bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Technology Focus: Intelligent Fields Technology (May 2008)
Authors: Borgman Russell 
Published: February 2015

Technology Focus
To be quite honest, I am not sure exactly what an "intelligent field" is. Reading through recent literature, I was impressed with the breadth of the intelligent-field topics—topics such as intelligent-well systems, wireless technology, robotics, barriers to implementation, and organizational effects were covered. I struggled to find a common thread that defines the intelligent field. As the deadline for this issue approached, I turned to Webster's Dictionary for help. Webster defines intelligence in terms of the capabilities to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, use language, and learn. Now I was on to something (I thought). Until recently, we would have said these capabilities are all very human, but as technology advances, machines, and now even oil fields, appear to be developing these capabilities. Does this mean as our oil fields are becoming more intelligent, they are becoming more human?
Next, I looked for a common thread in the value proposition cited for the intelligent field. The goals of the intelligent field usually are cited as increasing production, reducing capital and operating expenditures, improving total hydrocarbon recovery, and improving safety and environmental performance, but these are the same goals we have had in the upstream oil and gas industry for many years.
I returned to the recent literature and extracted what I believe to be the technical capabilities that are required of an intelligent field—continuous monitoring of surface and subsurface operating conditions, assimilation and analysis of huge amounts of complex data from diverse sources, automated recommendation of corrective and proactive actions, and optimization of the total asset over its life cycle. However, these technical capabilities cannot be exploited without the advancement and evolution of work processes and the capabilities of our people.
As you read through the literature, remember that the promises of the intelligent field cannot be delivered through technology alone. As technologies advance, we must commit to the advancement of our processes and to the development of our people. Only through a holistic approach to technology, process, and people can we realize the goals of the intelligent field.
Intelligent Fields Technology additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org
SPE 110296 • "Production Optimization by Real-Time Modeling and Alarming: The Sendji Field Case" by Jacques Danquigny, SPE, Total, et al.
SPE 110525 • "Optimizing the Production System Using Real-Time Measurements: A Piece of the Digital-Oilfield Puzzle" by Robert B. Thompson, Aethon, et al.
SPE 112152 • "A Standard Solution for Upstream Oil and Gas Surveillance" by Mark L. Crawford, SPE, ExxonMobil, et al.
Your SPE: Board Actions Guide SPE Programs
Authors: Roodhart Leo 
Published: February 2015

President's column
The SPE Board meets four times a year. Our most recent meeting was late February in Doha. The Board and Board Committee meetings span 3 days and cover a lot of business. Here are some highlights from that meeting.
Fiscal Year 2010 Budget. We spent a lot of time discussing the budget proposed for FY 2010, which runs 1 April 2009 through 31 March 2010. SPE is budgeting a positive result of USD 127,000. This will be a challenging financial year for SPE, just as for others in this economic downturn. While we intend to keep the quality of our programs high and to continue to provide the services our members need, we will be very attentive to our operating costs.

Industry Advisory Council.
The Industry Advisory Council, formed in 2007 to help ensure that SPE's programs are aligned with industry needs, met with SPE officers in June 2008 and January 2009. Those dialogs identified five primary areas of key concern: globalization; industry image and attracting young people; education and talent development; cooperation on cross-industry issues like reserves and carbon sequestration; and keeping the quality of SPE programs and services high. At the Doha meeting, SPE's five Board Committees—Education and Professional Activities, Finance and Administration, Membership, Print and Electronic Media, and Technical Programs and Meetings—began discussion of current programs and possible new initiatives related to those areas. We will report back to the Council after these considerations are complete.
Council members are Mark Albers, Senior Vice President, Exxon Mobil Corporation; Malcolm Brinded, Executive Director Exploration & Production, Shell; Chad Deaton, Chairman, President, and CEO, Baker Hughes; Yves-Louis Darricarrere, President Exploration & Production, Total; Guilherme Estrella, Director Exploration & Production, Petrobras; G. Steven Farris, Chairman and CEO, Apache; Andrew Gould, Chairman and CEO, Schlumberger; Stephen Hadden, Senior Vice President Exploration & Production, Devon Energy; Andy Inglis, Chief Executive Exploration & Production, BP; Datuk Abdullah Karim, Managing Director/CEO, Petronas Carigali; George Kirkland, Executive Vice President Global Upstream and Gas, Chevron; Amin Nasser, Senior Vice President Exploration & Producing, Saudi Aramco; Farouk Al Zanki, Chairman and Managing Director, Kuwait National Petroleum Company; and Zhou Jiping, Senior Vice President, China National Petroleum Company.

