including GPS, source and receiver po-
sitions, seismic response and node position,
and puts it into the Objectivity database.
The project development manager said
that the database was "perfectly suited to the
demanding data acquisition requirements".
Fugro Jason uses the database to man-
age the data from different sources across its
geology, geophysics, petrophysics and mod-
elling applications. The company says that
analysis which once took days can now be
done in minutes.
The theory is that normal databases
(commonly known as ‘relational databases’)
are not very good at processing data when it
means finding complex relationships be-
tween the fields.
Relational databases are ideal for tasks
which involve putting data into a storage and
taking it out later. For example, a system for
managing plane ticket purchases.
But if a task is needed which involves
finding complex patterns and relationships
between data, then object orientated databas-
es can do the job faster.
For example, think of the way that
Amazon manages to trawl its database to no-
tice that several people who bought one
product also bought another one (a process
which creates 20 to 30 per cent of its rev-
enues).
Or imagine a national intelligence data-
base, with large amounts of information, try-
ing to spot certain patterns very quickly.
If companies do not want to switch
completely from a relational database to an
object database, they can use the existing
database to store and catalogue the data, but
use Objectivity to analyse the relationships.
They can also create external processes run
on separate machines.
FasterObjectivity claims that when it compared its
database with a leading relational database,
looking for connections between a number
of different objects with up to 5 degrees of
separation, the Objectivity database could do
it in 15 seconds, compared to 17 hours on a
leading commercial relational database.
Object orientated databases can also be
run over many different servers at once,
which is very hard to do with relational data-
bases.
Results are sent as they are found,
which means the end users don’t have to wait
for the query to complete before they see any
results.
“Relational data management systems
have no concept of relationships,” he says
Thomas Krafft of Objectivity. “In Objectivi-
ty databases, relationships are stored with
the data.”
Also, most of the popular programming
languages today are object orientated, so
most programmers are familiar with object
orientated languages.
“We've run tests internally showing
how a traversal of complex and deep rela-
tionships, finding connections between ob-
jects separated by 3, 4 or any number of de-
grees of separation, can cause relational
databases to just fail. And even when they
don't fail, the response time is horrendous.”
Helping seismic companies manage theirdata with orientated orientated databasesrather than traditional relational databases -Thomas Krafft, director of marketing,Objectivity Inc
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January 2011 - digital energy journal
GeoGraphix, a Windows-based geological
and geophysical interpretation software line
will now operate separately to the Landmark
brand, and its product development will be
managed by a separate company called
LMKR.
GeoGraphix was originally an interpre-
tation software company, which was ac-
quired by Landmark in 1995. Halliburton ac-
quired Landmark a year later, and added the
GeoGraphix software to its portfolio as a
way to address the needs of small and mid-
sized operators. Since then, it has operated
as a product line under the Landmark brand.
But from now on, GeoGraphix will operate
independently from Landmark under the
management of a company called LMKR’s
management.
The software suite runs on everything
from commodity hardware, including lap-
tops, to high-end workstations.
It can be used as a standalone solution
in the field, or as part of a multi-user net-
worked asset team in the office.
The company recently released a new
version (5000.0.2.0 release) of its Discovery
software in October 2010, including tools for
geomodelling while drilling and GIS map-
ping.
Independent Operators“GeoGraphix was built to support small and
medium sized independent companies and
their workflows and we’ve been evolving the
technology to meet their needs,” says
Richard Patterson, head of research and de-
velopment at GeoGraphix.
“These companies often are working in
fields which the majors have found to be un-
economical.
“In order to be successful in these en-
vironments where margins are thin they need
to find ways to do things more efficiently.
“Leveraging a software solution that re-
quires less IT infrastructure and support, and
minimizes the learning curve, can be a way
of doing this,” he says.
“With independent oil companies, the
person using the software could be the per-
son buying the software; it could be the pres-
ident of the company. The technology needs
to be as easy to use as possible.”
“A lot of what you see reflected in the
product is a result of our close relationships
with these small and medium sized compa-
nies,” he said. “We worked directly with
them as far as defining and developing work-
flows, to help them get their jobs done faster
and easier, to get to first oil.”
Independent operators also need to find
ways to do things cheaper than the majors.
Having less complex software packages,
which need less IT infrastructure and sup-
port, can be a way of doing this.
“They’re looking for solutions which
are more affordable so they can seek out the
remaining reserves which the majors can’t
afford to continue to work in,” Mr Patterson
said.
“Our goal is to provide the tools that
the geoscientist need to get their job done in
this high volume environment that we’re
moving into.”
“We’ve got a lot of individual consult-
ants working with it on a laptop, they click
on the software and they’re up and running,”
he said. “The data they work on can be ei-
ther on the computer or on the server. There
are a lot of customers using NetApp network
storage – they’re storing the actual project
data – on a network appliance.”
Geomodelling While Drilling withsmartSTRATThe company has developed a new geomod-
elling while drilling tool called Discovery
smartSTRAT, a new add-on module to Geo-
Graphix Discovery smartSECTION soft-
ware.
It is designed to enable fast, easy and
accurate geomodelling while drilling for
more precise geosteering of horizontal wells.
The company says they based this lat-
est feature on customer feedback and input
to cater to the new ways geoscientists and
engineers are collaborating to develop un-
conventional fields and drill horizontal
wells.
The increase in horizontal well drilling
in North America, along with a new factory
production method, demands a new way of
thinking and working resource plays, the
company says.
