Abstracts

ABSTRACT BOOKLET
SIS GLOBAL FORUM 2012
MONACO, 13-15TH MARCH

* Mark of Schlumberger

GEOSCIENCES
PETREL DRILLING - INNOVATIVE WELL PLANNING FOR GEOSCIENTISTS AND DRILLING ENGINEERS
A. Akamine & C. Cuihong (Schlumberger, France) ........................................................................................12
CAVENDISH INFILL WELL DEVELOPMENT UNCERTAINTY
A.Alexandru & P. Jeffs (RWE Dea, UK) ...........................................................................................................13
WATER SATURATION MODELING IN KHAFJI CARBONATE RESERVOIR
M. H. Al-Otaibi & R. Khamatdinov (KJO)........................................................................................................15
IMPLEMENTING PETREL'S ANT TRACKING ATTRIBUTE IN DEFINING A FRACTURE CONCEPT TO IMPROVE GAS
RECOVERY FROM A CARBONATE RESERVOIR
T. Babi Puntarec, M. Plei & M. urekovi (INA, Croatia) ...........................................................................16
COMBINING SCENARIOS AND REALIZATIONS TO FULLY EVALUATE UNCERTAINTY
M. Beardsell (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) .............................................................................................17
STRUCTURAL FRAMEWORK - FAULTS, SALTS & GRIDS
M. Beardsell & L. Truelove (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) .......................................................................18
STRUCTURAL MODELING REVISITED - EXCITING NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN BUILDING STRUCTURAL FRAMEWORKS IN
PETREL
M. Beardsell (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) .............................................................................................19
10 YEARS OF OCEAN IN SHELL E&P; FROM LOBSTERS AND SHELLFISH TO A MARINE ECOSYSTEM
R. Bennett (Shell, Netherlands) .....................................................................................................................20
INTEGRATION OF OUTCROP, REMOTE SENSING AND HISTORICAL DATA IN PETREL FOR PROSPECT GENERATION IN
A DATA POOR, MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN, ONSHORE GULF OF SUEZ, EGYPT
A. Clare (Apache, Egypt) ................................................................................................................................21
SOME PERSPECTIVES ON GRIDS, PROPERTIES AND FLUID FLOW
C. Daly (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) ......................................................................................................22
REGIONAL PLAY FAIRWAY EVALUATION IN AREAS OF LIMITED SEISMIC DATA AVAILABILITY A WORKFLOW
EXAMPLE FROM ABU DHABI
J. Efstathiou (Statoil, UAE) .............................................................................................................................23
PETREL FRONTIER EXPLORATION - BRAZIL WESTERNGECO MULTICLIENT DATA
A. Estrada (Schlumberger, Brazil) ..................................................................................................................24
PETREL IN STATOIL EXPLORATION - RATIONALE AND IMPLEMENTATION
A. Groth (Statoil, Norway) .............................................................................................................................25
PETROPHYSICS IN SHELL FROM STANDARDISING TOOLS AND WORKFLOWS TO THE ROLE OF PROPRIETARY
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
J. Grtsch, A. van der Graaf, M. Kraaijveld & P. Zivkovic (Shell, Netherlands) ..............................................26
PETREL WELL SECTION A MULTIDISCIPLINARY CANVAS PROVIDING INSIGHTS FOR OPTIMUM FIELD
DEVELOPMENT
T. Hartman & H. Wang (Schlumberger, USA) ................................................................................................27
CONTINENTAL SCALE PLAY EVALUATION WITH A SHARED EARTH MODEL IN 3D: A LIVE DEMONSTRATION IN PETREL
2011
N. Harvey (Neftex Petroleum Consultants, UK).............................................................................................28
PRESTACK IN PETREL - A NEW INTEGRATED DIMENSION
E. Hoekstra & M. Herrara (Schlumberger, Norway) ......................................................................................29
QUANTITATIVE INTERPRETATION WORKFLOWS - GAINING MOMENTUM IN THE INDUSTRY AND IN PETREL
E. Hoekstra & G. van der Hoff (Schlumberger, Norway) ...............................................................................30
STRUCTURAL AND STRATIGRAPHIC RECONNAISSANCE
E. Hoekstra & M. Herrara (Schlumberger, Norway) ......................................................................................31
REGIONAL GRAVITY MAGNETIC INVERSION WITH PETREL AND OCEAN FRAMEWORK
D. Huang (Jilin University, China) ..................................................................................................................32
SCALING THE POWER OF PETREL
R. Kannan (Schlumberger, USA) ....................................................................................................................33
UNDERSTANDING FAULT RISK IN EXPLORATION PROSPECTS CASE STUDY OF USING THE PETREL RDR PLUG-IN,
DANISH CENTRAL GRABEN
2

