#28 Digital Energy Journal - Jan 2011

DEJ28_24pages:Layout 1 16/12/2010 13:08 Page 1
Drilling: time for better

data?
Lessons from medicine

and military
Are you competent in

collaboration rooms?
Do you challenge your

January 2011 Issue 28 colleagues enough?
Computer models to improve safety planning

Yuck! Technical details
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Time is money!
David Bamford
Consultant Editor, Digital Energy Journal
In earlier articles and blogs, I’ve suggested that is critical. Specifically, the NPV of a project can
technology providers – especially those with nov- easily be halved by a two year longer lead time,
el ideas – will see tremendous ‘pull’ from cus- equivalent to a $15/bbl drop in the oil price over
January 2011 Issue 28 tomers if they can show that they will deliver one the entire life of the project.”
of my “3R’s” – a major reduction in risk, a major Of course, I need to remind everybody that
Digital Energy Journal reduction in cycle–time, or a major reduction in I am a non-executive director at Tullow Oil which
2nd Floor, 8 Baltic Street East, London EC1Y 0UP, UK costs. has just delivered first oil from the Jubilee field
Digital Energy Journal is part of Finding Petroleum
I have been asked several times what I in Ghana in significantly less than 4
www.findingpetroleum.com
www.digitalenergyjournal.com mean by ‘cycle-time reduction’ and as always, years………..
Tel +44 (0)207 017 3405 the easiest way to explain is with a couple of ex- Such a field development requires the com-
Fax +44 (0)207 251 9179 amples. plex integration of many technologies – the FP-
Firstly, if we go back to the end of the SO, flow-lines, trees, drilling, completions, reser-
Editor 1980’s, 3D seismic technology was well estab- voir modelling, 3D seismic and so on – all of
Karl Jeffery
jeffery@d-e-j.com lished but it took an outrageously long time. My which requires skills and “Know How” and the
memory is that going from project inception, ability to deal with folk (including non-executive
Consultant editor through design, funding, contracting, acquisition, directors!) who tell you it can’t be done so quick-
David Bamford processing and interpretation for a North Sea ly. And the prize for acceleration is very large.
‘postage stamp’ survey of a hundred sq kms or So where is there another piece of fruit to
Technical editor
Keith Forward so could easily take two years – and even then be picked, preferably low hanging? No doubt oth-
forward@d-e-j.com not all the data would be interpreted. ers will have their own favourites but here’s
In the early 1990’s, we began to transform mine…………………
Finding Petroleum London Forums 3D seismic so that much bigger regional or ‘ex- Cutting the Gordian Knot!
Advances in seismic - January 25
Advances in exploration technology - February 15 ploration’ 3Ds were shot and turned around to full The mythology is of an intricate knot tied by
Improving recovery from existing fields - March 16 interpretation in a matter of months rather than King Gordius of Phrygia and cut by Alexander
Digital oilfield - subsurface data - April 20 years. The key technology components of this the Great with his sword after hearing an oracle
Technologies to avoid another Macondo - May 17
Digital Oilfield IT infrastructure - June 14 transformation were the extraordinary new seis- promise that whoever could undo it would be the
Carbon capture and storage (TBC) - Sept 14 mic vessels that emerged, capable of towing a next ruler of Asia.
Digital Oilfield and people - Oct 20 large number of streamers, a move to on-board In modern times, a 'Gordian Knot' is taken
Developments with deepwater - Nov 9
Digital Oilfield 2011 - Nov 30 processing, and the availability of high perform- to mean an exceedingly complicated problem or
ance interpretation workstations. deadlock.
Social network It was noticeable that the key contributors Here's my problem - how do we transform
network.findingpetroleum.com to this transformation were players who were onshore exploration success rates to the same lev-
then quite small and entrepreneurial – PGS, el enjoyed offshore, especially in deep water?
Advertising and sponsorship
John Finder Geco, Geoquest, Landmark, for example. Bigger Simples!
Tel +44 (0)207 017 3413 companies were much less helpful - even the in- [At the risk of confusing any one who has
jfinder@onlymedia.co.uk house technology departments of the Majors – not seen the meerkat Aleksandr Orlov on British
Digital Energy Journal - keeping you up to date where for example they were intent on develop- TV!]
with developments with digital technology in ing their own processing or interpretation sys- As noted above, the transformation in off-
the oil and gas industry. tems. shore exploration success rates, from the mid
Nowadays of course such ‘exploration’ 3Ds 1990's onwards, was brought about by the wide-
Subscriptions: Apply for your free print or elec-
tronic subscription to Digital Energy Journal on are the norm – the dramatic reduction in cycle- spread availability of remarkably inexpensive re-
our website www.d-e-j.com time resulting in dramatic reductions in unit costs gional or 'exploration' 3D seismic.
($/sq km) and reductions in risk (increases in ex- What we need to do now is to drive down
Cover photo: Detroit company EOS Solutions,
ploration success rate), and of course in the num- the cost of onshore 'exploration' 3D to the same
working together with Norisol of Norway, is
developing "4D" simulation tools for oil and gas ber of such surveys that have been shot. It would levels as offshore. The key is to be able to acquire
installations, which can be used for planning and not be overstating to say – considering the dra- and process onshore 3D seismic far, far faster
training purposes. Here they are being used to see matic increase in size of such surveys and reduc- than we can today.
how fast a rig can be evacuated tion in cycle-time, that there has been more than To do this, the big step - the wielding of the
an order of magnitude improvement. sword - is to replace cable seismic with wireless
Secondly, our friends at Bernstein Research systems.
have recently highlighted another example which I am hopeful that in our first two Finding
is the dramatic increase in value which accrues Petroleum Forums of 2011 – on January 25th and
when companies can shorten the time from dis- February 15th – we will hear from the companies
covery to first oil or, conversely, noting that “eco- that will lead such breakthroughs – visit
nomic value can be eroded by 50% for just a 2 www.findingpetroleum.com of course for details.
year delay. A majority of upstream capex is allo- And with that, a Merry Christmas and Hap-
cated to development, hence meeting targets here py 2011 to all!
Printed by Printo, spol. s r.o., 708 00 Ostrava-Poruba,

Czech Republic. www.printo.cz January 2011 - digital energy journal 1
Contents
Leaders - Integrated Operations conference in Trondheim
Drilling: time for better data?
A conference session at the Integrated Operations conference in Trondheim (Sept 28-29)
looked at how the data in drilling can be improved 4
Are you competent in collaboration rooms?
Grete Rindahl of Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) has been researching
how well people are using collaboration rooms – and what constitutes competent
behaviour
6
Lessons from medicine and military
The oil and gas industry might be able to learn a lot from how medicine and military use
integrated operations, and have some expertise to share, said speakers at the Trondheim
IO Conference
7
Developments at Kongsberg, Shell, Petrobras, Saudi Aramco
The Trondheim Integrated Operations conference on Sept 28-29 included new ideas from Kongsberg, Shell, Petrobras and Saudi Aramco
about how to get the most out of integrated operations 8
Innocentive – crowdsourcing ideas
US company InnoCentive is helping oil and gas companies find solutions to technical problems – by posting them on the web – but it takes
skill and organisation to get the right result. VP sales Jon Fredrickson explained how it works at the Trondheim Integrated Operations
conference
10
Exploration
Using object databases for seismic data
Object databases can provide much faster results than relational databases, when you are trying to look for complex patterns and
relationships within the data, as two major seismic companies have found out 12
GeoGraphix - software for independents
GeoGraphix, a brand of interpretation software geared towards the needs of independent oil and gas companies (particularly working on
land), is no longer part of Halliburton’s Landmark software and services portfolio 13
Production
Do you challenge your colleagues enough?
One of the signs of a successful collaborative environment is that people feel comfortable challenging each other says Jim Kochan of Vitesse
Solutions, knowledge management consultant to Conoco Phillips 14
If you want to get people interested in the digital oilfield, you’ve got to get them interested in the technical details – something people
normally dislike, writes Dutch Holland 15
Software for oil industry real estate
Many oil and gas companies could benefit from a more structured approach to facilities and real estate management, writes Phil Wales, CEO
of Houston-based eBusiness Strategies 17
EOS Solutions and Norisol are providing oil and gas companies with 4D process
simulations to optimize their operations and planning, to help mitigating risk 19
Communications
NSI Upstream – your production on the web
NSI Upstream of Louisiana creates a means for companies to monitor and manage their production from anywhere, including on the
internet, and has completed a large project for the 100kbopd Kikeh deepwater development in offshore Malaysia 20
US regulators might want real time data from rigs
US regulators might demand real time data from drilling rigs, according to Michael Bromwich, director of the US Bureau of Ocean Energy
management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM), speaking at a recent Platts Energy Podium event in Washington on October 12 2010 21
January 2011 - digital energy journal 3
Leaders
Drilling: time for better data?

