How Petrel & “Ocean ecosystem” may reduce your reservoir uncertainty

By Artem Karapetov, Schlumberger Information Solutions VP

I made a quick interview of about 20 Schlumberger Information Solutions (SIS) Moscow employees asking what first visual image they see when they hear word “Ocean”*. It came without surprise that people “see” large space covered with the water, huge waves, turquoise colours; some say fish and one mentioned Petrel software box, which was obviously a joke.

SIS has “Ocean” and “Petrel”* come together and through the Openness of Petrel enabled by Ocean this combination provides answers to most complex challenges that Oil&Gas industry is facing.

It is now clear that the Oil&Gas industry has entered a down cycle. In addition reservoirs' quality is further decreasing being largely fractured, flooded and finally depleted where E&P professionals are looking for pockets of by-passed oil left. New fields are requiring significant capex investments, lacking surrounding infrastructure, struggling to get right quality personnel to operate in remote locations or deepwater. Such projects have greatest uncertainty that is associated with significant investment decisions to be made. The above coupled with current uncertain economics and unpredictable oil price making today's environment picture rather complete and depressive to a certain degree. So, what we can do about it?

SIS innovations for Oil&Gas industry are designed to address the above challenges and Petrel is one of the most comprehensive solutions that 1000-s petrotechnical experts are using today. Petrel covers exploration and field development lifecycle from seismic to reservoir simulation. Uncertainty analysis comes as a native part of Petrel. It was admitted by many International and Russia clients as absolutely critical to be able to model uncertainty through the whole field life cycle, so SIS starts this process even earlier including basin modeling phase. Petrel coupled with PetroMod*, ECLIPSE*, TechLog* and Merak* through Ocean provides comprehensive uncertainty understanding including technological and economic parameters where specialist measures the monetary value of uncertainty as a result of such unknowns as fluid migration, reservoir properties, potential field infrastructure limitations or fiscal regimes.

Petrel - from Exploration to Real Time operations - an Expert tool to work on most complex E&P challenges today.

Needless to say that with the verity of reservoir types (both geology and type of saturation), field development methods, geography where oil& gas are found there is no single company or technology that may address all of the challenges at once. And there are plenty of ideas exists around the globe but have limited value as being a niche and disintegrated. These ideas and innovations are coming from E&P and services companies, universities, government agencies and many others who just curious and see things different.

The question is: how to capture all these ideas, convert these ideas into technologies convenient to use, do it fast and not jeopardize quality of the precious decisions that E&P companies are making on day-to-day basis.

"Uncertainty analysis and risk assessment in calculation of reserves on different stages of the oilfield development are timely topics. In 2009 Rosneft with the active participation of SIS experts developed Petrel based Risk assessment training course. Petrel has become a part of the licensed software suite of Rosneft as Petrel not only provides multiple solutions to the wide variety of the applied tasks in petroleum geology but is also user friendly" said Mr. Stavinsky leading expert of Geological Department of Rosneft Corporate Scientific Centre.

In Schlumberger we think we found the answer which is Ocean. Ocean is the environment that allows E&P professionals to include their innovative solutions into the common framework of Petrel. Petrel + Ocean combination allows today hundreds if not already thousands of E&P professionals across the globe to share their ideas through Ocean by addressing their unique challenges or covering technology offering gaps using Petrel as a foundation. The key feedback received from specialists already working with the Ocean is that with Openness offered by Petrel and Ocean adding functionality is very fast and easy. End-user can see immediate benefit of new functionality capitalizing on infrastructure already exists in Petrel.

There are examples in Russia where after 2-3 days Ocean course specialists were able to create Petrel plug-ins e.g. getting data from Finder* into Petrel or building own attributes into Petrel seismic attribute suite just within couple of hours. It was not only reported to be easy but also fun.  

"Gubkin State University of oil and gas and Schlumberger have established a close innovation network revolving around the open Ocean / Petrel software platform with the aim to develop new solutions for the oil and gas industry. The University is valuing high such collaboration. The use of Ocean enables the University to unlock its R&D potential, link the fundamental and applied sciences with the production and propose innovative solutions that will meet industry challenges" said Mr. Sardanashvili Pro-rector for educational-innovative activities, Russian State University of oil and gas named after Gubkin.

It is now comes with no surprise that Petrel was enriched with seismic Genetic Inversion, tools for hydro fracture monitoring (HFM), well geosteering with MWD/LWD data that Petrel receiving in real-time, "Well-pattern" technology that allows to automate process of field development choosing the optimal well spacing and flooding strategy and hundreds of other tools that exist already today. These are the technologies professionals already using for shale gas environment, drilling in complex and remote locations e.g. Russia Far East, or East Siberia. E.g. "Well pattern" is critical for green fields development planning and infill drilling program optimization.

Schlumberger and its division SIS are uniquely positioned heaving both unmatched global presence, 80+ years of experience, comprehensive suite of field services allowing developing software technologies based on best industry practices. The key is to ensure technologies are fully benefiting from field operations experience and so does Petrel.

Today with Ocean Petrel expands its horizons well beyond traditional field development and exploration activities adding ability to model gravimetric fields coupling this information with seismic, petrophysics, geology, 3D modeling, reservoir engineering and other information. Ability to look at reservoir from so many angles allows not only better understand reservoir and its uncertainties but translate this understanding into reduced opex by choosing such field operation that will reduce the uncertainty most.

Intellectual property coming from Schlumberger, SIS, leading E&P companies, world-class Universities and others who do software development with Ocean making Petrel the universal tool fit for nearly any challenge Oil&Gas industry may face these days in G&G and reservoir engineering world. This would not be possible unless Petrel true Openness.

SIS is not only working on creating innovative solutions across the globe, but also helping innovations travelling across boundaries, where it helps world E&P professionals talk to each other same language and very often this language is "Petrel".

*Mark of Schlumberger.