bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Innovation: Innovation in Our Industry
Authors: Imomoh Egbert 
Published: February 2015

President's column
In spite of persistent global economic turmoil, various sources predict that the world will continue to need increasing volumes of hydrocarbons to support a growing population and to improve the standard of living in areas where standards are currently low. Therefore, our industry will need to continue to find and produce hydrocarbons from additional resources in increasingly complex regions and geological settings. This will make the activities in our industry more difficult and expensive and will present new challenges that will call for innovative solutions.
There is a general and well grounded belief that we still have many opportunities, in both green and brown fields. The challenge is how to bring production from these fields to the market in a manner that is cost-effective, safe, environmentally and host-community friendly, using mature and well tested techniques, equipment, and processes while we explore innovative ways to continuously improve our methods.
We live in a world where the pressure on resources will demand that smaller and smaller amounts of materials and efforts will accomplish more and more, thus achieving “ephemeralization,” (Fuller, 1938) a word that Buckminster Fuller, an American inventor, used to describe progressively accomplishing more with less. This pressure, among other factors, has driven innovation in our industry. I will examine some of the game changers that have shaped our industry in the last 10 to 20 years in my JPT columns in the coming months.
Innovation has always played a very important role in our industry, but some-times I wonder if we under-estimate this role. Does constant contact with what we have today make us forget that such techniques were not always there and that some innovative mind brought about the new ways we now enjoy? Think about 3D seismic, deepwater drilling, horizontal drilling, some of the very sophisticated logging tools now in use, and reservoir characterization, to name only a few. The one sector outside our industry that has had a tremendous innovative impact is information technology—the effects of IT’s growth, new products, and adaptions introduced in the last 10 years has been phenomenal. How does innovation come about? What is it that makes a few of us use the huge fertility of our mind to challenge the known and seek better ways? A number of groups have studied this phenomenon and come up with what really drives innovation. I recently came across a study carried out by New & Improved, a global organizational development firm, which identified 10 things that really drive innovation (New & Improved LLC. 2010). I have chosen to focus on the top two things: the individual and the team. I believe these are the main drivers of change in our industry.
Offshore Ghana's Jubilee Project Finds Success With Cooperation and Rapid Development
Authors: Wilson Adam 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Editorial Manager Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper OTC 23430, ’Jubilee Project Overview,’ by Dennis McLaughlin, Kosmos Energy, prepared for the 2012 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 30 April-3 May. The paper has not been peer reviewed.
The Jubilee project was an ambitious challenge for the first significant development offshore Ghana. The joint venture used a split operatorship to execute a world-class deepwater project in an area with no existing infrastructure in less than 3 years from the start of concept selection. Despite several significant technical and commercial hurdles, the project achieved excellent health/safety/environment (HSE), schedule, and cost performance. Jubilee’s unique circumstances justified a very aggressive appraisal development strategy and dictated an unconventional approach to organizing and managing the project, which ultimately was highly successful.
Introduction
The Jubilee field was discovered in June 2007 in the Gulf of Guinea, approximately 60 km offshore western Ghana. It is a very large light/sweet oil accumulation in 1200–1500 m of water. The Jubilee partners, along with the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), decided in January 2008 to develop the field using a phased approach after just one appraisal well.
Discovery
The Jubilee field was discovered offshore Ghana by Kosmos in June 2007 with the Mahogany-1 wildcat well on the West Cape Three Points block near its western boundary (Fig. 1). A large oil field was confirmed by the Hyedua-1 well drilled in August 2007, 5 km southwest of Mahogany-1, across the lease line on the Deepwater Tano block. The field was Ghana’s first significant oil find after some 40 years of offshore exploration, and it was also one of the largest fields discovered in the last decade offshore Africa. Understandably, the discovery was a source of immense pride and hope in Ghana, and, consequently, the Mahogany discovery was renamed Jubilee field to commemorate Ghana’s golden jubilee—50 years of independence—which was celebrated in 2007.
The discovery holds a light (37°API), sweet, high-gas/oil-ratio crude and covers approximately 110 km2 across the two blocks. Resources are located in five stacked zones of thick, high-quality rock.
Improve Unconventional-Reservoir Completion and Stimulation Effectiveness
Authors: Denney Dennis 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Senior Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 152839, ’Improving Completion and Stimulation Effectiveness in Unconventional Reservoirs - Field Results in the Eagle Ford Shale of North America,’ by C.D. Pope, SPE, Complete Shale, and Terry Palisch, SPE, and Pedro Saldungaray, SPE, Carbo Ceramics, prepared for the 2012 SPE/EAGE European Unconventional Resources Conference and Exhibition, Vienna, Austria, 20-22 March. The paper has not been peer reviewed.