As a direct result of close collaboration
with key customers, smartSTRAT was de-
signed and engineered to help geoscientists
effectively and efficiently execute factory
production style workflows for horizontal
GeoGraphix - software for independentsGeoGraphix, a brand of interpretation software geared towards the needs of independent oil and gascompanies (particularly working on land), is no longer part of Halliburton’s Landmark software andservices portfolio
drilling and
total field
develop-
ment.
“We
worked di-
rectly with
the geosci-
entists to de-
fine and de-
velop work-
flows to help
them get
their jobs
done faster
and easier,
thus reduc-
ing time and
expense to
first hydro-
carbon,”
says Mr Pat-
terson.
“The unconventional workflows are
very demanding. You have to have tools and
workflows which are very repeatable and
lend themselves to a quick turnaround.”
The horizontal well correlation work-
flow allows geoscientists to update the proj-
ect interactively in Discovery smartSEC-
TION with new picks, inter-well points and
revised drilling targets.
The resulting interpretations can be dis-
played in Discovery’s integrated advanced
3D visualization tool and geomodel applica-
tion.
Technology: GIS MappingAnother new capability allows users to ac-
cess and display, in real-time, the most cur-
rent online GIS and ArcGIS maps and lay-
ers. These maps and layers can be visualized
both in 2D and in 3D interpretations.
According to GeoGraphix, a major
source of frustration geoscientists encounter
is the lack of access to the most up-to-date
mapping information.
The ability to stream maps ensures that
everyone working on a project is using the
latest map data since the latest maps are
streamed every time the project is opened.
Users don’t have to worry about data dupli-
cation and issues resulting from manual in-
put and output.
Building interpretationsoftware to meet the needsof small and medium sizedindependent oil companies -Richard Patterson, head ofresearch and development atGeoGraphix
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14 digital energy journal - January 2011
“I think the good people really like to be
challenged,” says Jim Kochan, managing di-
rector of Vitesse Solutions LLC, a company
based in Cleveland, Ohio, which provides
knowledge management consultancy to the
oil and gas industry, with Conoco Phillips as
one of its biggest clients.
“We all love to challenge and defend.
People can say ‘I see what you’re doing but
I can see a new idea of how to do this in a
different way’.
“That’s kind of the environment that
my approach has always strived for.”
This does not mean aggression, but just
setting up the right kind of conversational
discussion, which all participates appreciate
and all benefit from. “The exchange of ideas
usually happens in a conversational note,”
he said.
Experts rarely ask other people for help
because that makes them look like they don’t
know what they are doing, and destroys their
power base in the company. It works much
better if it as seen as experts sharing tips with
each other, like golfers comparing their
methods in a bar.
“It’s not ‘we’re doing this wrong, we’re
going to drop it, and do it your way’.” It’s
‘you’ve just given me a couple of good
ideas’.”
“We’re all in the same ballpark, experts
are rarely off by that much. Experienced
people generally have 85 per cent of it, but
they’re looking for other people’s techniques
that may be useful or generate ideas.”
“There’s always a difference of opinion
into how things should go, if people are shar-
ing their opinions. But you are at least sur-
facing some good ideas, identifying cautions
or sharing experiences. It is similar to meet-
ings when people say ‘ah ha! I’m glad you
brought that up’. Your approach might save
us something in terms of cost! We’ve all
been in those kinds of meetings.”
“Your average expert actually loves to
talk and exchange about what they do with
other people who are knowledgeable. It
doesn’t mean they’re asking questions about
things they don’t know.”
“Comparing techniques is not showing
that I don’t know something. It’s sharing
what you know and having respect for other
people and what they know.”
“In a culture where people who do the
same type of work are in regular collabora-
tive contact with each other, they feel com-
fortable airing what’s new, and what they are
working on. Exchanging ideas and plans and
techniques on a regular basis.”
“I think people who work on high risk
projects are kind of proud of the fact they’ve
been chosen to work on a high risk project.
But you need pathways for those people to
share and interact with other knowledgeable
people from other projects.”
“If you’re all working together to say
‘...this is what we’re doing, ...this is what
they’re trying, ...we’ve had this vendor in...,’
little by little, those things start to have a
positive impact.”
“Everybody would say, there’s more I
don’t know than I know. When we’re honest
with ourselves we all know that,” he said.
“It’s about saying ‘this is how we’re doing
things here’ ‘how are you doing it there’ and
comparing notes.”
Mr Kochan cites the Kashagan Oil
Field in Kazakhstan, which is being operat-
ed by a consortium of 7 companies – ENI,
Shell, Total, ExxonMobil, KazmunayGas,
ConocoPhillips and Inpex. “You’re trying
to bring to bear the knowledge of 7 compa-
nies into the drilling operations of one of the
most complex operations in the world. Go-
ing in, do we really think that all 7 compa-
nies are collaborating – bringing all their
knowledge to bear – if they hadn’t any mech-
anism to share? I don’t know.”
AssistanceCollaboration often starts when someone
asks for assistance, or someone has a sug-
gestion which they think would help some-
one else.
“The mud experts on a rig could be say-
ing (to others around the world), ‘here’s what
we’re seeing...’. People would start to re-
spond, and someone could say, ‘we have a
small operation over here and we had simi-
lar readings, and we had a problem. Here’s
the details of those problems ...’ and then
some productive discussion could ensue.”
If people are already talking to each
other then it is more likely they will discuss
many concerns they may have. “If the ques-
tions are arising (for example about mud
logs), mud
logs might
start to be
shared by
people who
feel the need
to share it
with each
other be-
cause the
community
has fostered
that confi-
dence.”