SPE Financial Plan.
We approved a new section, Funding and Financial Robustness, for the SPE Strategic Plan. Our fiscal vision is that "SPE will continue to be financially strong, and will use its financial strength to grow its programs for the benefit of members and the industry, as well as to support SPE's vision of becoming a truly global organization." The Strategic Plan is posted on www.spe.org; you can get to it from the About SPE tab at the top of the home page.
Increasing Sakhalin Extended-Reach-Drilling and -Completion Capabilities
Authors: Denney Dennis 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Senior Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 119373, "Increasing Sakhalin Extended-Reach-Drilling and -Completion Capabilities," by Michael W. Walker, SPE, Andrew J. Veselka, and Shane A. Harris, SPE, ExxonMobil, prepared for the 2009 SPE/IADC Drilling Conference and Exhibition, Amsterdam, 17-19 March. The paper has not been peer reviewed.
Extended-reach-drilling and completion capabilities at the Chayvo field, Sakhalin Island, Russia, have evolved in well-design and operational practices to increase well reach to more than 10.5 km. Disciplined redesign has been based on learnings acquired through-out the program. Learnings and design changes were applied to Well Z-12.

Introduction
The Chayvo field is on the northwest coast of Sakhalin Island, where operations must contend with harsh arctic winters and limited infrastructure. The field is a gas-filled anticline having an oil rim that is the current development-program target. The field is developed with horizontal completions from the Yastreb land location and from the Orlan offshore concrete-island drilling and production platform. Production from both wellsites is delivered to an onshore production facility, with oil subsequently delivered to tankers in protected waters off the Russian mainland. Most of the produced gas is reinjected to assist reservoir-pressure support, with lesser amounts consumed as fuel or sold.
During Chayvo development drilling, wells became increasingly complex. Longer throws have resulted in higher demands on rig equipment (especially the top drive and drillpipe) and have made successful placement of completion equipment more challenging. Twenty-one wells have been drilled and completed (17 oil producers, three gas-injection wells, and one cuttings-injection well).

Z-12 Case History
Well Z-12 has an ultimate total depth (TD) of 11 680 m measured depth (MD). Drilling operations on were completed in January 2008, and the well reached TD in 68 days. The well, on the north end of the Chayvo field, was designed to encounter potential productive sands on both the western and eastern flanks of the field. Previously drilled Well Z-11 had similar objectives but encountered significant difficulties with hole instability and placement of the production liner.
After analyzing learnings from Well Z-11, several areas were determined as critical to the success of Well Z-12.
Wellbore stability balanced against equivalent-circulating-density management in the 8-in. hole.
Successful placement of the completion liner in the 8 1/2-in. hole and the use of a designer running string.
Torque management facilitated by a smooth wellbore trajectory and use of lubricants.
Optimized rate of penetration (ROP) and improved bottomhole-assembly (BHA) life through application of the operator's drilling-performance-management system.
Technology Focus: Wellbore Tubulars (May 2009)
Authors: Miska Stefan Z. 
Published: February 2015

Technology Focus
The subject of wellbore tubulars evolves continuously. The drilling of deeper and longer wells in more-inhospitable places, both geological and environmental, demands essential improvements of tubulars. Drilling, completion, and production of extended-reach, high-angle, short-radius, and multilateral wells require better modeling and design techniques.
Over the last few years, many improvements have been achieved in modeling and design of 3D wells that find more applications in both offshore and onshore operations. Essential progress has been made in understanding the mechanics of tubulars better—in particular, buckling and axial-force transfer along the string to the drill bit.
It also has been found that for accurate force and moment calculations, information about wellbore curvature and torsion are required. Only 2D wellbores have no torsion. For practical purposes, all wellbores are 3D in shape even if they are designed to be in a 2D plane. Good understanding of contact forces and their magnitude cannot be overestimated. High contact forces are responsible for grooves in casing, keyseats in uncased parts of wellbore, and frequent overheating of tool joints and components of the bottomhole assembly.
Creative solutions have been applied successfully to overcome many organizational, economic, and technical challenges associated with drilling modern extended-reach (in the range of 40,000 ft), multilateral, and high-pressure/high-temperature wells. Ultrahigh-torque double-shoulder drillpipe connections, corrosion-resistant pipe coatings and alloys, and a 3D-rotary closed-loop steerable system with an integrated downhole motor are just a few examples of recent technology developments. It also is very important to mention the high-speed-telemetry-drillpipe (intelligent drillpipe) network that permits real-time monitoring of downhole conditions and drilling data. However, perhaps the most important advancement is in increased precision of well placement in 3D sections of wellbores.
Taking this opportunity, I wish to encourage all readers to acquire a copy of the book Advanced Drilling and Well Technology that should be available from SPE by Fall 2009. This book covers many aspects of modern drilling including advances in mechanics of tubulars and design.
I also hope that readers interested in tubulars and related technologies will take time to review the papers highlighted here.
Wellbore Tubulars additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org
SPE 119552 • "Evaluating the Expandability and Collapse Resistance of Expandable Tubulars" by J. Agata, Nippon Steel Corporation, et al.
SPE 115708 • "Titanium-Alloy Tubing for HP/HT Applications" by Manuel Gonzalez, SPE, Chevron, et al.
SPE 115221 • "First Commercial Deployment of New Third-Generation Rotary-Shouldered Connections Demonstrates Cost Savings" by J.N. Brock, SPE, Grant Prideco, et al.
Technology Focus: Casing and Cementing (May 2009)
Authors: Gonzalez Manuel 
Published: February 2015