A conference session at the Integrated Operations conference in Trondheim (Sept 28-29) looked at how
the data in drilling can be improved
“We have severe challenges with data quali-

ty and using models, and reliability of the
models we use,” said Tor Stein Ølberg, spe-
cial advisor with Sintef Petroleum Research,
and previously chief engineer and VP
drilling and well technology working at Saga
Petroleum, Norsk Hydro and Statoil).
“These models have limitations and we
don’t even consider them.”
“I don’t want to get more data – I would
like to see more reliable data,” he said.
“I’ve been drilling 25 years. When I
started in drilling, one of the first things I
saw was problems with quality data,” he
said. “Today we have the same type of prob-
lem.”
“Safety is totally dependent on quality
of data, he said. “The performance of drilling
and operation is dependent on data and in-
formation.”
“For example, [the point] where we
measure depth from. We normally measure The Drilling Session at the IO conference: on the panel from left to right: Jon Stærkeby, IBM;
rotary kelly bushing although we don’t have Matthew Spotkaeff, Schlumberger; Mike Herbert, ConocoPhillips; Halvor Kjørholt, Statoil (hidden
them any more. And on another rig – it has a behind microphone) and Tor Stein Ølberg, Sintef
different rotary kelly bushing so depth will
be wrong.”
“Next you use a wireline and it has a
different elongation so you make measure- second data speed when using wireline tools. model so it equates with the actual data and
ments of the same formation to a different With these data rates of up to 6 bits per see how this affects how you carry on with
depth. Coiled tubing is another depth meas- second, the company has to steer horizontal the well – eg changes in drilling tools, pa-
urement.” wells thousands of feet long. rameters. Then record the lessons learned to
Units also cause a data management The low bandwidth availability “has a make sure we don’t fall into the same traps
problem. “Degrees can be K C or F. Is meas- very big impact on how we use the data,” he again.”
urement depth in feet or metres. The systems said. “We have to be careful about setting up When drilling through certain forma-
we use are very prone to take the numbers data frames before we start drilling.” tions, the drill bit can start jerking, with
and not accept the units.” But using data compression techniques, shocks of 8-10g (8 – 10 times acceleration
Taking periodic data readings could be the equivalent of 100 bps can be sent through due to gravity). “This damages the tool. If
compared to driving to the airport and open- a 6bps line. “So there’s a step change in we can prevent shocks, we can prolong the
ing your eyes only every 20 minutes, he said. terms of the data we can get,” he said. life of the tool until total depth,” he said.
“We are drilling blindly.” “The increase in data rate is a big boom “And replacing a tool can be a day or week
for drilling optimisation. We can do a full of rig time.”
Matthew Spotkaeff, Schlumberger formation evaluation analysis of the well- If there is a decrease in revolutions per
Matthew Spotkaeff, Well Placement Domain bore.” minute of the mud pump, it can be due to a
Champion for the North Sea with Schlum- There can be goal conflicts between the washout, with drilling mud leaking through
berger, said that for well placement, data is drilling engineer and geologist, with driller the drillstring. If this isn’t picked up quickly,
needed to help evaluate the formation (iden- wanting to keep the well as smooth as possi- the leak in the drill string can turn into a
tifying drilling hazards and working out ble, and geologist wanting the well to be kept breakage, and a lot of complex work fishing
what kind of equipment needs to be installed within the payzones. or sidetracking to get the drilling going
in the well such as sand screens); and for But if the two people are sitting togeth- again.
steering the wellbore in the right zone. er and viewing the same data it is easier for In one example, a company changed
This needs data being sent up to ground them to resolve the conflict. “A lot more col- the drillbit because the drilling was slow, but
from the drill bit. laboration is obtained from sharing data,” he after enduring this expense and non produc-
Normally only mud pulse telemetry is said. tive time, they found that there wasn’t much
available, with data speeds of 1.5, 3 or 6 bits The earth model can be updated using improvement in rate of penetration.
per second, compared to over 1 megabit per data from the drilling. “You change your But when the rock resistivity log was
4 digital energy journal - January 2011

Leaders
examined, with data sent to surface by mud Better data organisation is also neces-
pulse telemetry, it showed that the drillbit sary. “It’s a jungle out there. We need to stan-
had moved into a formation with a different dardise on mnemonics (ways of tagging the
resistivity – and maybe the change in rate of data). We need good housekeeping. We need
penetration was due to the mud interacting to build in some kind of diagnostics check,”
with the different type of rock in a different he said.
way. “So they changed the mud parameters “All the vendors have their own data
and solved the problem,” he said. acquisition system, but they’re not even on
The next generation of drilling teleme- the same timeline.
try is wired drill pipe, where up to 50,000 “And sensors are often very unreliable.
bps can be sent to the surface, which enables We need some redundant sensors, but not the
communications directly with the tools. same sensors twice.”
“Previously to change a tool setting it can “The biggest problem is getting good
take 20 minutes by mud pulse, now we can mud data. Get that wrong and your model is-
do it with a switch,” he said. n’t worth much.
One of the reasons for the slow take-up One challenge is working out how to
of wired drill pipe was because drilling com- persuade service companies to provide high-
panies were initially required to buy a whole er quality data – and if this should be includ-
set of drill strings before they could use it, ed in a contract.
Mr Spotkaeff said. Now it is rented.”
Another problem with wired drill pipe Mike Herbert, Conoco Phillips
is that the signal degrades at over 6000m of Mike Herbert, integrated operations advisor
drill pipe. “They had to come up with re- to ConocoPhillips in Norway, agreed that
peater boxes. It’s something people have one of the things we all struggle with is data Coffee time at the Trondheim Integrated
Operations conference
been working on for quite a number of quality.”
years,” he said. “In drilling we are amazingly tolerant
It is still a challenge is working out how of poor data. We needed to put that behind
to get the most out of the data. “It’s not just us and really value quality” he said. “If we
about getting 50 curves. It's orders of mag- don’t gather quality data the picture we see
nitude different. That’s an issue which needs is not very representative.” Audience discussion
to be overcome,” he said. “The lack of quality data means we One audience member noted that drilling is
don’t really know where the well is. We have not the only industry in the world which has
Statoil huge uncertainties,” he said. “We find out to deal with complex and sometimes unreli-
Marvin Hammervold, researcher drilling too late the formation fluids are entering the able data.
technology at Statoil, talked about Statoil’s well bore. We don’t know if we bypassed There are also technical ways to im-
pilot projects to try out ways to keep hy- some reserves.” prove data. “If there’s noise you have to
draulic and mechanical models up to date If people were better at communicating work out what kind of noise there is and how
during drilling using real time data. with each other, they might find better ways to filter it. This has been done in a lot of dis-
“We need to change from reporting to to improve the data, he suggested. ciplines.”
our proactive use of real time data,” he said. “We’ve obsessed with graphs – I hate Roar Nybø, research scientist at SIN-
“Take pore pressure gradient – we need graphs. I think in pictures. We can visualise TEF, suggested that people don’t take data
to have the models updating during drilling completions drilling, production drilling, quality seriously enough.
– there are huge uncertainties behind these down hole tools. One of the most important “When we have drilling problem like
models,” he said. things is communication and it’s much easi- losing fluid we call that a drilling problem
“The concept is we get sensor data for er in pictures. Simple.” and we have alarm systems. But when the
surface and downhole, and all the configura- “We need to fix the basics – depth, sensor is not functioning we call it a data
tion data. “The data is coming from differ- weight on bit, mud properties,” he said. quality problem,” he said.
ent sensors, different vendors. We have mud “Let’s start with these. “I think we should “It would be very nice to have our own
logging sensors, downhole sensors, rig sen- have an industry goal to get the basics right. system which says “sorry your sensor is
sors. These are fed into the process models. If we can get some of this right we can start wrong, you’ll have to stop your models be-
We want to use all this live real time data for having a much more integrated system. cause you can’t trust them.”
controlling the drilling.” “We need to clarify our expectations Michael Golan, Professor of Produc-
One of the hardest things is getting real with data – we need to reward good quality tion Engineering with NTNU Norwegian
time drilling data which is high enough qual- data,” he said. University of Science & Technology, said
ity. “If the model is being fed bad data the Updating data models does not neces- that it would be helpful to have systems that
bad data comes out the other end,” he said. sarily require more data. “Some of the infor- would provide a quick view of what was
“It’s a real risk taking bad data, putting it in- mation we need to make a real time hy- happening, to help people make quick deci-
to models and trusting them.” draulics model – we might only get that sions – because many decisions in the
“Small errors in data can have grave twice a day,” he said. “We can do less data drilling process are made very quickly.
consequences,” he said. “All these processes and more quality.”
can go very wrong if you have one bad data “We’re making so much effort around
point. And the models have their own uncer- data quality. It’s very labour intensive and a
tainties and limitations,” he said. lot of this should be automated,” he said.

Leaders
Are you competent in collaboration rooms?

Grete Rindahl of Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) has been researching how well people are
using collaboration rooms – and what constitutes competent behaviour
Grete Rindahl, a senior researcher with the

Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology
(IFE), has been watching workers on the
North Sea’s Gjøa field collaborating remote-
ly and analysing how well it is going.
She was speaking about her work at the
Trondheim Integrated Operations conference
on September 28-29 2010.
The Gjøa field was discovered in 1989,
and operations will begin in November
2010. Partners in the field are Statoil, Shell,
RWE-DEA, Gdf Suez and Petoro (represent-
ing Norwegian government).
Staff on the field have been organised
into multidiscipline teams, with some peo-
ple working offshore and some onshore, but
they come together regularly for collabora-
tion meetings.
The meetings use a ‘common virtual The audience at the Trondheim Integrated Operations conference
workspace’ – with the workspace being sim-
ilar to one PC screen – so it is like 10 people
working on the same PC screen at the same
time.
The great thing about collaboration is tion room. “That’s a challenge, particularly of new technology,” she said.
that it enables many people from different if you are an expert or have something im- When people used plenty of abbrevia-
backgrounds and cultures to work together. portant to share,” she said. tions and local terms, IFE classified the be-
But the diversity of people can make it hard. “New people tend to hide outside the haviour as “incompetent”.
“These are diverse people – with different camera angle because that seems safer, but IFE also analysed group leadership be-
skills and attitudes, and they have to collab- it’s not very good for trust,” she said. If haviour. If the leaders were either passive
orate through technology,” she said. you’re collaborating with a group in a re- (doing nothing) or dominated the discussion,
The technology and collaboration mote site and someone in the remote group their behaviour was classified as “incompe-
rooms themselves do not make people col- suddenly starts talking and you didn’t even tent”.
laborate – that can only be achieved through know they were there, it can be disconcert- “More skilled people focus equally on
building teams of people, she said. “It’s very ing. all participants – both local and remote. In a
difficult to understand IO without actually “People often look at their own PC be- really good meeting the meeting leader will
doing it for a while,” she said. cause they are at home there, rather than look evaluate the collaboration,” she said.
IFE set up a research project called straight at the camera.” Good leaders will ensure that final de-
SOFIO (“Structured observations with feed- “People with high technology literacy cisions are agreed during the meeting not af-
back of IO interaction”) to try to work out will speak a lot slower and wait for the mi- terwards.
how the collaboration was going and try to crophone. If you are new to this, the tempta- There are still challenges with getting
help improve collaboration at Gjøa. tion is to speak fast and quickly,” she said. everyone to participate, particularly when
The researchers aimed to analyse peo- Working on a shared “surface” also re- there are groups from different parts of the
ple’s mindset while engaged in collaboration quires skill. All people working on the screen world involved.
(if they understood the strategies and princi- have controls to share the screen, but if they “Extrovert people are easier to train
ples behind the collaboration); their technol- all start moving the mouse and changing the than introverts. The only way to do that is by
ogy literacy (eg if they understood the im- screen at the same time it gets tricky. encouragement and training the meeting
portance of sitting so they could be seen by One problem is when conflicts start to leader to involve people. Cultural diversity
the video camera); the precision of their arise and people end up collaborating against is a huge challenge,” she said.
communication (if the message sent is the each other. “We want a united meeting,” she Another problem is encouraging peo-
one which got received); and the teamwork. said. ple to develop new skills, when they are go-
Also how well they work under pressure and When working together with other peo- ing to lots of other courses already (‘training
how they build trust among the groups. ple in different parts of the world, it is im- fatigue’).
An important factor is people’s technol- portant to make yourself easy to understand “You have to make it relevant to what
ogy literacy. Some people can be visibly un- and use the same language other people do. they do every day and avoid academic ex-
comfortable when working in a collabora- “It is very important to focus on precise use ample,” she said.