“They
can discuss
this with
other mud
experts
around the
world, what
they are doing in their own operations. Peo-
ple say, well can you please send me your
mud logs, or where are your mud logs avail-
able on the system, point me to where your
concerns are. This exchange brings more
minds to more issues.”
“An experienced expert can say ‘let me
look at your mud logs and I’ll see if there are
some areas where we might be concerned’”.
“In such a community atmosphere
they’re getting support for good ideas or
they’re getting questioned on things that they
may not be sure about. They say, maybe
we’d better back off on this because other
people in the company are unsure.”
Positive re-inforcementCollaboration has positive re-inforcement
loops – as more people collaborate, more
people see the benefit of collaborating, more
people become comfortable collaborating,
more collaborating goes on, more people get
new ideas, or see improvmenets in produc-
tion or safety, leading to more collboration.
“The more people that feel comfortable
jumping into a forum at any given time, the
more easily people feel about exchanging
knowledge,” he says. ”They’re all going to
same place. You’re more likely to find peo-
ple who are willing to help or simply share.”
“If those people are more in tuned-in to
any situation – you have less likely of a
Do you challenge your colleaguesenough?One of the signs of a successful collaborative environment is that people feel comfortable challengingeach other says Jim Kochan of Vitesse Solutions, knowledge management consultant to Conoco Phillips
Helping you makecollaboration work - JimKochan, managing directorof Vitesse Solutions
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January 2011 - digital energy journal 15
chance for something bad to happen. You
sure do reduce the likelihood,” he says.
In one example someone asked a com-
munity for advice about how to use a specif-
ic dangerous chemical in a certain applica-
tion. Other people in the community provid-
ed advice, and some people (who were just
reading the exchanges) became aware of the
risk for the first time.
Use the whole companyMost people commonly discuss things with
colleagues in their office, collaboration tools
can help people discuss with experts across
the whole company, worldwide.
“When you have a giant corporation,
you have people all over the world who can
weigh in and debate things, and things get
better,” he says. “For example, lessons
learned on a gas turbine in Brazil can be used
in Alaska.”
“We’re always checking e-mail – I
don’t know anyone who doesn’t check their
e-mail. People get on intranets and logon
every day. If you’re checking on a global
community it only adds a few minutes to
every day, you can jump in or contribute to
don’t have tools competing against each oth-
er, you have a well organised and well run
knowledge sharing process, you can’t help
but engage the best minds,” he says.
Organising your knowledge sharing is
a good idea. “The more organised the ex-
change of knowledge, the more focussed it
is, the more likely that things are going to be
done better, negative things have a chance
of being avoided, and people have a little
more comfort level in taking responsibility,”
he said.
“Engaging with people in a virtual en-
vironment should be part of people’s day. It’s
not easy to do at first. But once it happens
the benefits do start.”
Posting data live on a corporate intranet
can help, but it is more important to get the
engagement working. “Just because data are
available online doesn’t mean people are
looking on it,” he said.
To support the discussions, it probably
is important to have data files accessible in a
standard online place to people in the com-
pany. “There shouldn’t be 50 places to store
documents,” he said.
it. Instead of going down the hall and en-
gaging with 1 or 2 people, you can walk over
to your computer and ask your question to a
much larger group.”
But even if remote colleagues are avail-
able and reachable with collaboration tools,
it doesn’t mean that people collaborate,
when it can still be much more comfortable
to talk to people you are sitting next to.
“We isolate ourselves geographically
often, because of time zone, language, dis-
tance, for the most part it’s a lot easier to
stand up and walk down the hall and ask
someone, who may not be an expert but they
might know enough to get you through the
day ,” he says.
ToolsTools don’t make the collaboration work, but
the collaboration ceretainly can’t happen
without the right tools used in the right way.
“When things are done right, when the
processes are put in place with some of these
wonderful tools, like Sharepoint and
Wikipedia put in with proper guidance, with
leadership, business case, resources, transfer
processes, specific expectations, and you
Yuck! Technical detailsIf you want to get people interested in the digital oilfield, you’ve got to get them interested in thetechnical details – something people normally dislike, writes Dutch Holland
Straight out of the dictionary, Yuck is “used
to express rejection or strong disgust.”
Yuck is the reaction that technical read-
ers often have when encountering informa-
tion that appears to be overkill.
However, beware of the Yuck factor if
interested whatsoever about today’s fast-
spreading concept of the Digital Oilfield
(DOF).
Yuck. Why should anyone bother to
read about such an arcane topic as DOF en-
terprise architecture at the “strategic” level?
The answer is simple: DOF as a new
technology, and article readers as its propo-
nents, are not likely to go far in producing
results for their company (or brownie points
for their annual performance evaluation)
without a business foundation for DOF at the
right level.
Otherwise, regardless of top manage-
ment’s verbal “go ahead” signals, DOF may
continue as little more than an expensive cu-
riosity. That is the unvarnished bottom line.
Even with agreement that a strategic
foundation is important, what can anyone do
about it, especially if they are not at the
“strategic” level. In fact, those connected to
DOF in any way can do a lot about it through
executive education, patterned after Chinese
water torture.
Every time anyone talks, presents or
discusses moving DOF forward, they talk
about DOF Enterprise Architecture.
However, if that term will presumably
Yuck out top management, then talk about
“critical success factors for DOF” or “known
pre-conditions” or “lessons learned” … or
whatever it takes. Sometimes a copy of a rel-
evant article can be very helpful.