Technology Focus
The current trend in well construction technology is focused on reducing the risk associated with capital-intensive wells in deeper and/or increasingly hostile environments. With a water depth between 4,000 and 11,000 ft, total depth approaching 30,000 ft, and a total cost per well of USD 200 million to 300 million, the deepwater projects being developed around the world are a prime example. One significant design error or oversight can lead to well failure and have serious effect on a company's bottom line. With mudline temperatures as low as 34°F and production temperatures as high as 250°F, annular temperatures may increase by more than 100°F during production cycles. As the annular fluid heats up, it expands. If that fluid is in a confined section of casing/casing annulus, the annular pressure can exceed 10,000 psi. This phenomenon has led to rupture or collapse of casing strings and loss of some wells. One approach to mitigating this phenomenon is to use vacuum-insulated tubing to limit heat transfer to the trapped fluid. Another is the novel use of a new annular fluid that shrinks rather than expands as the annular temperature increases.
A greater proportion of our future energy will come from more-hostile environments as we increase the pursuit in deepwater, high-pressure/high-temperature, geothermal projects while using CO2-storage wells to reduce CO2 emissions. These wells may contain high levels of H2S, CO2, and/or chlorides and have temperatures in excess of 350°F. Proper selection of tubulars, anatomic seals, and cement will be critical to reducing total well cost and environment and commercial risk.
I asked one of Chevron's cementing experts (Robert Carpenter) for help with current cementing technology. With the growing concern about "carbon emissions" and "carbon capture," CO2 injection for geological storage is our next big area of activity. The success of this industry segment is predicated on very-long-term isolation of injected CO2. We are in the investigational stage of this rapidly growing industry segment, and the primary issue is ensuring the long-term integrity.
There is extensive debate and conflicting laboratory and field investigations into the suitability of Portland cement for a CO2-rich environment. Recent investigations indicate identifying and preventing existing cement defects as the primary concern, and the CO2 attack on Portland cement as less of an issue.
Casing and Cementing additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org
SPE 115638 • "Advanced Cement Systems Used to Improve Geothermal-Well Reliability in Java" by K. Ravi, Halliburton, et al.
SPE 119504 • "The Effect of Carbonic Acid on Well Cements as Identified Through Lab and Field Studies" by A. Duguid, SPE, Schlumberger.
SPE 112624 • "Analysis of Control Lines Strapped to Tubing" by Robert F. Mitchell, Halliburton, et al.
En Route: Safety First?
Authors: Labastie Alain 
Published: February 2015

President's column
Following the Macondo disaster, safety in our industry has been at the epicenter of many discussions and debates, and has been the subject of many articles in very diverse publications. I have attended a couple of related panel sessions at SPE meetings, and I have read the two very informative official reports (U.S. National Academy of Engineering and National Commission). After all of that, I would like to give you my personal thoughts on the subject of safety in our industry.
That 11 offshore workers lost their lives last April is without doubt an unforgettable tragedy. However, I believe that we can still say that, overall, our industry has had a fairly good safety record, especially if compared with other extractive industries. That being said, I believe that the safety standards in our industry are not adequately rigorous. I will illustrate with two examples:
First, last November, I attended a panel session at the IADC/SPE Asia Pacific Drilling Technology Conference. One panelist, from an operating company, explained that his company, when contracting a new rig, was checking the BOPs. In 50% of the cases, the BOP was not functioning according to specifications, which to me means they were malfunctioning. There are two possible explanations: either the specifications are relevant, and it is a mistake not to ensure the BOPs comply with them, or the specifications are inadequate, and it is acceptable not to fully comply; in that case, let’s change the specifications. Neither option is very rigorous.
Second, we all know of cases on our drilling rigs when the gas detection alarms have been deactivated because they frequently malfunction with false alarms (this was the case on the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon, but that did not play a role in the accident). This is clearly not a rigorous approach to safety. If these alarms are necessary, let’s make them work; if they are unnecessary, let’s remove them. Intentionally bypassing a security device does not communicate the safety standards we expect from our industry.
The Five R&D Grand Challenges Plus One
Authors: Judzis Arnis , Felder Richard , Curry David , Seller Bernard 
Published: February 2015