In unconventional reservoirs, project success is driven by the completion. Most shale wells have long horizontal wellbores completed with cemented or uncemented casing strings. Economical wells require large hydraulic-fracture treatments in multiple stages along the lateral. Several areas are critical for a successful completion, including casing size and pressure rating, wellhead selection, treatment design, perforation spacing and stages, linear vs. crosslinked fluid, and proppant selection. While no two resource plays are the same, these findings can be used as a guide in other unconventional plays.
Introduction
One of the more active shale plays in the United States is the Eagle Ford shale (EFS). Exploitation of the EFS has focused attention on the potential of liquid-rich unconventional plays. Past vertical completions proved to be inefficient and uneconomical. However, successful results in the Barnett and Haynesville shales encouraged a search for other shales that could be developed with similar horizontal-well completions and multistage-hydraulic-fracture stimulations. This play has been exploited almost entirely by the use of long horizontal wells. The rig count was less than 20 in 2009 but rose to more than 200 by the end of 2011. By the end of 2010, approximately 30 million BOE had been produced from approximately 600 wells. As of the writing of this paper (January 2012), approximately 1,800 horizontal wells had been completed in the EFS since activity began in 2008.
Geologic and Reservoir Discussion
The EFS is productive in a trend that appears to exceed 15,000 sq miles in south Texas. Production has been established at depths from 5,000 to 14,000 ft. The EFS ranges in thickness from 50 to 400 ft within the productive trend. The formation produces from dry-gas, wet-gas, volatile-oil, and nonvolatile-oil windows. Porosity ranges from 4 to 11%, and permeability ranges from 50 to 1,500 nanodarcies.
The EFS is thought to be self-sourced in that the hydrocarbons are thermogenically sourced from the kerogen that is present. Therefore, the reservoir is overpressured and shallower portions of the EFS are less thermally mature with lower porosity. However, these lower- porosity areas are oil bearing, while the gas-bearing intervals are deeper, have higher porosity, and are overpressured. Reservoirs found between the shallower oil and deeper gas windows range from volatile oil to condensate-rich gas.
National Oil Company Works to Shift Management Toward Digital Culture
Authors: Wilson Adam 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Editorial Manager Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper SPE 150219, ’A Perspective for a National Oil Company To Transition From Traditional Organizational Management to a Digital Culture,’ by Iraj Ershaghi, SPE, University of Southern California, and Adel Al-Abbassi, Kuwait Oil Company, prepared for the 2012 SPE Intelligent Energy International, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 27-29 March. The paper has not been peer reviewed.
The Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) introduced a digital culture within its management and professional organization. The drivers were many, mostly emanating from the concerns for enhancing production of greenfields, arresting production decline in mature reservoirs, minimizing workovers, enhancing health and safety issues with oilfield operations, and reducing decision-cycle time by effective professional engagement of subject-matter experts. Solutions required planning steps move the engineering task force from the burden of getting and managing information to deciding on options and consequence analysis presented by interpreted data.
Introduction
A vision emerged a few years ago for taking systematic steps in modernizing the monitoring and management of KOC’s upstream oil and gas operations. This initiative is called the Kuwait Integrated Digital Field (KwIDF). From the experiences of other exploration-and-production companies, it was clear to the planners that the most challenging component to make the experience successful for the company was man-aging the issue of the human element. The first step was to select a number of interested and experienced staff and designate them as champions, hoping that their enthusiasm and leadership skills will affect others who can later join the movement.
KOC jumpstarted the human championship issue with a series of formalized training programs, targeting approximately 60 experienced staff members in engineering and geosciences. Those successfully completing basic training where then challenged with tougher problem-solving sessions. The overall training also included some short-duration executive training to demystify the roadmap to the transformation initiative and to emphasize the importance of clear support for the champions.
Solution Approach
From the beginning, it was clear that failure to engage qualified personnel to run the collaboration center was a major risk affecting the installed systems’ ability to deliver value. In the vision for rapid deployment of smart oilfield technology solutions, two parallel tracks were followed. One focused on the technology and the development of collaboration centers and their first-generation-associated workflows. The second was addressing the human preparation to own the processes.