Leaders
Lessons from medicine and military

The oil and gas industry might be able to learn a lot from how medicine and military use integrated
operations, and have some expertise to share, said speakers at the Trondheim IO Conference
Alan Lumsden, Professor and Medical Di- inside a blood vessel. It is fitted inside a Force on leader-
rector, The Methodist Hospital in Houston, catheter (a tube which can be inserted into ship develop-
talked about the similarities between medi- the body). ment and co-op-
cine and the oil and gas industry. The medical professional does have ex- eration, particu-
He was speaking at the Integrated Op- perience with 3D imaging, remote monitor- larly around
erations conference in Trondheim on Sep- ing, and managing large amounts of data, he NATO's flying
tember 28-29, organised by Norges Teknisk- said. radar stations,
Naturvitenskapelige Universitet (NTNU). “Computational fluid dynamics is mov- known as an
“I work in the world of cardiovascular ing into medicine from oil and gas,” he said. "airborne early
disease. So do you – you don’t know it,” he “The lining the inside of wells is almost warning and
said. identical to lining the inside of body ves- control system"
Houston is home of the largest medical sels,” he said. or AEW&C.
centre in the world, with 6,500 hospital beds. The Methodist Hospital has run tours “Like the Major Dag Ola Lien from
The two biggest “businesses” in Houston are for petroleum engineers through its medical oil and gas in- the Royal Norwegian Air
oil and gas and medicine. Yet there is very centre, he said. dustry, the Air Force Academy
little contact between the two groups, he As a result of one of these tours, one oil Force tries to set
said. company started research into using a Mag- up ‘Integrated
“I’d be working on a PowerPoint on a netic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to Operations,’ but our related term is ‘Network
plane out of Houston and the person next to get a better understanding of fluid flow Centric Warfare’,” he said.
me would say ‘what are you doing’”. through a gravel pack. In the Air Force, the emphasis is on
“We pick targets, drill holes, try to in- The medical profession could be very speed - reducing time between making ob-
terfere before pipes blow apart and interfere interested in learning more about how the oil servations to decisions. "From detecting Tal-
after they blow apart every now and again.” and gas industry uses swellable elastomers, iban to engagement by a fighter takes min-
“People joke, next time I have a heart because it might be possible to adapt the utes. Time is critical," he said.
attack filling up my tank someone will fix technology to develop something which can Fast decisions are critical during a mis-
it.” block body vessels. sion, a battle commander views everything
“But I don’t get to see inside your Other technologies developed in oil and on a big screen and makes decision of where
toolkit and you don’t get to see inside mine. gas which could be useful for the medical in- to bomb. "But even if he made the fastest
People work in like and fundamentally dif- dustry are battery technologies, visualisation decisions in his life - the person in the fight-
ferent fields.” and robot steering, he said. er or the AEW&C are saying 'hey come on
The Kimray Greenfield Filter, a filter “There is a huge overlap between both give us the clearance'", Major Lien said.
for a blood vessel, has been “implemented of our industries. We have to begin to start "The battle commander says, hey come
on hundreds of thousands of patients world- understanding there’s a huge opportunity for on give me some time. The perception of
wide,” he said. It used some expertise about your knowledge to help our patients,” he time is different."
filtering pipes developed from the oil indus- said. There are staff from 13 different coun-
try. “Kimray was an oilfield engineer”, he Both industries also have big chal- tries working on the AEW&C. In most cas-
said. lenges with regulators, particularly in the US es, each individual mission ends up with a
There has not yet been any use in the – which often means that companies have to new group of personnel, and they all need to
medicine of pigs – robot devices which trav- do medical research in other countries. get on running the operations straight away.
el along pipes The mindset of typical oil and gas en- However, missions run by the RAF
and assess their gineers, and medical researchers, is also dif- AWACS flew with fixed crews on every mis-
interior condi- ferent, which can lead to different ways of sion, he said. "No-one can see that fixed
tion. “Could we solving problems. crews are fundamentally better than mixed
use something crews."
similar in blood Better decisions at NATO "A lot of effort is put into team build-
vessels?” he Major Dag Ola Lien from the Royal Norwe- ing. We build up the soldier to be robust," he
asked. gian Air Force Academy, talked about his said.
The med- previous job assignment in NATO, where he "Personnel are encouraged to give feed-
ical industry worked with decision making as an Air back. A fighter pilot can admit mistakes or
does have endo- Weapons Controller on NATO AWACS, and dangers, situations to his colleagues without
luminal ultra- how the oil and gas industry could maybe getting his head cut off."
sound, a device apply similar thinking. It's a challenge to get people from dif-
Alan Lumsden, Professor
which gathers Major Lien has flown with NATO for ferent cultures, different "glasses" (how they
and Medical Director, The
360 degree radi- Methodist Hospital in over 1300 flying hours on NATO AWACS, view the world around themselves) to work
al images from Houston and now works with the Norwegian Air together.

Leaders
Developments at Kongsberg, Shell,

Petrobras, Saudi Aramco
The Trondheim Integrated Operations conference on Sept 28-29 included new ideas from Kongsberg,
Shell, Petrobras and Saudi Aramco about how to get the most out of integrated operations
Torbjørn Forthun, managing director of

Kongsberg Drilling Management Solutions,
believes that oil and gas companies need to
develop more sophisticated ways of doing
business with drillers.
Drilling companies get punished if they
cause downtime, but they don’t get any re-
ward for their efforts in keeping the drilling
as effective as possible, or the ‘quality of the
uptime’, he said. “There is a need for change
in the contractual regime.”
Also, drillers companies are not chal-
lenged by their colleagues as much as per-
haps they should be. “The rest of the organi-
sation is more or less accepting what the
drilling domain is claiming,” he said.
Meanwhile, there has been a focus on
‘integrated operations’, but it is mainly
geared towards being able to drill with less
people on the platform, rather than improv-
ing the quality of the relationship and find-
ing ways drillers and their customers can
gain value.
Mr Forthun was previously responsible
for the integrated operations department at
Odfjell Drilling Technology, which was sub-
sequently acquired by Kongsberg Oil and Frans van der Berg, smart fields operations leader, Shell and Cristina Pinho, E&P Operation and
Maintenance General Manager, Petrobras
Gas Technologies in September 2010.
Marathon, Hydro, Statoil and Conoco
Phillips all worked with Odfjell on integrat- ing able to develop fields cheaper or having out,” he said.
ed operations. to purchase less capital equipment), he said. Making it work also means making it
Kongsberg is trying to integrate all of One field in Brunei could only be de- relevant to the people and what will help
the systems for planning and reporting into veloped using smart wells technology, be- them. “You need to choose which you im-
one drilling suite, which can be used by both cause it was too complex to develop other- plement – don’t go for everything that seems
drilling companies and their customers, so wise, with hundreds of reservoirs faulted up. nice,” he said. “Training needs to be adapted
they can collaborate together. On the Nelson field, Shell has a system to the people. And it is the closest people that
For one customer, the integrated opera- to optimise the gas lift, which enables it to they have trust in that should deliver train-
tions technologies enabled an oil company start-up operations in 18 hours instead of 24 ing.”
to save $23.5m a year, although the invest- hours after any shutdown, providing a whole Mr van der Berg said that the technolo-
ment in the technology was made by the quarter day of additional production. gy is “easy – we can make it work. The em-
drilling company, he said. The company has learned that there are bedding is the hard work. The people are not
very little benefits to smart technology if you the problem – the problem is created by the
Value at Shell can’t make any changes to the field as a re- fact that they need to change the way they
Shell has now implemented ‘smart fields’ sult of the data you gather. “It’s no use know- work. It creates resistance,” he said.
technology at 50 assets around the world, in- ing the water is going the wrong way if you Shell uses coaches in the early stage of
cluding in Brunei, Oman, Salinn (W can’t do anything about it.” a project and runs regular reviews of how
Siberia), UK, Nigeria, Gabon, Canada, With all smart fields projects there is a well things are going.
Netherlands, Norway, Sakhalin, said Frans challenge getting people to get enthusiastic
van der Berg, smart fields operations leader about them, when it is only one of a list of Petrobras
with Shell. priorities they have. Cristina Pinho, E&P Operation and Mainte-
The company quantifies value from the “From a workers’ perspective – if you nance General Manager, Petrobras, talked
project in terms of increased recovery and add another thing for them to do, they’re not about Petrobras’ integrated operation man-
financial savings it makes (such as from be- likely to do it. You have to take something agement project, “GIOP”.