R&D Grand Challenges - This is the first in a series of articles on the great challenges facing the oil and gas industry as outlined by the SPE R&D Committee. Subsequent articles will examine each of the challenges in depth. The R&D Grand Challenges Series, comprising articles published in JPT during 2011 and 2012, is available as a collection on OnePetro (SPE-163061-JPT).
The SPE Research and Development (R&D) Committee would like to share with SPE members the results of a recent committee effort to identify the oil and gas industry’s major R&D challenges. Defining these challenges is important because the committee’s primary goal is to encourage R&D and promote dialog between industry and research groups with the aim of matching industry needs with R&D activities. Another key committee goal is to ensure that R&D capabilities and resources are used most effectively by addressing the highest priority E&P business needs.
The R&D challenges comprise five broad upstream business needs:
Increasing recovery factors
In-situ molecular manipulation
Carbon capture and sequestration
Produced water management
Higher resolution subsurface imaging of hydrocarbons.
Increasing recovery factors refers to the need for innovative and cost-effective improved and enhanced oil recovery (IOR and EOR) and well geometry solutions for maturing reservoirs. In-situ molecular manipulation concerns the need for subsurface alteration of fluids or matrix to facilitate the production of very heavy oil, sour gas, or shale oil/gas while reducing the environmental footprint of production. Carbon capture and sequestration focuses on the need for effective methods for CO2 storage in subsurface geological structures. Produced water management refers to the challenge of safely and economically processing increasing volumes of produced water from mature reservoirs and the opportunity to serve growing needs for fresh water with this resource. Finally, higher resolution subsurface imaging of hydrocarbons concerns the need for more accurate and complete imaging of hydrocarbons during exploration, appraisal, field development, and production.
Each of the five R&D challenges will be described more completely in upcoming JPT articles and white papers. With these publications, the authors will explain the scope of the industry’s current and future technology needs and discuss examples of emerging technologies or new R&D efforts that may improve the current approaches. Our hope is that the articles will promote further interest and discussion of technology needs within the industry. The white papers will be posted on the SPE website with the goal of acquainting basic science and R&D groups from both inside and outside our industry with our technology needs. The papers should provide researchers with sufficient information to stimulate innovative thoughts and to develop new research project proposals.
Technology Focus: Well Construction (May 2011)
Authors: Carpenter Bob 
Published: February 2015

Technology Focus
This year, most of the well-construction papers focused on long-term durability in high-pressure/high-temperature (HP/HT), tight gas/-shale, steamflood, and carbon-capture and -storage (CCS) environments, a shift toward nonconventional wells. Previously, we discussed the growing awareness of the value of measuring cement mechanical properties and modeling mechanical stresses imposed upon the cemented annulus in HP/HT, deepwater, and steamflood applications. Recognition of the technology’s value has now expanded into CCS and tight gas applications. Paper SPE 139668 discusses the many aspects and value of modeling cement-placement mechanics, cement mechanical properties, and imposed stresses. It also provides excellent tutorial insight into the complexity of modeling cement behavior in fluid and solid states.
As discussed last year, lost circulation and narrow pore-/fracture-pressure windows remain key challenges in achieving casing points and targeted cement coverage. Paper SPE 130319 details field results for drilling a liner to setting depth and cementing it with a new automated managed-pressure-drilling system while providing a nearly constant bottomhole pressure, a very promising technology.
Traditionally, casing- and tubing-design engineers have used a deterministic stress-limits approach that uses the API Bulletin 5C3 and the von Mises criterion. However, depending upon which of the different empirical equations and safety factors are used, the resulting tubular design may be significantly over- or underdesigned. Paper SPE 134550 details a new design methodology that uses a 3D finite-element model, variation in tubular dimensions, sensitivity modeling, and stochastic study to develop a better design specification. Manny Gonzalez, SPE, Alliance Manager for Chevron ETC, noted that when applying new metallurgies, such as titanium and high-end corrosion-resistant alloys, this statistical approach becomes critical because there is no single guide for use of the current API formulas.
Well Construction additional reading available at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org
SPE 142150 • “Ongoing Development of Cementing Practices and Technologies for Kuwait Oil Company’s Deep HP/HT Exploration and Gas Wells—Case History” by M.J. Al-Saeedi, SPE, Kuwait Oil Company, et al.
SPE 132541 • “Determining Production-Casing and -Tubing Size by Satisfying Completion, Stimulation, and Production Requirements for Tight-Gas-Sand Reservoirs” by Y. Wei, SPE, C&C Reservoirs, et al.
SPE 131489 • “Solid-Expandable Tubular Combined With Swellable Elastomers Facilitates Multizonal Isolation and Fracturing, With Nothing Left in the Wellbore To Drill, for Efficient Development of Tight Gas Reservoirs in Cost-Effective Way” by M. Ghufran Anjum, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan, et al.