M. Kent (Maersk, Denmark) ..........................................................................................................................34

A NEW ERA IN SEISMIC INTERPRETATION - INTERACTIVE SEISMIC RECONSTRUCTION FOR GEOLOGICALLY
CONSISTENT INTERPRETATION........................................................................................................................................
J. Klinger (Schlumberger, Norway) ................................................................................................................35
CONVENTIONAL GEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION FASTER, MORE ACCURATE MAPS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND
HYDROCARBON PLAYS
M. Koley & H. Wang (Schlumberger, United Kingdom).................................................................................36
ENHANCING THE LIFE OF A RESERVOIR BY MAKING THE RIGHT WELL PLACEMENT DECISIONS
M. Koley & H. Wang (Schlumberger, United Kingdom).................................................................................37
INTEGRATING DIFFERENT GEOSCIENCES & ENGINEERING DOMAINS FOR BETTER FIELD DEVELOPMENT DECISIONS
IN A CARBONATE RESERVOIR
M. Koley (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) ...................................................................................................38
SEISMIC GEOMECHANICS: A NEW DIMENSION FROM SEISMIC TO DRILLING
N. Koutsabeloulis (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) .....................................................................................39
MULTI-SCALE 3D GEOLOGICAL MODELLING OF AN OUTCROPPING ANALOGUE TO BETTER UNDERSTAND AND
PREDICT FACIES GEOMETRY AND RESERVOIR QUALITY/DISTRIBUTION IN THE SUBSURFACE: THE CASE HISTORY OF
OMBRINA OIL FIELD RESERVOIR AND ITS MAIELLA MOUNTAIN ANALOGUE
L. Lipparini (Medoilgas, Italy) ........................................................................................................................40
3D GEOSTEERING AND MWG (MODELLING WHILE GEOSTEEING) FOR COMPLEX RESERVOIR IN SAUDI ARABIA
USING PETREL
S. Logan & M. Al Hamad (Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia) ................................................................................41
INTEGRATION OF FACIES ANALYSIS AND GEOSTATISTICS IN THE PETREL MODELING OF SOUTH SWAN HILLS
DEVONIAN REEF RESERVOIR
S. Longfield, H. Slayman, S. Charbonneau & A. Seto (Penn West Exploration, Canada) ...............................42
REGIONAL VELOCITIES MODELING FOR THE PALEOCANAL DE CHICONTEPEC WITH PETREL
J.G. Lopez (PEMEX, Mexico) ..........................................................................................................................43
IMPROVED STRUCTURAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURALLY FRACTURED HOTON FIELD, UK SOUTHERN NORTH
SEA, USING A GEOMECHANICAL APPROACH IN PETREL
L. Maerten (Schlumberger, France)...............................................................................................................44
PETREL IN A GEOFRAME ENVIRONMENT QUICK ACCESS WITH MINIMAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT
G. Martayan (Schlumberger, France) ............................................................................................................45
SAVING TIME WITH DEPTH
H. Menkiti (WesternGeco, USA) ....................................................................................................................46
IMPACT OF STRIKE-SLIP FAULT DISPLACEMENT OF HYDROCARBON SOURCE ROCK DEPOCENTER ON OIL FIELD
DISTRIBUTION OF SALINAS BASIN, CALIFORNIA THROUGH 3D BASIN AND PETROLEUM SYSTEM MODELING
T.A Menotti, S. A. Graham & J.M. Moldowan (Stanford University, USA) ....................................................47
MANAGEMENT OF STRUCTURAL UNCERTAINTIES WITH PETREL
T. Modiano (TOTAL, Nigeria) .........................................................................................................................48
RISING TO THE CHALLENGES OF THE WELLBORE - THE SIS VISION FOR TECHLOG
B. Moss (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) ....................................................................................................49
TECHLOG - THE WELLBORE PLATFORM. BECAUSE EVERY WELL COUNTS
B. Moss & V. Vesselinov (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)...........................................................................50
CHARGE AND SEAL ASSESSMENT IN A STRUCTURALLY COMPLEX AREA IN VENEZUELA
M. Neumaier (Schlumberger, Germany) .......................................................................................................51
QUANTIFYING EXTENSION USING DYNEL 2D, AN EXAMPLE OF LATE PERMIAN TRIASSIC RIFTING OF THE SOUTH
KARA BASIN, RUSSIAN ARCTIC
V.A. Nikshin (Rosneft, Russia)........................................................................................................................52
A PRACTICAL MODEL FOR ORGANIC RICHNESS FROM POROSITY AND RESISTIVITY LOGS USING TECHLOG
S. Osman (Sudapet, Sudan) ...........................................................................................................................54
SALT CANOPIES AN INTERPRETERS CHALLENGE
B. Otto (Wintershall, Germany) .....................................................................................................................55
TECHLOG GEOLOGY THE VALUE IN RESOLUTION
C. Parsons (Schlumberger, France)................................................................................................................56
3