Leaders
The plan is to install GIOP at its off- about to go wrong, before something actual-
shore production facilities following a 4 year ly does go wrong; and the communication
plan running from 2009 to 2013. while the emergency is being handled.
“We think communication is so impor- Ms Tveiten analysed 16 actual acci-
tant we have a very structured plan to com- dents, and in 11 of them, “We find deficien-
municate,” she said. cies in anticipation of risk,” she said.
It builds on a research project, called Also organisations do not learn enough
GeDig. In GeDig, “we tried 6 different tech- from the accidents. “Learning seems to be
nologies, with pilots at 6 different compa- not as it should be.”
nies,” she said. “Some of it didn’t work at There has been a reluctance to talk
all. We realised technology is not so impor- about how integrated operations can help
tant. You don’t need this fancy place to work. with emergency management, she said. “It
People didn’t understand. has been a taboo in many ways. People say
“GIOP is a natural evolution of other IO is not about emergency management.
projects,” she said. Emergency management needs to be left
“The complexity over the next two alone.”
years will bring new challenges. We have an “In emergency management, sharing of
exploration area of 150,000km2. information plays a very crucial role,” she
“We will increase production 42 per Meshal Al Buraikan from Saudi Aramco's said.
cent in 2010 to 2014 – from 2.1m bopd to Exploration and Petroleum Engineering “We wanted to look at how new work
2.98m bopd, while the mature reservoirs de- Computer Center proceses and new technology can influence
plete 10 per cent a year.” emergency management.”
This means there will be a lot of green- the system to do more and more things simi- “Most people say in oil and gas, a cri-
field operations. Many people working in the lar to how cellphones have evolved. “The sis doesn’t come suddenly, it evolves over
new integrated operations centres will be cellphone started off with voice, now it’s an many days.”
new Petrobras employees. entertainment centre,” he said. “There is a Ms Tveiten suggested that companies
Petrobras has become a partner of the network foundation.” should put more effort into trying to antici-
Centre for Integrated Operations in the Pe- “The surveillance layer is where we pate risks, or emergencies which might be
troleum Industry, a research centre which is spend most of our time. That consumes about to occur. “We suggest there should be
part of Trondheim University of Science and much of the budget,” he said. a more focus on spotting risk,” she said.
Technology (NTNU). Normally for well tests, the well needs In emergency handling, it can be im-
“Petrobras decided to join IO mostly to be shut in for 2-7 days, to monitor what portant to manage the information flow.
because of the experience here [in Trond- happens as pressure builds up. The data gath- “Too much information is not good,” she
heim],” she said. “We are starting from ered during the well test needs to be filtered said. “But if we put a lot of information in
scratch and didn’t want to make huge mis- to understand what is happening, because the room it can turn to an information crisis
takes.” otherwise it just seems to jump all over the not an emergency crisis.”
One of the biggest challenges at Petro- place. But in most emergency communica-
bras s communication about IO to people “If you get a flow rate data per second tions, most of the communication is by tele-
around the company at at managerial level,” the data is all over the place,” he said. “So phone.
she said. “I thought it was easy to present you apply a filter and get it back per hour.” The sharing of information is quite lim-
GIOP philosophy to the managerial level, Saudi Aramco had a project to reduce ited,” she said.
but some of them didn’t understand. We had the number of data points from 58,000 to
to come back and do it again. GIOP is not 2,700.
easy at all to understand.” It uses the Kappa Engineering “Dia-
“We must have the managerial level mant Master” client server tool for reservoir
with us. Without them it will be impossible surveillance. It has been implemented on 13
to make it different”. fields, with 1027 wells and 5092 gauges.
“The challenges are data quality, stor-
Saudi Aramco age and access,” he said. “The problem is not
Meshal Al Buraikan from Saudi Aramco's disk space but how to access it.”
Exploration and Petroleum Engineering The software also helps to manage the
Computer Center, talked about how Saudi well tests – in one example, Saudi Aramco
Aramco has managed dynamic well tests. wanted to shut in 50 wells in a field at the
Mr Al Buraikan says he personally same time to see what happened.
likes the following definition of intelligent
fields: “Remote capturing and utilisation of Using IO for emergencies
real time surface and subsurface data to op- Camilla Tveiten, a psychologist and re-
timise upstream assets and maximise its searcher at Scandinavian research organisa-
profitability”. tion SINTEF, has studied how integrated op-
“That’s a definition I personally like. erations could help with emergency manage-
Someone else in Saudi Aramco might give ment. Sharing of information in emergency
you another definition,” he said. This covers into risk anticipation, ie situations is 'quite limited' - Camilla Tveiten, a
Mr Al Buraikan sees the evolution of how well people are aware that something is psychologist and researcher at SINTEF

Leaders
Innocentive – crowdsourcing ideas

US company InnoCentive is helping oil and gas companies find solutions to technical problems – by
posting them on the web – but it takes skill and organisation to get the right result. VP sales Jon
Fredrickson explained how it works at the Trondheim Integrated Operations conference
Jon A Fredrickson, vice president of sales some 2 to 6 degrees away from the normal
with InnoCentive, talked about his online circle of talent the company would go to, Mr
service which enables companies to post Fredrickson said.
‘challenges’ and give rewards for people Of course, companies can always post
who do them, thereby enabling anyone in the the challenge on their own websites, but the
world to participate in their research. Re- value InnoCentive provides is to help com-
wards can be between $5,000 and $1m. panies frame the question in a way that is
The service does not aim to replace more likely to find a solution, and provide
companies’ in house research departments, ready access to a number of people who en-
but aims to provide them a route to alterna- joy complex technical or scientific problems,
tive expertise, for example someone who has Mr Fredrickson said. Additionally, the
tried a similar problem working for a differ- added value of anonymity for a Seeker and
ent industry, or someone with a unique set the inclusion of purchasing Intellectual Prop-
of ability and skills which the company does erty for the award posted for the challenge,
not have with its in-house staff. makes this model the fastest and most cost
The name of the company posting each efficient method for innovation in the world.
challenge is not revealed on the website. Mr Fredrickson said he was disappoint-
The oil and gas software company Par- ed that the company was not invited by BP
adigm posted a challenge on the site because to help try to come up with solutions to the
it wanted to find a better way to analyse 3D Deepwater Horizon disaster.
fault data. Interestingly one of the Solvers is It ended up hosting online discussions
a Swiss entrepreneur radiologist who had for its expert solvers to try to come up with
Helping you find experts from other industries
been working out ways to look at bones in solutions anyway, even though no financial who might be able to you help you find good
3D. award was offered. “Our solvers wanted to solutions - Jon A Fredrickson, vice president of
In one example, NASA (the North share their solutions and they wanted people sales with InnoCentive
American Space Agency) wanted to find a to listen,” he said.
better way of predicting solar events, and The solvers on InnoCentive were only equipment asked all employees to give sug-
posted the challenge on InnoCentive. The able to use data from the general media, gestions by applying what they knew about
award was won by a retiree who had previ- which was limited. They would have been valves,” he said. “They had interesting ideas
ously studied solar flares for the telecom in- more likely to have been able to contribute that came in.”
dustry. “NASA didn’t know this guy was if it had more of the facts, he believes. “Our “Someone else who was looking at sen-
there, and never knew this research had been solvers love facts,” he said. “Temperatures, sor technology maybe have looked at it dif-
done,” he said conditions, flow rates along with other key ferently,” he said.
In another example, the Oil Spill Re- data was missing as we had no access to it Another example of the strength of
covery Institute in Alaska (OSRI) had a from BP or other sources.” “crowdsourcing” for solutions is the DARPA
problem with oil and water mixture from BP tried to do organise its own system (Defense Advanced Research Projects
spill recovery it was loading into barges, for soliciting ideas and according to BP got Agency) challenge to find 8 feet diameter
which was freezing and becoming impossi- 40,000 submissions, he said, which must red balloons, where 10 red ballons were
ble to discharge. have made it very hard to sift out anything placed in urban parks around the US, and
The solution came from an Illinois useful. “The signal to noise ratio was out of teams had to find them, for a reward of
chemist and nanotechnology expert, who balance,” he said. $40,000.
had knowledge of how large fields of con- If InnoCentive had been involved, they The winner was a group from Massa-
crete are kept fluid, preventing the concrete could have framed the question better, and chussets Institute of Technology, which cre-
from setting by using a long vibrating rod, got a narrower list of responses, more likely ated a pyramid reward scheme for distribut-
who thought the same method could work to provide a useful solution and taking less ing the prize money, whereby the finder of
for a frozen oil and water mixture. The time to sift through. each balloon would get $2,000, and people
chemist won $20,000 and gave half of it As a specific example of people who who connected people who found the bal-
back to OSRI. might be able to help, there could be people loons with MIT would get $1,000, $500,
One chemical company which posted a who work in the nuclear industry with ex- $250 and so on.
problem on the site received a successful so- pertise on containing radiation, which would There have been other challenges post-
lution from an 18 year old undergraduate in have been applicable to containing the oil- ed related to oil spill recovery, including for
Kazakhstan, who won $25,000. spill. oil spill tracking, and the best way to fit ves-
In a study done by Harvard, 70 to 80 Medical expertise could have been use- sels.
per cent of the solutions come from people ful. “The CEO of a manufacturer of medical InnoCentive understands that it is cru-

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Exploration
cial that the “seeker” gets engaged in the dis-
cussion, and takes the solvers seriously, and
About InnoCentive, Inc. business professionals, and research or-
is specific about what is needed. “You need Since 2001, InnoCentive has helped cor- ganizations in more than 200 countries.
a process to engage unknown experts some- porate, government, and non-profit organ- Prizes for winning solutions are financial
where in the world,” he said. izations to better innovate through crowd- awards up to US $1,000,000. Committed
Some companies find it difficult cultur- sourcing, strategic consulting services and to unleashing diverse thinking, InnoCen-
ally to use solutions developed outside the internal Software-as-a-Service offerings. tive continues to introduce new products
company, the well known ‘not invented here’ The company built the first global Web and services exemplifying a new corpo-
syndrome. Procter and Gamble went to steps community for open innovation where or- rate model where return to investors and
to change this culture within their organisa- ganizations or “Seekers” submit complex individual passion go hand in hand with
tion, saying projects should be labelled problems or “Challenges” for resolution solving mankind’s most pressing prob-
“proudly found elsewhere,” he said. to a “Solver” community of more than lems.
“The cultural issues are big,” he said. 200,000 engineers, scientists, inventors, www.innocentive.com
“People say, culture eats strategy for lunch.”
Using object databases for seismic data

Object databases can provide much faster results than relational databases, when you are trying to look
for complex patterns and relationships within the data, as two major seismic companies have found out
Seismic interpretation and reservoir charac- es can do the job faster.

