Asset management in the oil and gas industry involves several disciplines that need to collaborate and work together.
Asset management in the oil and gas industry involves several disciplines that need to collaborate and work together to increase the chances that the actual asset operates as close as possible to its potential. The harsh reality is that planning phases are often surrounded by geological, technical, and economic uncertainties which prevent optimal plans from being devised. What further contributes to sub-optimal planning is disconnected workflows between the different disciplines (geosciences, engineering, economics, etc.). In practice, there is a gap between an asset's current production levels and what it could potentially deliver (Figure 1).
Halliburton Landmark aims to close that gap using intelligent monitoring, surveillance, and operations optimization available with Digital Field Solver®, a DecisionSpace® 365 cloud application.
Let’s define the overall gaps, which can be broken down into multiple categories according to their source:
Operating Gap
We define production which is lost due to sub-optimal field operations as the operating gap. Addressing this gap includes identifying improved choke settings for each well, well routings to separator trains, artificial-lift settings, compressor settings, and separator trains operating pressures, among others. Addressing all such gaps leads us to the theoretical Operating Potential, which is the maximum production the asset can deliver if the field operations are fully optimized.
Availability Gap
Going beyond the field operations, we think about planned and unplanned downtime of the asset, the availability gap, and how it can be minimized. Tasks here include equipment integrity management, preventive maintenance, optimized field testing and workover procedures, and so on. All these activities would elevate the Operating Potential to Installed Potential, i.e., the best you can deliver without investing in upgrading well potentials (workovers) and production infrastructure.
Design Gap
The next gap is the design gap. This gap is addressed by well and facility upgrades. Some examples include well stimulation, artificial lift installations, pipeline diameter increases, etc. Addressing the design gap elevates the potential to the Design Potential.
Reservoir Development Gap
The last gap, the reservoir development gap, is associated with sub-optimal reservoir depletion strategies. Typical initiatives to address this gap include changing the field injection strategy, drilling more wells, adopting enhanced oil recovery methods, and so on. This is the most expensive gap to address and is usually addressed during the initial field development planning or when oil prices are high enough to make it economical to do so.
The common requirement to address all the gaps identified in Figure 1 is to have an integrated multi-disciplinary asset model which is always kept tuned to the latest observed asset performance. This enables us to generate and evaluate ‘what-if’ scenarios in an optimization framework. This type of setup is commonly referred to in the industry as an asset’s digital twin. The Digital Field Solver application enables the digital twin by integrating dynamic data with multi-disciplinary models via automated workflows designed for surveillance, diagnostics, model updates, and optimization (Figure 2).
The data component is powered by Landmark’s Production Data Management database which is purpose-built to address the challenges associated with unlocking asset potential. Supported models include well, surface network, subsurface, and data-driven modeling technologies. The Digital Field Solver application supports the integration of both Landmark and third-party modeling technologies. Workflows are built in the Workflow Designer, a low-code environment where workflows can be visually created, edited, and tested (Figure 3).
Models and workflows are fully managed in the repository to assure governance (who can do what, when, and where) and version control to support their evolution. The value is delivered by intuitive user interfaces and dashboards to improve decision making. For example, Figure 4 is a sample dashboard that identifies and classifies the gaps originated by facilities constraints, subsurface operating guidelines, and planned and unplanned well and equipment availabilities. The Digital Field Solver application includes a large collection of models and workflows to uncover and address such issues.
When increased production at a lower cost per BOE is your asset’s ultimate goal, the Digital Field Solver application provides an integrated view and analysis of a production asset by leveraging real-time data, diagnosis, optimization and automated workflows. This empowers you to execute faster data-to-decision-to-action cycles, in order to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
Expert: Sergio Sousa | Solution Owner, Workflow Automation
Raed Charrouf | Domain Owner For Production
Zainub Noor | Head Of R&D – Reservoir, Production & Economics
To learn more about how the Digital Field Solver application can help to increase your recovery factor, maximize asset profitability, and unlock your asset’s potential.
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