TECHLOG, KEY PLATFORM FOR ECOPETROL CROSS SEGMENT GROWING STRATEGY

C.Patino (Ecopetrol, Colombia) .....................................................................................................................57
PETROLEUM SYSTEMS MODELING AS A TOOL FOR THE PREDICTION OF FLUID COMPOSITION: THE PETROBRAS
EXPERIENCE IN EXPLORATION
H. L. de B. Penteado & L.M. de Arajo (Petrobras, Brazil) ............................................................................59
ADVANCED CORE-LOG INTERPRETATION USING TECHLOG
T. Pritchard (BG Group, United Kingdom) .....................................................................................................60
EXXONMOBILS GLOBAL DEPLOYMENT STRATEGIES FOR PETREL
W. Ragosa (ExxonMobil, USA) .......................................................................................................................61
EXPLORATION RISK ASSESSMENT OF AN AREA IN GUAJIRA OFFSHORE COLOMBIA USING PETREL AS CENTRAL
TECHNOLOGY
V. Ramirez, P. Correa and A.M. Lopez (Ecopetrol, Colombia) .......................................................................62
PETREL THE VISION CONTINUES
T. Randen (Schlumberger, Norway) ..............................................................................................................63
FACIES AND PETROPHYSICAL MODELING USING SEISMIC ATTRIBUTES: AN EXAMPLE OF A STRATIGRAPHIC
RESERVOIR
J. Rodas (Petroamazonas, Ecuador) ..............................................................................................................64
WESTERNGECO AND STATOIL: SEISMIC PROCESSING AND DEPTH IMAGING COLLABORATION
P.Singer (Statoil, USA) ...................................................................................................................................65
APPLICATION OF A PETROPHYSICAL GROUPING APPROACH TO CARBONATE RESERVOIR ROCK-TYPING IN A
SUPERGIANT ONSHORE ABU DHABI (U.A.E) OILFIELD, BASED ON CAPILLARY PRESSURE DATA AND PROPAGATION
USING SELF-ORGANIZING MAPS
M.R.P. Singh (ADCO, United Arab Emirates) .................................................................................................66
A NEW 3D GEOLOGICAL MODELING APPROACH FOR FRACTURED BASEMENT RESERVOIR - A CASE STUDY FROM
THE NAMCONSON BASIN, SOUTHERN OFFSHORE VIETNAM
H.P. Son (CSJOC (Con Son Joint Operating Company), Vietnam) ..................................................................67
GEOMECHANICAL INTEGRATED STUDY IN NATURALLY FRACTURED RESERVOIRS
J. Teixeira, C. Ferraris and F. Maggi (Petrobras, Bolivia) ...............................................................................68
RAPID DATA EVALUATION OF PLAY AND PROSPECT POTENTIAL WITHIN AN OFFSHORE ACREAGE RELEASE
N. Tessen (Schlumberger, Germany) .............................................................................................................69
WORKFLOW INTEGRATION TO EVALUATE THE PETROLEUM SYSTEM IN SOUTH SUMATERA BASIN/INDONESIA
J.C. Tobing (Medco, Indonesia) .....................................................................................................................70
ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPING SHALE RESOURCES