Past the Yuck? Enterprise ArchitectureWhen an upstream organization decides to
“go for it” to maximize digital technology
utilization for business value, the enter-
prise’s architecture must be altered and con-
figured specifically for digital technology.
To translate, when an upstream compa-
ny decides to make DOF adoption a higher
priority for the enterprise, goal statements of
Senior Managers must be re-configured to
include specific business goals to be gained
by using digital technology.
“Must”
be re-config-
ured? Yes, be-
havior goes
toward re-
wards, not to-
ward words.
Strategic,workprocess,technicalprocess
In the first of
this series of
articles, DOF
Enterprise Ar-
chitecture (DOF EA) was described as a
combination of three different structures that
must be aligned and integrated to maximize
the business potential of digital technology.
Strategic Business Architecture … in-
cluding the company’s DOF vision and
strategic goals, measures and incentives
Work Process Architecture … includ-
- Dr Dutch Holland,Holland ManagementCoaching
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16 digital energy journal - January 2011
ing the matrix of technical and business
work processes needed to achieve DOF
strategic goals
Technical Process Architecture … in-
cluding the processes inside the IT or R&D
organization to manage digital resources
Strategic Business ArchitectureFive organizational elements must be
aligned by senior managers to get DOF into
full play: Company vision, goals and strat-
egy for DOF, Executive commitment to
DOF, Incentives for Results from DOF, Ro-
bust portfolio management and Explicit de-
cisions for DOF Implementation.
1. Company vision, goals and strat-
egy must explicitly reflect the company’s
intention to adopt Digital Technology for
improved business results.
Someone once said “Never underesti-
mate the power of the written word.” That
must be a given or organizations would not
consume so many trees in writing “Vision,
Strategy, Values, etc.” and the other informa-
tion produced to guide organizations.
It is not necessary to include in goal
statements that offshore platforms will be
utilized for production because that is not
new. But, using digital technology to make
better decisions about production is new,
both to many organizations and to many
managers who may have been making pro-
duction decisions “the old fashioned way.”
The key point is that failure to include
the desire for exploitation of digital technol-
ogy in the writings of top management can,
and will, lead to confusion about how seri-
ous the company is.
2. Executive commitment to DOF
must be shown by investment in DOF ar-
chitecture and by willingness to use pro
forma results in financial projections.
Imagine a company which builds a new
production platform off the west coast of
Africa. What are the chances that anticipat-
ed production would be omitted from future
earnings projections for the company? The
answer is zero because man-
agement is fully committed to
making that platform pay off
for the investors. The same is
true for DOF projects.
What if millions were
committed to DOF projects to
improve decision-making
without mentioning that in-
vestment and its anticipated
earnings in the company’s fi-
nancial projections? Would
that be read as a lack of com-
mitment or a lack of knowl-
edge of the impact the DOF
projects should have on the
business? Either way, failure to show antici-
pated financial results is a DOF killer.
3. Incentives must be in place to
motivate DOF exploitation. Archimedes
said, “Give me a lever long enough, and a
fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall
move the world.” Such is the power of the
lever.
In organizational terms, incentives are
the equivalent of the lever. What anyone
wants, they “describe” and then “incen-
tivize.” Or, to use an old phrase, “Put their
money where their mouths are.” Failure to
explicitly incentivize the exploitation of dig-
ital technology at multiple management lev-
els will result in much less than what could
be called “a full-court press.”
4. Robust portfolio management
must be in place for all capital investment
decisions including DOF. Regardless of a
company’s size, only so many dollars can
be devoted to “new,” whether fields, plat-
forms, pipelines, technology or DOF.
Those scarce dollars are allocated by top
management using their process which
has probably developed over time.
The issue is that the use of allocation
process from the past is not likely to put
DOF investment opportunities into the same
bucket of dollars for allocation. Potential in-
vestment in DOF can be only a derivative of
another budget category such as Information
Technology (IT). Failure to explicitly put
DOF opportunities into a head-to-head eval-
uation with other investment opportunities
usually results in under-investment in DOF
given its business potential.
5. Explicit decisions to “Deploy” or
“Give Permission to Adopt” must be made
and communicated for each DOF initia-
tive. Although this may be hard to believe
it is true, because managers in almost
every company often still treat invest-
ments in IT dollars differently than their
other investments.
For example, if top management funds
the construction of a new production facility
for the Gulf of Mexico, they would not have
to call in the GOM asset manager and say:
“The company is investing big bucks in the
GOM platform and we expect you to use it
to make money for the company.” Can you
imagine the look on the GOM Manager’s
face when he hears that? “What did you
think I would do?”
Yet, when dollars are invested in DOF
initiatives, top management actually does
have to sit down with managers and tell them
that very thing. Failure to have that direct
conversation will stop a DOF “deployment
by a given date” and sends the signal that us-
ing the new DOF technology is optional.
All or NothingFail to complete one category of organiza-
tional reconfiguration at the strategic level
and the end result will be greatly disappoint-
ing from both an operational and economic
point of view.
As the list below indicates, if one key
ingredient of strategic architecture is miss-
ing, the results are considerably less than de-
sirable.
Missing a formal DOF strategy – leads
to confusion
Missing executive commitment – leads
to project having low priority for action
Missing management incentives –
means its all talk, no action
Missing portfolio management – means
minimal investment
Missing decision to deploy – means
slow and partial use.
The Yuck Test Those having an interest in DOF, and those
who read this entire article, have passed the
Yuck test and are players. That passage de-
livers an unfair advantage over others who
say they want to max DOF performance.