terisation company Fugro Jason, along with For example, think of the way that
another unnamed major seismic company, Amazon manages to trawl its database to no-
have moved to using object orientated data- tice that several people who bought one
bases to manage their seismic data, because product also bought another one (a process
they believe it gives them faster results. which creates 20 to 30 per cent of its rev-
The database provider is Objectivity, a enues).
company based in Sunnyvale, California. Or imagine a national intelligence data-
One (unnamed) seismic research com- base, with large amounts of information, try-
pany has used the database for their data, to ing to spot certain patterns very quickly.
run under their acquisition and processing If companies do not want to switch
modules. completely from a relational database to an
The database collects all of the sensor object database, they can use the existing
data, including GPS, source and receiver po- database to store and catalogue the data, but
sitions, seismic response and node position, use Objectivity to analyse the relationships.
Helping seismic companies manage their
and puts it into the Objectivity database. They can also create external processes run data with orientated orientated databases
The project development manager said on separate machines. rather than traditional relational databases -
that the database was "perfectly suited to the Thomas Krafft, director of marketing,
demanding data acquisition requirements". Faster Objectivity Inc
Fugro Jason uses the database to man- Objectivity claims that when it compared its
age the data from different sources across its database with a leading relational database,
geology, geophysics, petrophysics and mod- looking for connections between a number
elling applications. The company says that of different objects with up to 5 degrees of ty databases, relationships are stored with
analysis which once took days can now be separation, the Objectivity database could do the data.”
done in minutes. it in 15 seconds, compared to 17 hours on a Also, most of the popular programming
The theory is that normal databases leading commercial relational database. languages today are object orientated, so
(commonly known as ‘relational databases’) Object orientated databases can also be most programmers are familiar with object
are not very good at processing data when it run over many different servers at once, orientated languages.
means finding complex relationships be- which is very hard to do with relational data- “We've run tests internally showing
tween the fields. bases. how a traversal of complex and deep rela-
Relational databases are ideal for tasks Results are sent as they are found, tionships, finding connections between ob-
which involve putting data into a storage and which means the end users don’t have to wait jects separated by 3, 4 or any number of de-
taking it out later. For example, a system for for the query to complete before they see any grees of separation, can cause relational
managing plane ticket purchases. results. databases to just fail. And even when they
But if a task is needed which involves “Relational data management systems don't fail, the response time is horrendous.”
finding complex patterns and relationships have no concept of relationships,” he says
between data, then object orientated databas- Thomas Krafft of Objectivity. “In Objectivi-

Exploration
GeoGraphix - software for independents

GeoGraphix, a brand of interpretation software geared towards the needs of independent oil and gas
companies (particularly working on land), is no longer part of Halliburton’s Landmark software and
services portfolio
GeoGraphix, a Windows-based geological with these small and medium sized compa- drilling and
and geophysical interpretation software line nies,” he said. “We worked directly with total field
will now operate separately to the Landmark them as far as defining and developing work- develop-
brand, and its product development will be flows, to help them get their jobs done faster ment.
managed by a separate company called and easier, to get to first oil.” “We
LMKR. Independent operators also need to find worked di-
GeoGraphix was originally an interpre- ways to do things cheaper than the majors. rectly with
tation software company, which was ac- Having less complex software packages, the geosci-
quired by Landmark in 1995. Halliburton ac- which need less IT infrastructure and sup- entists to de-
quired Landmark a year later, and added the port, can be a way of doing this. fine and de-
GeoGraphix software to its portfolio as a “They’re looking for solutions which velop work-
way to address the needs of small and mid- are more affordable so they can seek out the flows to help
sized operators. Since then, it has operated remaining reserves which the majors can’t them get
as a product line under the Landmark brand. afford to continue to work in,” Mr Patterson their jobs
But from now on, GeoGraphix will operate said. done faster
Building interpretation
independently from Landmark under the “Our goal is to provide the tools that and easier, software to meet the needs
management of a company called LMKR’s the geoscientist need to get their job done in thus reduc- of small and medium sized
management. this high volume environment that we’re ing time and independent oil companies -
The software suite runs on everything moving into.” expense to Richard Patterson, head of
from commodity hardware, including lap- “We’ve got a lot of individual consult- first hydro- research and development at
GeoGraphix
tops, to high-end workstations. ants working with it on a laptop, they click carbon,”
It can be used as a standalone solution on the software and they’re up and running,” says Mr Pat-
in the field, or as part of a multi-user net- he said. “The data they work on can be ei- terson.
worked asset team in the office. ther on the computer or on the server. There “The unconventional workflows are
The company recently released a new are a lot of customers using NetApp network very demanding. You have to have tools and
version (5000.0.2.0 release) of its Discovery storage – they’re storing the actual project workflows which are very repeatable and
software in October 2010, including tools for data – on a network appliance.” lend themselves to a quick turnaround.”
geomodelling while drilling and GIS map- The horizontal well correlation work-
ping. Geomodelling While Drilling with flow allows geoscientists to update the proj-
smartSTRAT ect interactively in Discovery smartSEC-
Independent Operators The company has developed a new geomod- TION with new picks, inter-well points and
“GeoGraphix was built to support small and elling while drilling tool called Discovery revised drilling targets.
medium sized independent companies and smartSTRAT, a new add-on module to Geo- The resulting interpretations can be dis-
their workflows and we’ve been evolving the Graphix Discovery smartSECTION soft- played in Discovery’s integrated advanced
technology to meet their needs,” says ware. 3D visualization tool and geomodel applica-
Richard Patterson, head of research and de- It is designed to enable fast, easy and tion.
velopment at GeoGraphix. accurate geomodelling while drilling for
“These companies often are working in more precise geosteering of horizontal wells. Technology: GIS Mapping
fields which the majors have found to be un- The company says they based this lat- Another new capability allows users to ac-
economical. est feature on customer feedback and input cess and display, in real-time, the most cur-
“In order to be successful in these en- to cater to the new ways geoscientists and rent online GIS and ArcGIS maps and lay-
vironments where margins are thin they need engineers are collaborating to develop un- ers. These maps and layers can be visualized
to find ways to do things more efficiently. conventional fields and drill horizontal both in 2D and in 3D interpretations.
“Leveraging a software solution that re- wells. According to GeoGraphix, a major
quires less IT infrastructure and support, and The increase in horizontal well drilling source of frustration geoscientists encounter
minimizes the learning curve, can be a way in North America, along with a new factory is the lack of access to the most up-to-date
of doing this,” he says. production method, demands a new way of mapping information.
“With independent oil companies, the thinking and working resource plays, the The ability to stream maps ensures that
person using the software could be the per- company says. everyone working on a project is using the
son buying the software; it could be the pres- As a direct result of close collaboration latest map data since the latest maps are
ident of the company. The technology needs with key customers, smartSTRAT was de- streamed every time the project is opened.
to be as easy to use as possible.” signed and engineered to help geoscientists Users don’t have to worry about data dupli-
“A lot of what you see reflected in the effectively and efficiently execute factory cation and issues resulting from manual in-
product is a result of our close relationships production style workflows for horizontal put and output.

Production
Do you challenge your colleagues

enough?
One of the signs of a successful collaborative environment is that people feel comfortable challenging
each other says Jim Kochan of Vitesse Solutions, knowledge management consultant to Conoco Phillips
“I think the good people really like to be “In a culture where people who do the logs), mud
challenged,” says Jim Kochan, managing di- same type of work are in regular collabora- logs might
rector of Vitesse Solutions LLC, a company tive contact with each other, they feel com- start to be
based in Cleveland, Ohio, which provides fortable airing what’s new, and what they are shared by
knowledge management consultancy to the working on. Exchanging ideas and plans and people who
oil and gas industry, with Conoco Phillips as techniques on a regular basis.” feel the need
one of its biggest clients. “I think people who work on high risk to share it
“We all love to challenge and defend. projects are kind of proud of the fact they’ve with each
People can say ‘I see what you’re doing but been chosen to work on a high risk project. other be-
I can see a new idea of how to do this in a But you need pathways for those people to cause the
different way’. share and interact with other knowledgeable community
“That’s kind of the environment that people from other projects.” has fostered
my approach has always strived for.” “If you’re all working together to say that confi-
This does not mean aggression, but just ‘...this is what we’re doing, ...this is what dence.”
setting up the right kind of conversational they’re trying, ...we’ve had this vendor in...,’ “They Helping you make
discussion, which all participates appreciate little by little, those things start to have a can discuss collaboration work - Jim
and all benefit from. “The exchange of ideas positive impact.” this with Kochan, managing director
usually happens in a conversational note,” “Everybody would say, there’s more I other mud of Vitesse Solutions
he said. don’t know than I know. When we’re honest experts
Experts rarely ask other people for help with ourselves we all know that,” he said. around the
because that makes them look like they don’t “It’s about saying ‘this is how we’re doing world, what
know what they are doing, and destroys their things here’ ‘how are you doing it there’ and they are doing in their own operations. Peo-
power base in the company. It works much comparing notes.” ple say, well can you please send me your
better if it as seen as experts sharing tips with Mr Kochan cites the Kashagan Oil mud logs, or where are your mud logs avail-
each other, like golfers comparing their Field in Kazakhstan, which is being operat- able on the system, point me to where your
methods in a bar. ed by a consortium of 7 companies – ENI, concerns are. This exchange brings more
“It’s not ‘we’re doing this wrong, we’re Shell, Total, ExxonMobil, KazmunayGas, minds to more issues.”
going to drop it, and do it your way’.” It’s ConocoPhillips and Inpex. “You’re trying “An experienced expert can say ‘let me
‘you’ve just given me a couple of good to bring to bear the knowledge of 7 compa- look at your mud logs and I’ll see if there are
ideas’.” nies into the drilling operations of one of the some areas where we might be concerned’”.
“We’re all in the same ballpark, experts most complex operations in the world. Go- “In such a community atmosphere
are rarely off by that much. Experienced ing in, do we really think that all 7 compa- they’re getting support for good ideas or
people generally have 85 per cent of it, but nies are collaborating – bringing all their they’re getting questioned on things that they
they’re looking for other people’s techniques knowledge to bear – if they hadn’t any mech- may not be sure about. They say, maybe
that may be useful or generate ideas.” anism to share? I don’t know.” we’d better back off on this because other
“There’s always a difference of opinion people in the company are unsure.”
into how things should go, if people are shar- Assistance
ing their opinions. But you are at least sur- Collaboration often starts when someone Positive re-inforcement
facing some good ideas, identifying cautions asks for assistance, or someone has a sug- Collaboration has positive re-inforcement
or sharing experiences. It is similar to meet- gestion which they think would help some- loops – as more people collaborate, more
ings when people say ‘ah ha! I’m glad you one else. people see the benefit of collaborating, more
brought that up’. Your approach might save “The mud experts on a rig could be say- people become comfortable collaborating,
us something in terms of cost! We’ve all ing (to others around the world), ‘here’s what more collaborating goes on, more people get
been in those kinds of meetings.” we’re seeing...’. People would start to re- new ideas, or see improvmenets in produc-
“Your average expert actually loves to spond, and someone could say, ‘we have a tion or safety, leading to more collboration.
talk and exchange about what they do with small operation over here and we had simi- “The more people that feel comfortable
other people who are knowledgeable. It lar readings, and we had a problem. Here’s jumping into a forum at any given time, the
doesn’t mean they’re asking questions about the details of those problems ...’ and then more easily people feel about exchanging
things they don’t know.” some productive discussion could ensue.” knowledge,” he says. ”They’re all going to
“Comparing techniques is not showing If people are already talking to each same place. You’re more likely to find peo-
that I don’t know something. It’s sharing other then it is more likely they will discuss ple who are willing to help or simply share.”
what you know and having respect for other many concerns they may have. “If the ques- “If those people are more in tuned-in to
people and what they know.” tions are arising (for example about mud any situation – you have less likely of a