Multiagent Systems Provide Support for Asset-Management Workflow Automation
Authors: Wilson Adam 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Editorial Manager Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper SPE 150285, ’Decision Support and Workflow Automation for the Development and Management of Hydrocarbon Assets Using Multiagent Systems,’ by Amr S. El-Bakry, SPE, and Michael C. Romer, SPE, ExxonMobil Production Company; Peng Xu, Anantha Sundaram, and Adam K. Usadi, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering; H. Lane Morehead, SPE, ExxonMobil Upstream Research; and Mark L. Crawford, SPE, Bryce A. Holloway, and Charles A. Knight, ExxonMobil Information Technology, prepared for the 2012 SPE Intelligent Energy International, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 27-29 March. The paper has not been peer reviewed.
Asset-management workflow automation poses challenges because these workflows are multidisciplinary, cross functional, and expertise intensive. Advancements in the fields of artificial intelligence, software engineering, and decision sciences have led to the development of multiagent systems (MASs). Each agent functions as an entity of a distributed computing system, performing a broad range of tasks that may include advanced analytics, data-quality checks, and oversight of other agents. Although agents may have competing priorities, they can convey information to one another to broker a decision.
Introduction
To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of asset management, it is essential to develop an integrated, flexible, and sustainable information-technology system that addresses these challenges. Such a system should integrate heterogeneous, distributed data sources and computer models (e.g., analytical models). It must process data automatically, converting them to high-level information understandable by people. It must be capable of developing asset- management plans, monitoring the execution of those plans, and adjusting them as necessary. Such a system should adhere to best-practice workflows and yet adapt to novel situations, allowing for easy customization to address evolving asset needs.
The MAS technology and design approach can satisfy these requirements in a scalable, flexible, and sustainable way. MASs are composed of multiple interacting intelligent software agents, each of which is a computer entity that is capable of autonomous action within its environment to meet its objectives.
Why MAS?
An intelligent agent is an autonomous, goal-driven, problem-solving computational entity capable of effective operation in dynamic and open environments. It is a natural extension of modern software-design and -development best practices. Fig. 1a shows a schematic of an intelligent agent. Fig. 1b illustrates an agent using two methods to plan its actions. For simple scenarios, an agent acts in a reactive mode; it directly maps the state of the environment to an action. For more-complex scenarios, an agent operates in a deliberative mode; it uses more-sophisticated planning algorithms to identify a sequence of actions to achieve its goals.
Ultralightweight Proppants for Long Horizontal Gravel Packs
Authors: Denney Dennis 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Senior Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 150581, ’Ultralightweight Proppants: Best Practices for Long Horizontal Gravel Packs Offshore Brazil,’ by A.T. Jardim Neto, F.G.M. Prata, and J.R. Gomez, Baker Hughes, and C.A. Pedroso, SPE, M.O. Martins, and D.N. Silva, SPE, Petrobras, prepared for the 2012 North Africa Technical Conference and Exhibition, Cairo, 20-22 February. The paper has not been peer reviewed.
Operators developing and producing reservoirs with deepwater and ultradeepwater wells are pushing technical limits with horizontal extension. Deepwater wells completed in unconsolidated formations usually have low fracture gradients, severe-leakoff zones, or significant washouts. Long horizontal open holes may become technically difficult or economically unfeasible to gravel pack by use of conventional fluids and gravels. Use of ultralightweight proppants (ULWPs) has enabled gravel packing in these longer horizontal open holes. The reduced gravel density allows a significant reduction in pumping rate to avoid fracturing the formation, minimize fluid losses, and eliminate the risk of premature screenout because of excessive gravel settling.
Introduction
Horizontal openhole gravel-pack (HOHGP) completions are preferred by many operators, especially in permeable unconsolidated formations. Offshore Brazil, especially in the Campos and Espirito Santo basins, HOHGP completions are used to develop post-salt reservoirs. The most common gravels used in the early wells were natural gravels and conventional ceramics. The particle densities (2.65 to 2.73 g/cm3) caused much difficulty with proppant transport, hence an increased dune height that could lead to premature screenout at low pumping rates. A lower-density proppant would be easier to transport with unviscosified fluids such as completion brines, thus allowing the use of reduced pumping rates to circulate proppant at the bottom of the screen and pack the entire horizontal open hole successfully. Two types of ULWPs have been used for this purpose, one with a specific gravity of 1.25 and one with specific gravity ranging from 1.75 to 1.90 (ULWP-1.25 and ULWP-1.75, respectively).
Well Configuration and Completion
Most fields in the Campos and Espirito Santo basins are developed with a minimum number of wells, some being extended-reach wells. To reduce the number of casing strings, a slender-well design often is used. The horizontal open hole is drilled at 90° to final depth with an 8½- or 9½-in. bit and drill-in fluid. After the final horizontal extension is reached, the drill-in fluid is replaced with completion brine. Then, the completion assembly is run into the well.
