Integrated Management Of Offshore Oil & Gas Fields In Real Time
Authors: Heming Robert F. 
Published: October 2008

The exceptionally low oil prices of 1998 are yet another reminder that the oil and gas industry must continue to drive down costs and seek major efficiency improvements. This is especially true of the industry's portfolio of oil and gas fields in deep water.

The oil and gas industry has made great strides in cutting its operating costs over the last decade through slimming its workforce, highgrading its asset portfolio and creative ways to improve existing work flows and procedures. Capital efficiency has also improved because of improved planning procedures and project management. Also, exploration and reservoir delineation have dramatically improved by the application of 3D seismic and techniques such as pre-stack depth migration which have improved the clarity and detail of our subsurface maps to such a degree that we can literally 'see' geological features such as point bars in the meanders of ancient river channels.

Our industry will continue to see improvements in various pieces of itstechnology 'tool kit' but I propose that this is not enough. An improved ability to find and map new oil and gas fields, along with increasing success in improving the recovery factor of existing fields, means that the world will have an abundant supply of hydrocarbons for at least the next decade.

Piecemeal application of new technology has served this industry well but to achieve economies at a scale needed to keep the industry financially healthy it needs to rethink and re-engineer the way in which it manages the production phase. Many novel technologies are available which can improve the "production system" but they will have only marginal value until we impose a system-wide view. This means that our industry cannot look to better prices for its salvation. The only sustainable way to improve financial performance is through technology; that blend of techniques, processes, and physical devices which comprise our knowledge of how to find, develop, and produce oil and gas.

Real Time or Continuous Reservoir Management is such a radical change of view. The objective is to instrument and automate much of the production system from the reservoir to the product delivery interface including wells, platforms, fluid handling and separation, and pipelines and meters.

The purpose of this objective is to manage the entire system in such away as to continuously manage cost and maximize value extraction. Reservoir characterization, reservoir simulation, equipment and pipeline management including monitoring structural integrity, need to be viewed as a total system in which actions in one part will, in some way or other, affect the performance of the entire system.

The technology to allow this is either available or will be available within the next few years. Major barriers to overcome include reliability engineering, data flow, and most important, the current mindset of how assets should be managed. Currently, reservoir management is an episodic event. After several years of operation, deviations from the original prediction of performance become obvious. Usually, this triggers a major reassessment of the reservoir, which includes running new simulations and trying to match performance prediction. Such episodic updates to the 'picture' of the reservoir and its fluids and dynamic behavior mean that we are at best 'coarse-tuning' reservoir performance. Parts of the reservoir are by-passed and the oil left behind will become increasingly expensive to access and produce because it will require new wells and therefore new capital. Such missed opportunities are cumulative and I would argue permanently degrade efficiency and cause lost value.

It is not just in the m