Production
chance for something bad to happen. You it. Instead of going down the hall and en- don’t have tools competing against each oth-
sure do reduce the likelihood,” he says. gaging with 1 or 2 people, you can walk over er, you have a well organised and well run
In one example someone asked a com- to your computer and ask your question to a knowledge sharing process, you can’t help
munity for advice about how to use a specif- much larger group.” but engage the best minds,” he says.
ic dangerous chemical in a certain applica- But even if remote colleagues are avail- Organising your knowledge sharing is
tion. Other people in the community provid- able and reachable with collaboration tools, a good idea. “The more organised the ex-
ed advice, and some people (who were just it doesn’t mean that people collaborate, change of knowledge, the more focussed it
reading the exchanges) became aware of the when it can still be much more comfortable is, the more likely that things are going to be
risk for the first time. to talk to people you are sitting next to. done better, negative things have a chance
“We isolate ourselves geographically of being avoided, and people have a little
Use the whole company often, because of time zone, language, dis- more comfort level in taking responsibility,”
Most people commonly discuss things with tance, for the most part it’s a lot easier to he said.
colleagues in their office, collaboration tools stand up and walk down the hall and ask “Engaging with people in a virtual en-
can help people discuss with experts across someone, who may not be an expert but they vironment should be part of people’s day. It’s
the whole company, worldwide. might know enough to get you through the not easy to do at first. But once it happens
“When you have a giant corporation, day ,” he says. the benefits do start.”
you have people all over the world who can Posting data live on a corporate intranet
weigh in and debate things, and things get Tools can help, but it is more important to get the
better,” he says. “For example, lessons Tools don’t make the collaboration work, but engagement working. “Just because data are
learned on a gas turbine in Brazil can be used the collaboration ceretainly can’t happen available online doesn’t mean people are
in Alaska.” without the right tools used in the right way. looking on it,” he said.
“We’re always checking e-mail – I “When things are done right, when the To support the discussions, it probably
don’t know anyone who doesn’t check their processes are put in place with some of these is important to have data files accessible in a
e-mail. People get on intranets and logon wonderful tools, like Sharepoint and standard online place to people in the com-
every day. If you’re checking on a global Wikipedia put in with proper guidance, with pany. “There shouldn’t be 50 places to store
community it only adds a few minutes to leadership, business case, resources, transfer documents,” he said.
every day, you can jump in or contribute to processes, specific expectations, and you

If you want to get people interested in the digital oilfield, you’ve got to get them interested in the
technical details – something people normally dislike, writes Dutch Holland
Straight out of the dictionary, Yuck is “used “strategic” level. In fact, those connected to “Must”
to express rejection or strong disgust.” DOF in any way can do a lot about it through be re-config-
Yuck is the reaction that technical read- executive education, patterned after Chinese ured? Yes, be-
ers often have when encountering informa- water torture. havior goes
tion that appears to be overkill. Every time anyone talks, presents or toward re-
However, beware of the Yuck factor if discusses moving DOF forward, they talk wards, not to-
interested whatsoever about today’s fast- about DOF Enterprise Architecture. ward words.
spreading concept of the Digital Oilfield However, if that term will presumably
(DOF). Yuck out top management, then talk about Strategic,
Yuck. Why should anyone bother to “critical success factors for DOF” or “known work
read about such an arcane topic as DOF en- pre-conditions” or “lessons learned” … or process,
terprise architecture at the “strategic” level? whatever it takes. Sometimes a copy of a rel- technical
The answer is simple: DOF as a new evant article can be very helpful.
process
technology, and article readers as its propo-
- Dr Dutch Holland,
nents, are not likely to go far in producing Past the Yuck? Enterprise Architecture In the first of Holland Management
results for their company (or brownie points When an upstream organization decides to this series of Coaching
for their annual performance evaluation) “go for it” to maximize digital technology articles, DOF
without a business foundation for DOF at the utilization for business value, the enter- Enterprise Ar-
right level. prise’s architecture must be altered and con- chitecture (DOF EA) was described as a
Otherwise, regardless of top manage- figured specifically for digital technology. combination of three different structures that
ment’s verbal “go ahead” signals, DOF may To translate, when an upstream compa- must be aligned and integrated to maximize
continue as little more than an expensive cu- ny decides to make DOF adoption a higher the business potential of digital technology.
riosity. That is the unvarnished bottom line. priority for the enterprise, goal statements of Strategic Business Architecture … in-
Even with agreement that a strategic Senior Managers must be re-configured to cluding the company’s DOF vision and
foundation is important, what can anyone do include specific business goals to be gained strategic goals, measures and incentives
about it, especially if they are not at the by using digital technology. Work Process Architecture … includ-

Production
answer is zero because man- for the Gulf of Mexico, they would not have
agement is fully committed to to call in the GOM asset manager and say:
making that platform pay off “The company is investing big bucks in the
for the investors. The same is GOM platform and we expect you to use it
true for DOF projects. to make money for the company.” Can you
What if millions were imagine the look on the GOM Manager’s
committed to DOF projects to face when he hears that? “What did you
improve decision-making think I would do?”
without mentioning that in- Yet, when dollars are invested in DOF
vestment and its anticipated initiatives, top management actually does
earnings in the company’s fi- have to sit down with managers and tell them
nancial projections? Would that very thing. Failure to have that direct
that be read as a lack of com- conversation will stop a DOF “deployment
mitment or a lack of knowl- by a given date” and sends the signal that us-
edge of the impact the DOF ing the new DOF technology is optional.
projects should have on the
ing the matrix of technical and business business? Either way, failure to show antici- All or Nothing
work processes needed to achieve DOF pated financial results is a DOF killer. Fail to complete one category of organiza-
strategic goals 3. Incentives must be in place to tional reconfiguration at the strategic level
Technical Process Architecture … in- motivate DOF exploitation. Archimedes and the end result will be greatly disappoint-
cluding the processes inside the IT or R&D said, “Give me a lever long enough, and a ing from both an operational and economic
organization to manage digital resources fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall point of view.
move the world.” Such is the power of the As the list below indicates, if one key
Strategic Business Architecture lever. ingredient of strategic architecture is miss-
Five organizational elements must be In organizational terms, incentives are ing, the results are considerably less than de-
aligned by senior managers to get DOF into the equivalent of the lever. What anyone sirable.
full play: Company vision, goals and strat- wants, they “describe” and then “incen- Missing a formal DOF strategy – leads
egy for DOF, Executive commitment to tivize.” Or, to use an old phrase, “Put their to confusion
DOF, Incentives for Results from DOF, Ro- money where their mouths are.” Failure to Missing executive commitment – leads
bust portfolio management and Explicit de- explicitly incentivize the exploitation of dig- to project having low priority for action
cisions for DOF Implementation. ital technology at multiple management lev- Missing management incentives –
1. Company vision, goals and strat- els will result in much less than what could means its all talk, no action
egy must explicitly reflect the company’s be called “a full-court press.” Missing portfolio management – means
intention to adopt Digital Technology for 4. Robust portfolio management minimal investment
improved business results. must be in place for all capital investment Missing decision to deploy – means
Someone once said “Never underesti- decisions including DOF. Regardless of a slow and partial use.
mate the power of the written word.” That company’s size, only so many dollars can
must be a given or organizations would not be devoted to “new,” whether fields, plat- The Yuck Test
consume so many trees in writing “Vision, forms, pipelines, technology or DOF. Those having an interest in DOF, and those
Strategy, Values, etc.” and the other informa- Those scarce dollars are allocated by top who read this entire article, have passed the
tion produced to guide organizations. management using their process which Yuck test and are players. That passage de-
It is not necessary to include in goal has probably developed over time. livers an unfair advantage over others who
statements that offshore platforms will be The issue is that the use of allocation say they want to max DOF performance.
utilized for production because that is not process from the past is not likely to put Now, on to the other three articles in this se-
new. But, using digital technology to make DOF investment opportunities into the same ries -- with real chances to stretch one’s lead.
better decisions about production is new, bucket of dollars for allocation. Potential in-
both to many organizations and to many vestment in DOF can be only a derivative of
managers who may have been making pro- another budget category such as Information More information
duction decisions “the old fashioned way.” Technology (IT). Failure to explicitly put This is the second article in a five-part se-
The key point is that failure to include DOF opportunities into a head-to-head eval- ries that defines and explores the ways an
the desire for exploitation of digital technol- uation with other investment opportunities upstream organization would need to be
ogy in the writings of top management can, usually results in under-investment in DOF re-configured to fully adopt the use of dig-
and will, lead to confusion about how seri- given its business potential. ital technology to improve the business.
ous the company is. 5. Explicit decisions to “Deploy” or Articles in this series will look at the
2. Executive commitment to DOF “Give Permission to Adopt” must be made adoption of digital technology from a
must be shown by investment in DOF ar- and communicated for each DOF initia- number of angles: Strategic business,
chitecture and by willingness to use pro tive. Although this may be hard to believe work process, technical process and ven-
forma results in financial projections. it is true, because managers in almost dor processes.
Imagine a company which builds a new every company often still treat invest- dutch@hollandmanagementcoaching.com
production platform off the west coast of ments in IT dollars differently than their Tel: +1 281-657-3366
Africa. What are the chances that anticipat- other investments. www.hollandmanagementcoach-
ed production would be omitted from future For example, if top management funds ing.com/digitaloilfield
earnings projections for the company? The the construction of a new production facility