Now, on to the other three articles in this se-
ries -- with real chances to stretch one’s lead.
More informationThis is the second article in a five-part se-
ries that defines and explores the ways an
upstream organization would need to be
re-configured to fully adopt the use of dig-
ital technology to improve the business.
Articles in this series will look at the
adoption of digital technology from a
number of angles: Strategic business,
work process, technical process and ven-
dor processes.
Tel: +1 281-657-3366
www.hollandmanagementcoach-ing.com/digitaloilfield
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January 2011 - digital energy journal 17
Software for oil industry real estateMany oil and gas companies could benefit from a more structured approach to facilities and real estatemanagement, writes Phil Wales, CEO of Houston-based eBusiness Strategies (www.ebiz-strategy.com)
It may be surprising to discover that man-
agement of the oil and gas industry’s col-
lectively vast real estate and facilities
(RE&F) is a breed apart from the rest of
their companies technologically.
To an outside observer, this would
seem almost incomprehensible when look-
ing at the scale of services offered and size
of the Real Estate & Facilities Capital Ex-
penditures (RE&F CAPEX) and/or Opera-
tional Expenditure (OPEX) budgets.
However, in comparison to operating
units, this cost is relatively small and lacks
the focus prevalent in other industries.
Most real estate services in oil and gas
companies have originated as discrete
functions within individual business units
and evolved in silos. This not only applies
to day-to-day operations of these groups,
but also to their enabling technologies.
The impact? These disparate growth
patterns have resulted in each organization
supporting their real estate activities dif-
ferently and rarely focused under an enter-
prise-wide approach.
Consequently, with no standard ap-
proach or centralized direction, oil and gas
companies have often let individual sites
implement solutions.
This had led to some companies hav-
ing dozens or even hundreds of real estate
software applications in use.
In fairness, various business units
have handled real property assets ad-
mirably, but the typical approach is a sim-
ple reactive service offering of fixing what
breaks, for example.
Unfortunately, reactivity puts compa-
nies on a collision course with transforma-
tional change occurring throughout other
areas in the industry. With no consistent
way to measure asset performance, this old
reactive management approach is awkward
at best in today’s technology-driven world.
New technological trendThe upshot is that these companies have no
consolidated way to roll up metrics region-
to-region, building-to-building or activity-
to-activity other than labor-intensively
moving data between spreadsheets.
Fortunately, these “walls” are coming
down as more companies view their RE&F
services in general - RE&F technology
specifically - in a completely new light.
As stated before, business units have
traditionally handled their own space by
viewing it as only another asset required to
conduct business. That thinking bred an-
other typical reality; facilities taking a back
seat to core operations when it comes to
funding.
Thus, many of these business-man-
aged facilities fall into disrepair, resulting
in disconnects within operating standards,
business processes and facilities manage-
ment technology.
The good news is that the recent trend
is increasingly toward consolidating all oil
and gas real estate and facilities manage-
ment under one corporate services umbrel-
la.
Bringing these assets under a single
operating model drives companies to stan-
dardized practices and literally creates the
opportunity to implement uniform support-
ing technology.
Choosing IT packagesWhen selecting and managing software
packages for service organizations such as
Real Estate and Facilities (RE&F), it is
critical to remember that technology is on-
ly an enabler. Said more memorably, “The
tools are cool but the processes rule.”
This guiding principle drives compa-
nies to take a more structured approach to-
wards selecting real estate/facilities man-
agement software.
In adopting this new approach, re-
member that technology and best practices
go hand-in-hand.
Good business processes (e.g., Best
Practices) are designed to allow technolo-
gy to offload the mundane data collection
and repetitive administrative functions.
Essentially, good technology enables
business processes to let skilled labour
solve problems instead of babysitting a
computer.
Taking that objective a step further,
the concept of enabling technology focus-
es on software that can actually become an
integral part of service delivery, thus en-
abling facility personnel to work smarter.
This differs from the too-common ap-
proach of buying technology first and then
trying to figure out how to adapt to it or, in
many cases, how to work around it, all of
which rings hollow on the “Money well-
spent” barometer.
Secondarily, using aligned technology
which is enabled to support a best practice
business model actually forces a preferred
behavior.
When selecting a service-oriented
software solution the key issue is that the
process must be a business-driven initia-
tive, which is precisely where too many or-
ganizations make their most critical error.
Is ERP OK?Heard the following scenario before? The
RE&F staff, believing “It’s just software,”
abdicates their responsibility to the compa-
ny’s IT organization.
In turn, not understanding the func-
tional requirements around managing real
estate, IT will typically turn to what they
know best: the ERP system they have de-
ployed.
If that appears acceptable, the more
successful companies think not. Though
these software giants market real estate and
facilities “solutions,” they rarely provide
the depth of operational capabilities neces-
sary to transform a RE&F organization,
which should be the real point.
Therefore, RE&F professionals must
step up to the plate when selecting an en-
abling software solution while maintaining
Helping you work out which software to useto manage oil and gas real estate - Phil Walesof Houston based eBusiness Strategies
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a laser focus on a key point.
That is, IT’s role is to help ensure that
any potential selection will work within the
corporate infrastructure, but only facilities
management personnel know what the
technology must do.
Technology strategiesA fact which still surprises many is that the
most successful technology projects have
little to do with technology. To the con-
trary, successful RE&F technology imple-
mentations begin with a vision for how
work should be performed, a willingness to
change current practices and enforce stan-
dards, a clear definition of business
processes for work in the future and man-
agement’s unwavering support for guiding
the organization through the change.