The completion equipment comprises an isolation packer and 13 Cr premium screens. The gravel-pack operation is performed with a special horizontal tool system that allows gravel packing and stimulation of the horizontal well in a single trip.
Discussion/Reply: Advances in Measuring Permeability Address Shortcomings of Crushed-Rock Technique
Authors: Hong'en Dou 
Published: February 2015

Discussion/Reply
Dou Hong’en, SPE, Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, PetroChina
I was very glad to read paper SPE 152257, titled “Advances in Measuring Standards and Flow Properties Measurements for Tight Rocks Such as Shales,” summarized in the JPT August 2012 issue (p 57). I have several issues regarding the paper.
Sinha et al. mentioned that Darcy’s law may not be valid under those conditions that are at the pore pressure, the flow of gas through tight-rock samples such as shales may be in the free- molecular-flow regime or transition regime because of the relatively small pore sizes in nanometer range in this paper. However, they did not present any new method dealing with non-Darcy flow. In contrast, the authors used the Hagen-Poiseuille equation combined with Darcy’s law to obtain effective permeability. As it is well known, the Hagen-Poiseuille equation can only be used to describe the linear flow in accordance with Darcy’s law. Therefore, I do not think that the authors solve the non-Darcy flow of the permeability measurement at low-rate flow. Assuming that the fluid flow does not follow Darcy’s law in low permeability reservoirs, permeability value will not be obtained by Darcy’s law, in this case, if gas flow is high-rate at turbulent flow, the Forchheimer’s equation may be met, if gas/oil flow is low-rate/ultra-low-rate, the permeability is not a constant, and it will change with pressure gradient, for the above two cases, the permeability is difficult to measurement under laboratory conditions. Generally, low-rate and ultra-low-rate flow occurs in the tight rock of low-permeability reservoirs. Thus, the Forchheimer’s equation will not be considered applicable with the experimental data. Obviously, the authors will not derive the function relationship between the permeability and pressure gradient; and they cannot solve non-Darcy flow at low-rate flow in the low-permeability reservoirs. Once the study on the fluid flow in porous media is not based on Darcy’s law, any one permeability value will not be obtained in the whole process of cores displacement.
Selling New Proppant Demands Focus on the Old Bottom Line
Authors: Rassenfoss Stephen 
Published: February 2015

Oxane Proppant
At Oxane Materials’ headquarters, signs tell workers to “challenge your assumptions.”
Now the company is out to challenge some of the industry’s assumptions about how much proppant can increase production after fracturing, as part of its campaign to commercialize “advanced ceramic proppant,” which gained notice as the industry’s first proppant created using nanotechnology.
As part of the process, Oxane has changed its slogan from “energy-focused nano-products” to “More oil, more gas, more quickly.”
“People are not buying it because it is nanotech; they are buying it because it works,” said Chris Coker, founder and chief executive officer of Oxane.
After a decade of quiet research and development, building up a library of more than 20 patents, Oxane has begun talking and presenting technical papers. Its first paper describing field testing with the proppant will be delivered at SPE’s Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans.
The company faces a common challenge for innovative new products: It is difficult to persuade decision makers to pay more for a product based on the promise of greater production until there is a body of evidence that supports it. That is not easy given that results in unconventional formations are often uncertain because of hard-to-predict variations in a reservoir.
Oxane says its proppant is stronger pound-for-pound, and is rounder, smoother, more consistently sized, and even bounces farther than others. That last attribute is Oxane’s addition to reasons why some proppant works better than others. Oxane began studying the impact of that property, which it scientifically describes as the “coefficient of restitution,” after a researcher spilled some Oxane proppant and observed how it scattered more than other ceramics or sand.
The thinking is that this contributes to the ability of a proppant to travel farther in larger quantities, allowing the creation of more uniform proppant layers that lead to smoother, higher flows of oil and gas.
The company says it measured the coefficients of variation, friction, and restitution of its proppant and other proppants and compared the levels of saltation. It believes that smooth, uniform-sized balls are less likely to form a stable dune in a fracture, and its “tendency to bounce causes settling particles to re-suspend more easily and be carried farther,” according to the paper that will be presented at the SPE conference.
The comparison can be imagined as dumping a box of golf balls—the uniform, round, bouncy balls are not apt to form a stable mound—versus a box of potatoes—apt to form a stable pile. Oxane’s studies assume the water does not contain chemicals used to keep particles in suspension by increasing viscosity.