Production
Software for oil industry real estate

Many oil and gas companies could benefit from a more structured approach to facilities and real estate
management, writes Phil Wales, CEO of Houston-based eBusiness Strategies (www.ebiz-strategy.com)
It may be surprising to discover that man- As stated before, business units have
agement of the oil and gas industry’s col- traditionally handled their own space by
lectively vast real estate and facilities viewing it as only another asset required to
(RE&F) is a breed apart from the rest of conduct business. That thinking bred an-
their companies technologically. other typical reality; facilities taking a back
To an outside observer, this would seat to core operations when it comes to
seem almost incomprehensible when look- funding.
ing at the scale of services offered and size Thus, many of these business-man-
of the Real Estate & Facilities Capital Ex- aged facilities fall into disrepair, resulting
penditures (RE&F CAPEX) and/or Opera- in disconnects within operating standards,
tional Expenditure (OPEX) budgets. business processes and facilities manage-
However, in comparison to operating ment technology.
units, this cost is relatively small and lacks The good news is that the recent trend
the focus prevalent in other industries. is increasingly toward consolidating all oil
Most real estate services in oil and gas and gas real estate and facilities manage-
companies have originated as discrete ment under one corporate services umbrel-
functions within individual business units la.
and evolved in silos. This not only applies Bringing these assets under a single
to day-to-day operations of these groups, operating model drives companies to stan-
but also to their enabling technologies. dardized practices and literally creates the Helping you work out which software to use
The impact? These disparate growth opportunity to implement uniform support- to manage oil and gas real estate - Phil Wales
patterns have resulted in each organization ing technology. of Houston based eBusiness Strategies
supporting their real estate activities dif-
ferently and rarely focused under an enter- Choosing IT packages
prise-wide approach. When selecting and managing software spent” barometer.
Consequently, with no standard ap- packages for service organizations such as Secondarily, using aligned technology
proach or centralized direction, oil and gas Real Estate and Facilities (RE&F), it is which is enabled to support a best practice
companies have often let individual sites critical to remember that technology is on- business model actually forces a preferred
implement solutions. ly an enabler. Said more memorably, “The behavior.
This had led to some companies hav- tools are cool but the processes rule.” When selecting a service-oriented
ing dozens or even hundreds of real estate This guiding principle drives compa- software solution the key issue is that the
software applications in use. nies to take a more structured approach to- process must be a business-driven initia-
In fairness, various business units wards selecting real estate/facilities man- tive, which is precisely where too many or-
have handled real property assets ad- agement software. ganizations make their most critical error.
mirably, but the typical approach is a sim- In adopting this new approach, re-
ple reactive service offering of fixing what member that technology and best practices Is ERP OK?
breaks, for example. go hand-in-hand. Heard the following scenario before? The
Unfortunately, reactivity puts compa- Good business processes (e.g., Best RE&F staff, believing “It’s just software,”
nies on a collision course with transforma- Practices) are designed to allow technolo- abdicates their responsibility to the compa-
tional change occurring throughout other gy to offload the mundane data collection ny’s IT organization.
areas in the industry. With no consistent and repetitive administrative functions. In turn, not understanding the func-
way to measure asset performance, this old Essentially, good technology enables tional requirements around managing real
reactive management approach is awkward business processes to let skilled labour estate, IT will typically turn to what they
at best in today’s technology-driven world. solve problems instead of babysitting a know best: the ERP system they have de-
computer. ployed.
New technological trend Taking that objective a step further, If that appears acceptable, the more
The upshot is that these companies have no the concept of enabling technology focus- successful companies think not. Though
consolidated way to roll up metrics region- es on software that can actually become an these software giants market real estate and
to-region, building-to-building or activity- integral part of service delivery, thus en- facilities “solutions,” they rarely provide
to-activity other than labor-intensively abling facility personnel to work smarter. the depth of operational capabilities neces-
moving data between spreadsheets. This differs from the too-common ap- sary to transform a RE&F organization,
Fortunately, these “walls” are coming proach of buying technology first and then which should be the real point.
down as more companies view their RE&F trying to figure out how to adapt to it or, in Therefore, RE&F professionals must
services in general - RE&F technology many cases, how to work around it, all of step up to the plate when selecting an en-
specifically - in a completely new light. which rings hollow on the “Money well- abling software solution while maintaining

Production
a laser focus on a key point. cies/procedures improvements. ables oil and gas real estate organizations
That is, IT’s role is to help ensure that In this way, RE&F management opti- to do their job better. The tool is where they
any potential selection will work within the mizes the services offered by the organiza- store decisions, access information, and
corporate infrastructure, but only facilities tion while adding technology that lets them perform analyses and comparative assess-
management personnel know what the actually measure performance in a consis- ments.
technology must do. tent way. In an even bolder move, instead Further, when working with good sys-
of tweaking their own processes, some tems, they are allied with systems that “talk
Technology strategies companies are saying, “Tell us the indus- and think” real estate, which is why large
A fact which still surprises many is that the try’s best practices and we’ll adopt them.” ERP systems are not as effective; the latter
most successful technology projects have This includes both the business methods talk and think finance, procurement and
little to do with technology. To the con- and the aligned supporting technology. Human Resources (HR).
trary, successful RE&F technology imple- See a pattern? This approach allows Properly selected and implemented
mentations begin with a vision for how organizations to have traceability from technology is a strategic support system
work should be performed, a willingness to their strategic vision all the way down to that eliminates rote daily work by doing it
change current practices and enforce stan- their tactical delivery. In buying and imple- all “behind the scenes” so users can more
dards, a clear definition of business menting technology tools, traceability productively focus on making well-in-
processes for work in the future and man- shows how each tool supports the function- formed decisions.
agement’s unwavering support for guiding al requirements, which support the process- In the Digital Oilfield, real estate/fa-
the organization through the change. es, which support the metrics and perform- cility management technology tools have
As a practical matter, the more struc- ance criteria, which support the strategy. moved from being just a repository of ac-
tured approach to selecting software re- The more tactical that companies get, the tions to becoming a strategic analytic tool
volves around a push among majors to more critical that traceability must be that can trend for the best decisions. While
move away from the rigid “This is how we aligned all the way to the top of the organ- this development has only come about re-
do it” mindset to adopting best practices, ization. cently, it is remarkably changing oil and
then getting them documented, agreed to gas real estate and facilities management
and communicated. In turn, the technology Conclusion globally.
solutions being implemented are a catalyst In a well-defined and implemented best
to bring online both technological and poli- practice, the technology tool greatly en-
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Production

EOS Solutions and Norisol are providing oil and gas companies with 4D process simulations to optimize
their operations and planning, to help mitigating risk
EOS Solutions, a company based in power of 4D process simulations for emer- it fit, does it not fit - all these things you can
Rochester, Michigan, is working with a num- gency planning. put into these documents,” says Trond
ber of oil and gas companies to build “4D” This includes emergency evacuation Soltvedt, oil and gas division manager at
process simulations, which consists of a 3D planning on oilrigs, and working which Norisol Norge, which is selling the software
model and the 4th dimension representing routes people will take (depending on where in Europe.
the variable of time (see cover photo). an accident occurs) and how long it will take This can all be viewed with the Adobe
This enables companies to simulate them to evacuate (see cover photo). Acrobat Reader software –free software al-
various aspects of their operations to en- Management and employees can col- ready installed on over 90% of the world’s
hance overall efficiencies, says John Giaco- laborate and make decisions together on computers.
mazza, Vice President Sales at EOS Solu- what would be the best evacuation routes to Enabling everyone involved in a proj-
tions. take by running different ‘what if’ simula- ect to view, measure and mark-up the 3D da-
“The 4D Process Simulation approach tion scenarios in the digital 4D environment. ta is invaluable. Giving everyone access to
is far better than the conventional static, pa- the data spurs collaboration and results in
per-based scheduling methods which are dif- 4D Assembly Simulations more innovative problem solving and proj-
ficult to interpret and hard to relate to actual 4D Assembly and Operation Simulations ect planning. In the 3D PDF, users can view
operations,” he says. give engineers and planning staff an envi- the equipment from any angle, travel around
Cost as a 5th dimension can be added ronment in which precise and detailed oper- it and zoom in and out.
to the simulation as well. The cost dimen- ation plans can be executed digitally. This "In my opinion, in years to come, there
sion aspect has proven to be invaluable to allows these groups to evaluate every detail will be no shutdown activity offshore with-
planning large Greenfield projects in oil and of a project from proper equipment selection out a corresponding 3D PDF - after seeing
gas. to ergonomic issues. the benefits of this, there is no other way to
EOS has enabled its customers to study do it," Mr Soltvedt says.
4D Greenfield Process Simulation the impact of new equipment installation on- "The more complex the task is, the
A supermajor used the software to optimize to existing infrastructures, checking for more benefit you can get out of this. You can
the planning of a greenfield project. It was clashes, determining optimal paths for re- see what happens if you change some param-
used to plan and view everything that is hap- moving/installing equipment and minimiz- eters, how does that affect other tasks."
pening on the surface in 3D - including ing interferences. It is useful for people who have to work
earthmoving, building roads and installing By optimizing a project digitally, the on the platform, for example installing new
electricity grids. risks of mistakes during actual project exe- equipment, or installing scaffolding, because
Labour and equipment were also mod- cution are reduced, increasing overall per- they can easily get an idea of the job before
eled to optimize how many trucks and how formance for operations and maintenance they have to do it.
many workers / personnel would be needed procedures. The 4D process simulation technology
over the different phases of the build out. “Mega” oil and gas projects sometimes was originally used in Detroit as a way to
“We were able to simulate their process assign 5-15 percent of the entire project help automotive manufacturing plants more
– how many trucks would be needed, what budget toward mistakes, overruns and errors efficient, helping Detroit vehicle manufac-
would happen in different weather condi- in planning/installation. “Our customers find turers build and tweak their production lines
tions, how long it would take based on dif- that they can reduce mistakes and project and increase efficiency.
ferent factors,” says Mr Giacomazza. overruns, resulting in about a 10 percent sav- EOS has molded this technology and
“By doing a digital build of the opera- ings in the overall project budget,” he says. applied it to the energy industry in a way that
tion in 4D, energy producers are better able allows its customers to run what-if scenar-
to plan and optimize their processes to get it 3D PDF ios, mitigate risks and maintain project
right the first time, thus mitigating risk. EOS has developed a tool on top of Adobe schedules.
“Simulating the entire asset in 3D and 3D, which can import CAD models generat- The cost of downtime at oil and gas in-
including the 4th dimension of time and 5th ed in any CAD system (ie. AVEVA-PDMS). stallations is critical, with the cost of well
dimension of cost is a tremendous advantage Animations, mark-ups, annotations and development at about $10 per second, a shut-
on large-scale projects, which require huge measurement of the 3D CAD data can also down can cost nearly $5 million per day.
amounts of capital.” be incorporated into the 3D PDF, showing With demand for oil nearly outstripping ca-
EOS has appointed Norisol, a service not only the data itself, but valuable infor- pacity, delays equate directly to lost revenue.
and engineering company (which specializes mation as it relates to how equipment will Performing a 4D process simulation allows
in scaffolding, insulation and service treat- be installed and maintained. By providing the user to make mistakes virtually and avoid
ment services) based in Norway, as its ex- this technology, EOS helps their customers making them in the physical world.
clusive agent, providing the software and to be CAD independent, a huge value for any “If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, a
services in Scandinavia and the UK. organization. 4D process simulation is worth 10,000
"Dismantling scaffolding, dismantling words,” Mr Giacomazza says.
4D Offshore Rig Evacuation Simulation pumps, tanks, cleaning tanks, cleaning of
Oil and gas companies are also utilizing the pipes, replacing pipes, replacing valves, does

