A digital energy company: vision to reality

An Ask the Expert feature with Schlumberger

Schlumberger Information Solutions’ Franz Deimbacher explains how digital infrastructure, new E&P workflows, and streamlined operational processes allow organizations to react quickly.

While brownfields in traditional oil and gas producing areas of Russia and the Caspian region show signs of depletion, greenfield E&P projects require drilling in increasingly remote, harsh environments (East and North Siberia, frontier areas of the Central Asian steppes, new offshore plays in the Arctic Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, and Caspian Sea). The easy oil and gas of the past is gone, calling for innovative ways to maximise reservoir recovery and wisely invest capital in coming years. Digital energy technology can help with real-time operations and centralised monitoring and optimisation of broad-based assets.

New strategies
End-to-end communication – from wellhead to office and around the world – allows remote monitoring of field operations. Links between engineering and the field enable centralized teams to rapidly analyse and communicate decisions, alleviating difficulties of finding skilled technicians to work in extreme conditions. One Russian company linked headquarters and virtual, geographically separated teams in Central Asia using video-conferencing and collaborative visualisation for real-time peer reviews of well and field development plans.

Workflows developed by SIS Russia reduced history-matching times for reservoir simulation models from nine months to a few weeks; subsequent automatic waterflood optimization resulted in more than 20% extra recovery with no need to drill additional wells. Uncertainty-based field development optimization, a process whereby many different well patterns, drilling schedules, and recovery schemes are automatically investigated on multiple geological realisations, showed ~50% NPV increase. Both used state-of-the-art compute clusters and optimisation technologies built into software.

Another mature field problem is fast production decline, making it difficult to justify investments based on remaining reserves. In Siberia, surface pipeline infrastructure of a mature gas field was de-bottlenecked using advanced simulation and optimization technologies. Synchronized adjustment of all choke sizes optimized gas throughput to point of sale. Immediately, there was incremental gas production worth many millions of dollars per year. These simulation models, plus real-time information from SCADA, further enhances operations and helps create a digital energy company.

Transformation
Transforming to a digital energy company is not unilateral. It requires multi-discipline and multi-vendor efforts, managed by a single entity with technological experience and knowledge. First, a plan is needed to streamline workflows and operational processes enterprise-wide; then improve workflows until they become near real-time.

Once real-time optimization workflows are run for production, drilling, and downstream operations – as has been done in some offshore Caspian Sea projects – they can be enhanced by economic and fiscal optimisation. This supports real-time alignment of technical work with business objectives and near real-time capital investment decisions.

Digital energy technology is showing positive impact on operators’ financial performance. To cope with faster, integrated workflows and streamlined processes, training and development of human resources must also be considered. As stated by Andrew Gould, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Schlumberger Limited, “future cost and production gains are as likely to come from people and process change as from technology silver bullets”.

Schlumberger Information Solutionsis an operating unit of Schlumberger that provides software, information management, IT infrastructure, and consulting services. E-mail sisinfo@slb.com or visit http://www.slb.com/sis to learn more.

Franz Deimbacher, Operations Manager, SIS Russia, has been in the country for over four years. He is responsible fort SIS marketing and workflow solutions, applying innovative technologies to waterflood management, automated history-matching, and uncertainty assessment and reduction. He is frequently asked to advise oil and gas companies on medium- and long-term IT strategies.