As a practical matter, the more struc-
tured approach to selecting software re-
volves around a push among majors to
move away from the rigid “This is how we
do it” mindset to adopting best practices,
then getting them documented, agreed to
and communicated. In turn, the technology
solutions being implemented are a catalyst
to bring online both technological and poli-
cies/procedures improvements.
In this way, RE&F management opti-
mizes the services offered by the organiza-
tion while adding technology that lets them
actually measure performance in a consis-
tent way. In an even bolder move, instead
of tweaking their own processes, some
companies are saying, “Tell us the indus-
try’s best practices and we’ll adopt them.”
This includes both the business methods
and the aligned supporting technology.
See a pattern? This approach allows
organizations to have traceability from
their strategic vision all the way down to
their tactical delivery. In buying and imple-
menting technology tools, traceability
shows how each tool supports the function-
al requirements, which support the process-
es, which support the metrics and perform-
ance criteria, which support the strategy.
The more tactical that companies get, the
more critical that traceability must be
aligned all the way to the top of the organ-
ization.
ConclusionIn a well-defined and implemented best
practice, the technology tool greatly en-
ables oil and gas real estate organizations
to do their job better. The tool is where they
store decisions, access information, and
perform analyses and comparative assess-
ments.
Further, when working with good sys-
tems, they are allied with systems that “talk
and think” real estate, which is why large
ERP systems are not as effective; the latter
talk and think finance, procurement and
Human Resources (HR).
Properly selected and implemented
technology is a strategic support system
that eliminates rote daily work by doing it
all “behind the scenes” so users can more
productively focus on making well-in-
formed decisions.
In the Digital Oilfield, real estate/fa-
cility management technology tools have
moved from being just a repository of ac-
tions to becoming a strategic analytic tool
that can trend for the best decisions. While
this development has only come about re-
cently, it is remarkably changing oil and
gas real estate and facilities management
globally.
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January 2011 - digital energy journal 19
it fit, does it not fit - all these things you can
put into these documents,” says Trond
Soltvedt, oil and gas division manager at
Norisol Norge, which is selling the software
in Europe.
This can all be viewed with the Adobe
Acrobat Reader software –free software al-
ready installed on over 90% of the world’s
computers.
Enabling everyone involved in a proj-
ect to view, measure and mark-up the 3D da-
ta is invaluable. Giving everyone access to
the data spurs collaboration and results in
more innovative problem solving and proj-
ect planning. In the 3D PDF, users can view
the equipment from any angle, travel around
it and zoom in and out.
"In my opinion, in years to come, there
will be no shutdown activity offshore with-
out a corresponding 3D PDF - after seeing
the benefits of this, there is no other way to
do it," Mr Soltvedt says.
"The more complex the task is, the
more benefit you can get out of this. You can
see what happens if you change some param-
eters, how does that affect other tasks."
It is useful for people who have to work
on the platform, for example installing new
equipment, or installing scaffolding, because
they can easily get an idea of the job before
they have to do it.
The 4D process simulation technology
was originally used in Detroit as a way to
help automotive manufacturing plants more
efficient, helping Detroit vehicle manufac-
turers build and tweak their production lines
and increase efficiency.
EOS has molded this technology and
applied it to the energy industry in a way that
allows its customers to run what-if scenar-
ios, mitigate risks and maintain project
schedules.
The cost of downtime at oil and gas in-
stallations is critical, with the cost of well
development at about $10 per second, a shut-
down can cost nearly $5 million per day.
With demand for oil nearly outstripping ca-
pacity, delays equate directly to lost revenue.
Performing a 4D process simulation allows
the user to make mistakes virtually and avoid
making them in the physical world.
“If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, a
4D process simulation is worth 10,000
words,” Mr Giacomazza says.
Computer models to improve safety planningEOS Solutions and Norisol are providing oil and gas companies with 4D process simulations to optimizetheir operations and planning, to help mitigating risk
EOS Solutions, a company based in
Rochester, Michigan, is working with a num-
ber of oil and gas companies to build “4D”
process simulations, which consists of a 3D
model and the 4th dimension representing
the variable of time (see cover photo).
This enables companies to simulate
various aspects of their operations to en-
hance overall efficiencies, says John Giaco-
mazza, Vice President Sales at EOS Solu-
tions.
“The 4D Process Simulation approach
is far better than the conventional static, pa-
per-based scheduling methods which are dif-
ficult to interpret and hard to relate to actual
operations,” he says.
Cost as a 5th dimension can be added
to the simulation as well. The cost dimen-
sion aspect has proven to be invaluable to
planning large Greenfield projects in oil and
gas.
4D Greenfield Process SimulationA supermajor used the software to optimize
the planning of a greenfield project. It was
used to plan and view everything that is hap-
pening on the surface in 3D - including
earthmoving, building roads and installing
electricity grids.
Labour and equipment were also mod-
eled to optimize how many trucks and how
many workers / personnel would be needed
over the different phases of the build out.
“We were able to simulate their process
– how many trucks would be needed, what
would happen in different weather condi-
tions, how long it would take based on dif-
ferent factors,” says Mr Giacomazza.
“By doing a digital build of the opera-
tion in 4D, energy producers are better able
to plan and optimize their processes to get it
right the first time, thus mitigating risk.
“Simulating the entire asset in 3D and
including the 4th dimension of time and 5th
dimension of cost is a tremendous advantage
on large-scale projects, which require huge
amounts of capital.”