Communications
NSI Upstream – your production on the web

NSI Upstream of Louisiana creates a means for companies to monitor and manage their production from
anywhere, including on the internet, and has completed a large project for the 100kbopd Kikeh
deepwater development in offshore Malaysia
NSI Upstream of Louisiana has created Oil

Field Commander(OFC), an online surveil-
lance system that has analytical tools for oil
companies to monitor and analyze their pro-
duction by connecting data from production
equipment and wells to a to a server and
making that data available from anywhere,
including the web.
It has completed a project for Murphy
Oil, enabling the company to monitor what
is happening on its $2bn+ Kikeh Field De-
velopment in the South China Sea off Sabah,
East Malaysia. Murphy asked NSI to install
a system after the two companies had
worked together successfully for several
projects in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Kikeh field produces approximate-
ly 100,000 barrels of oil and 125 million cu-
bic feet of gas per day, with 13 producer and
15 water injector completions coming up to
a dry tree platform, a further four subsea oil
producers to another manifold, one gas in-
jection well and 12 water injection wells on NSI Upstream gathers data from all your upstream equipment, so you can view everything on
3 additional manifolds. All production is the web in real time
connected to a FPSO (floating, production,
storage and offloading vessel). Water depth
is 4330 feet. system to be installed. “If they see something they’re interested in
There are approximately 6,300 data But it has found many additional users they can do an analysis right there using the
items being collected or calculated. for the system, including the reservoir and system’s built-in analysis tools.”
The company designs and installs se- subsurface team, construction engineers,
cure communication interfaces to field con- management and even third party consult- Communications
trol systems that have data from all of the ants who support and supplement the Kikeh The biggest challenge is securely connect-
production equipment, dry tree and subsea team in certain critical skill areas. For exam- ing and interfacing the various pieces of
wells and their respective sensors and sub ple, the company has a production adviser equipment to the OFC servers and moving
systems, including downhole gauges. who lives on the other side of the world 14 data efficiently from the field to the office
The data is transported via the existing time zones away from the Kikeh field, who across limited bandwidth media such as
IT infrastructure, which connects an OFC says he checks the field first thing when he VSAT.
field server located on the FPSO and an OFC starts work every day. In theory it should be a simple task,
central server located in Murphy’s offices in Murphy Oil has designated the NSI with most pieces of equipment having some
Kuala Lumpur to the user of the data. The system as a “mission critical” system for kind of data output stream and interface, and
company aims to connect every critical piece providing real-time information about what most remote locations now having a data
of data from the downhole gauges to the is going on in the field to the Kikeh produc- communications link to the producer’s IT
sales meters. Additionally, equipment not tion team, says Dave Dixon, president and network.
connected to the process facilities or well, CEO of NSI Upstream. But in practise things are much more
such as the drilling riser tension system, are The Oil Field Commander system con- complicated. Most field locations have very
connected during the drilling of the dry tree nects all the various systems in the field to- limited and less reliable shared satellite data
wells. gether, so the Kikeh team can keep their fin- communications that are used for voice, fax
There are more than 50 users of the sys- gers on the pulse of what’s going on,” he and other business data including email and
tem, including engineering, operations and says. “For certain critical data like downhole internet access. Additionally, interfaces to
management, based on and offshore. gauge data, as soon as the data on the con- control systems have to be secured and hun-
The company reports that originally trol system in the field is updated they see it dreds of thousands of data items must be
Murphy thought the system would be used in the Kuala Lumpur office as well.” evaluated to identify the critical few items
primarily by operations personnel and the “The idea is to give them a real-time of interest. The company is often called into
production team engineers who wanted the line of sight into the field,” says Mr Dixon. projects after an oil operator or its vendors

Communications
have tried to build a system themselves, but ferent graphic views available for the Kikeh predict what date
realised how difficult it is, says Fred Gard, field. Many of these views have a layout a certain point
VP sales and marketing. similar to the well and process flow dia- will be reached.
NSI uses a range of media to move da- grams of the field’s wells and equipment, For example, if
ta around, different types of satellite and ra- and some present the data in a tabular rows you know you
dio links, cellular communications and hard- and columns format. will need to in-
wire cable. Users can click on an equipment gauge stall another com-
The company also needs to understand or meter displayed on the screen to view all pressor when
the data stream which the different systems of the data associated and recorded with it. wellhead pressure
and devices create. Most devices can create There are also sophisticated tools to view da- goes under 900
some kind of data output but data items ta over different time scales, apply data fil- psi, the system
(called ‘tags’) are not named in any stan- ters, do correlations and make comparisons can predict the
dardised format. Also everything needs to be among various data, as well as perform more date you will need NSI is often called into
done with low bandwidth to avoid interfer- sophisticated analysis such as regression and to make the projects after an oil
operator or its vendors
ing with other voice and data traffic. transient data analyses. change based on have tried to build a
“Most things don’t talk nice,” says Mr “You can see all historical data, from the history of the system themselves, but
Gard. “We get into a lot of communications the beginning of the recording of data until collected data. realised how difficult it is,
challenges, particularly with certain devices the present for any item,” says NSI’s Stephen The soft- says Fred Gard, VP sales
and systems. “ Mohler. “Production and reservoir engineers ware can also and marketing
look at these historical trends, and they can send e-mail alert
Software tell a lot just from the data signatures.” messages whenever specific thresholds are
Both the field and the central servers can For example, you can monitor data for reached, or use a voice call-out telephone
produce graphic views similar to an interac- a slowly changing trend like production de- system to reach the responsible oil company
tive animated web page, with over 130 dif- cline and using one of the analytical tools personnel.
US regulators might want real time data

from rigs
US regulators might demand real time data from drilling rigs, according to Michael Bromwich, director of
the US Bureau of Ocean Energy management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM), speaking at a recent
Platts Energy Podium event in Washington on October 12 2010
“One of the things that's emerged from some to be reconfiguring in major ways our entire regulatory regime that promotes safety -
of the investigations that have been conduct- inspection. So it will be a combination of in- we're committed to it, I hope they're com-
ed so far is there is a need for more instru- creased staffing and other ways of ensuring mitted to it, I hope together we can improve
mentation on these rigs - to provide real time compliance.” safety.”
electronic data to us as the regulator,” he The regulators expect to work together “What I have found in discussions with
said. “Clearly more data is needed - more re- with industry to develop new safety stan- companies and industry groups is I think a
al time data is needed.” dards, he said. “We're not going to be real commitment to safety. I think Deepwa-
“What we're going to be moving to- wor3king with a system any longer that un- ter Horizon was a wakeup call not only to
wards is a system where we may rely some- questionably accepts standards developed BP but to many of the companies as well - I
what less to having inspectors on the rigs go- from industry.” think - I hope - we are going to have a will-
ing through lists and checking the rig met However it would not be possible for ing set up partners as we continue to try to
certain requirements.” the regulator to develop standards independ- raise the bar on safety and impose additional
“And so, we need people who are ently from industry, as many people are ask- requirements.”
skilled and trained in understanding that kind ing it to, because it does not have the expert- “There was an inappropriately static
of data. We're going to have an increasing ise, he said. regulatory environment for decades,” he
role for petroleum engineers and other kinds “For those of us who would like us to said. “Industry was developing advanced
of engineers.” develop our own rules independently: the technologies and applying them in the field
Mr Bromwich said that the agency cur- fact is we don't have our own expertise right and regulation was not keeping up with that.
rently only had 65 inspectors, including cov- now. We would like to change that over time We are trying to correct that imbalance. But
ering Alaska and California, which is a “pa- by bringing in some people who are truly ex- I think we are still to some extent catching
thetically inadequate number,” he said. “It perts and truly independent from the oil up. But when we talk about a dynamic regu-
may have taken the Deepwater Horizon to companies - but I don't believe any purpose latory environment - putting in place some
underscore how understaffed on the inspec- is served by pretending we currently have additional rules - which will not come as any
tion side our inspectors were.” that inhouse expertise that can work toe to surprise to industry.”
In future the agency will have “proba- toe with industry. “We are not going to impose additional
bly 5 to 10 times the number of inspectors “So we need to work with them, I think regulations just to give the illusion of activi-
we had in the past,” he said. “We are going that's a pre-requisite to having an effective ty,” he said.


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DEJ28_24pages:Layout 1 16/12/2010 13:08 Page 1

Drilling: time for better

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