EOS has appointed Norisol, a service
and engineering company (which specializes
in scaffolding, insulation and service treat-
ment services) based in Norway, as its ex-
clusive agent, providing the software and
services in Scandinavia and the UK.
4D Offshore Rig Evacuation SimulationOil and gas companies are also utilizing the
power of 4D process simulations for emer-
gency planning.
This includes emergency evacuation
planning on oilrigs, and working which
routes people will take (depending on where
an accident occurs) and how long it will take
them to evacuate (see cover photo).
Management and employees can col-
laborate and make decisions together on
what would be the best evacuation routes to
take by running different ‘what if’ simula-
tion scenarios in the digital 4D environment.
4D Assembly Simulations4D Assembly and Operation Simulations
give engineers and planning staff an envi-
ronment in which precise and detailed oper-
ation plans can be executed digitally. This
allows these groups to evaluate every detail
of a project from proper equipment selection
to ergonomic issues.
EOS has enabled its customers to study
the impact of new equipment installation on-
to existing infrastructures, checking for
clashes, determining optimal paths for re-
moving/installing equipment and minimiz-
ing interferences.
By optimizing a project digitally, the
risks of mistakes during actual project exe-
cution are reduced, increasing overall per-
formance for operations and maintenance
procedures.
“Mega” oil and gas projects sometimes
assign 5-15 percent of the entire project
budget toward mistakes, overruns and errors
in planning/installation. “Our customers find
that they can reduce mistakes and project
overruns, resulting in about a 10 percent sav-
ings in the overall project budget,” he says.
3D PDFEOS has developed a tool on top of Adobe
3D, which can import CAD models generat-
ed in any CAD system (ie. AVEVA-PDMS).
Animations, mark-ups, annotations and
measurement of the 3D CAD data can also
be incorporated into the 3D PDF, showing
not only the data itself, but valuable infor-
mation as it relates to how equipment will
be installed and maintained. By providing
this technology, EOS helps their customers
to be CAD independent, a huge value for any
organization.
"Dismantling scaffolding, dismantling
pumps, tanks, cleaning tanks, cleaning of
pipes, replacing pipes, replacing valves, does
DEJ28_24pages:Layout 1 16/12/2010 13:12 Page 19
Communications
20 digital energy journal - January 2011
“If they see something they’re interested in
they can do an analysis right there using the
system’s built-in analysis tools.”
CommunicationsThe biggest challenge is securely connect-
ing and interfacing the various pieces of
equipment to the OFC servers and moving
data efficiently from the field to the office
across limited bandwidth media such as
VSAT.
In theory it should be a simple task,
with most pieces of equipment having some
kind of data output stream and interface, and
most remote locations now having a data
communications link to the producer’s IT
network.
But in practise things are much more
complicated. Most field locations have very
limited and less reliable shared satellite data
communications that are used for voice, fax
and other business data including email and
internet access. Additionally, interfaces to
control systems have to be secured and hun-
dreds of thousands of data items must be
evaluated to identify the critical few items
of interest. The company is often called into
projects after an oil operator or its vendors
NSI Upstream – your production on the webNSI Upstream of Louisiana creates a means for companies to monitor and manage their production fromanywhere, including on the internet, and has completed a large project for the 100kbopd Kikehdeepwater development in offshore Malaysia
NSI Upstream of Louisiana has created Oil
Field Commander(OFC), an online surveil-
lance system that has analytical tools for oil
companies to monitor and analyze their pro-
duction by connecting data from production
equipment and wells to a to a server and
making that data available from anywhere,
including the web.
It has completed a project for Murphy
Oil, enabling the company to monitor what
is happening on its $2bn+ Kikeh Field De-
velopment in the South China Sea off Sabah,
East Malaysia. Murphy asked NSI to install
a system after the two companies had
worked together successfully for several
projects in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Kikeh field produces approximate-
ly 100,000 barrels of oil and 125 million cu-
bic feet of gas per day, with 13 producer and
15 water injector completions coming up to
a dry tree platform, a further four subsea oil
producers to another manifold, one gas in-
jection well and 12 water injection wells on
3 additional manifolds. All production is
connected to a FPSO (floating, production,
storage and offloading vessel). Water depth
is 4330 feet.
There are approximately 6,300 data
items being collected or calculated.
The company designs and installs se-
cure communication interfaces to field con-
trol systems that have data from all of the
production equipment, dry tree and subsea
wells and their respective sensors and sub
systems, including downhole gauges.
The data is transported via the existing
IT infrastructure, which connects an OFC
field server located on the FPSO and an OFC
central server located in Murphy’s offices in
Kuala Lumpur to the user of the data. The
company aims to connect every critical piece
of data from the downhole gauges to the
sales meters. Additionally, equipment not
connected to the process facilities or well,
such as the drilling riser tension system, are
connected during the drilling of the dry tree
wells.
There are more than 50 users of the sys-
tem, including engineering, operations and
management, based on and offshore.
The company reports that originally
Murphy thought the system would be used
primarily by operations personnel and the
production team engineers who wanted the
system to be installed.
But it has found many additional users
for the system, including the reservoir and
subsurface team, construction engineers,
management and even third party consult-
ants who support and supplement the Kikeh
team in certain critical skill areas. For exam-
ple, the company has a production adviser
who lives on the other side of the world 14
time zones away from the Kikeh field, who
says he checks the field first thing when he
starts work every day.
Murphy Oil has designated the NSI
system as a “mission critical” system for
providing real-time information about what
is going on in the field to the Kikeh produc-
tion team, says Dave Dixon, president and
CEO of NSI Upstream.
The Oil Field Commander system con-
nects all the various systems in the field to-
gether, so the Kikeh team can keep their fin-
gers on the pulse of what’s going on,” he
says. “For certain critical data like downhole
gauge data, as soon as the data on the con-
trol system in the field is updated they see it
in the Kuala Lumpur office as well.”
“The idea is to give them a real-time
line of sight into the field,” says Mr Dixon.
NSI Upstream gathers data from all your upstream equipment, so you can view everything onthe web in real time
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Communications
January 2011 - digital energy journal 21
have tried to build a system themselves, but
realised how difficult it is, says Fred Gard,
VP sales and marketing.
NSI uses a range of media to move da-
ta around, different types of satellite and ra-
dio links, cellular communications and hard-
wire cable.
The company also needs to understand
the data stream which the different systems
and devices create. Most devices can create
some kind of data output but data items
(called ‘tags’) are not named in any stan-
dardised format. Also everything needs to be
done with low bandwidth to avoid interfer-
ing with other voice and data traffic.
“Most things don’t talk nice,” says Mr
Gard. “We get into a lot of communications
challenges, particularly with certain devices
and systems. “
SoftwareBoth the field and the central servers can
produce graphic views similar to an interac-
tive animated web page, with over 130 dif-
ferent graphic views available for the Kikeh
field. Many of these views have a layout
similar to the well and process flow dia-
grams of the field’s wells and equipment,
and some present the data in a tabular rows
and columns format.
Users can click on an equipment gauge
or meter displayed on the screen to view all
of the data associated and recorded with it.
There are also sophisticated tools to view da-
ta over different time scales, apply data fil-
ters, do correlations and make comparisons
among various data, as well as perform more
sophisticated analysis such as regression and
transient data analyses.
“You can see all historical data, from
the beginning of the recording of data until
the present for any item,” says NSI’s Stephen
Mohler. “Production and reservoir engineers
look at these historical trends, and they can
tell a lot just from the data signatures.”
For example, you can monitor data for
a slowly changing trend like production de-
cline and using one of the analytical tools
predict what date
a certain point
will be reached.
For example, if
you know you
will need to in-
stall another com-
pressor when
wellhead pressure
goes under 900
psi, the system
can predict the
date you will need
to make the
change based on
the history of the
collected data.
The soft-
ware can also
send e-mail alert
messages whenever specific thresholds are
reached, or use a voice call-out telephone
system to reach the responsible oil company
personnel.
US regulators might want real time datafrom rigsUS regulators might demand real time data from drilling rigs, according to Michael Bromwich, director ofthe US Bureau of Ocean Energy management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM), speaking at a recentPlatts Energy Podium event in Washington on October 12 2010
“One of the things that's emerged from some
of the investigations that have been conduct-
ed so far is there is a need for more instru-
mentation on these rigs - to provide real time
electronic data to us as the regulator,” he
said. “Clearly more data is needed - more re-
al time data is needed.”
“What we're going to be moving to-
wards is a system where we may rely some-
what less to having inspectors on the rigs go-
ing through lists and checking the rig met
certain requirements.”
“And so, we need people who are
skilled and trained in understanding that kind
of data. We're going to have an increasing
role for petroleum engineers and other kinds
of engineers.”
Mr Bromwich said that the agency cur-
rently only had 65 inspectors, including cov-
ering Alaska and California, which is a “pa-
thetically inadequate number,” he said. “It
may have taken the Deepwater Horizon to
underscore how understaffed on the inspec-
tion side our inspectors were.”
In future the agency will have “proba-
bly 5 to 10 times the number of inspectors
we had in the past,” he said. “We are going
to be reconfiguring in major ways our entire
inspection. So it will be a combination of in-
creased staffing and other ways of ensuring
compliance.”
The regulators expect to work together
with industry to develop new safety stan-
dards, he said. “We're not going to be
wor3king with a system any longer that un-
questionably accepts standards developed
from industry.”
However it would not be possible for
the regulator to develop standards independ-
ently from industry, as many people are ask-
ing it to, because it does not have the expert-
ise, he said.
“For those of us who would like us to
develop our own rules independently: the
fact is we don't have our own expertise right
now. We would like to change that over time
by bringing in some people who are truly ex-
perts and truly independent from the oil
companies - but I don't believe any purpose
is served by pretending we currently have
that inhouse expertise that can work toe to
toe with industry.
“So we need to work with them, I think
that's a pre-requisite to having an effective
regulatory regime that promotes safety -
we're committed to it, I hope they're com-
mitted to it, I hope together we can improve
safety.”
“What I have found in discussions with
companies and industry groups is I think a
real commitment to safety. I think Deepwa-
ter Horizon was a wakeup call not only to
BP but to many of the companies as well - I
think - I hope - we are going to have a will-
ing set up partners as we continue to try to
raise the bar on safety and impose additional
requirements.”
“There was an inappropriately static
regulatory environment for decades,” he
said. “Industry was developing advanced
technologies and applying them in the field
and regulation was not keeping up with that.
We are trying to correct that imbalance. But
I think we are still to some extent catching
up. But when we talk about a dynamic regu-
latory environment - putting in place some
additional rules - which will not come as any
surprise to industry.”
“We are not going to impose additional
regulations just to give the illusion of activi-
ty,” he said.
NSI is often called intoprojects after an oiloperator or its vendorshave tried to build asystem themselves, butrealised how difficult it is,says Fred Gard, VP salesand marketing
DEJ28_24pages:Layout 1 16/12/2010 13:12 Page 21
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