K. Tushingham (Schlumberger, USA) .............................................................................................................71
UNDERSTAND YOUR ASSETS WITH STUDIO PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS FOR PETREL
G. van der Hoff & D. Koncz (Schlumberger, Norway) ....................................................................................72
ONGC & OVL TAP INTO INNOVATION IN INDIA VIA THE OCEAN ECOSYSTEM
N. Verma (ONGC Videsh Limited, India) ........................................................................................................73
INTEGRATED EXPLORATION PROSPECT GENERATION USING PETREL STRUCTURE AND FAULT ANALYSIS
P.E. Wrum (Talisman, Norway) & M. Seignole (Envision, Norway) ............................................................74
EFFICIENT ASSESSMENT WORKFLOWS FOR SHALE OIL & GAS RESOURCES
B. Wygrala (Schlumberger, Germany) ...........................................................................................................75
INTEGRATING SEISMIC TECHNOLOGY & GEOLOGIC THINKING USING GEOFRAME AND PETREL IN THE EARLY
EVALUATION OF RESERVOIR POTENTIALCASE STUDY ON THE JZ20-A STRUCTURE IN BOHAI BAY, CHINA
D. Zhou, Z. Zhang & J. Wang (CNOOC, China) ...............................................................................................76

PETROLEUM ENGINEERING
PELICAN LAKE SURVEILLANCE: POLYMER FLOODED HEAVY OIL RESERVOIR
C. Alpaugh (Cenovus Energy, Canada) & M. Mohajer (Schlumberger) .........................................................78
DELIVERING WELL PERFORMANCE WORKFLOWS IN PETREL
M. Anderson (Schlumberger, USA)................................................................................................................79
AN INTEGRATED PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT APPROACH FOR IMPROVED BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
M. Back (Schlumberger, USA)........................................................................................................................80
OPTIMIZATION OF DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATION OF UNDERGROUND GAS STORAGES WITH STATIC AND
DYNAMIC MODELING
F. Bhm, J. Hllwart, A Salzwedel and H. Matthiesen (EON Gas Storage, Germany)...................................81
HYDROCARBON RESERVES INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN TNK-BP
E. Botvinovskiy (TNK-BP, Russia) ...................................................................................................................82
OFM 2012 - A NEW GENERATION
A. Brown (Schlumberger, USA) ......................................................................................................................83
OFM 2012 - A NEW GENERATION DEMONSTRATION
A. Brown (Schlumberger, USA) ......................................................................................................................84
AN EXPERIMENTAL BENCHMARK BETWEEN STATE OF THE ART AND NEXT-GENERATION SIMULATORS: END USERS
VIEWPOINT
A.Cominelli (ENI, Italy) ...................................................................................................................................85
ENTERPRISE PLANNING - MAXIMIZING CORPORATE PERFORMANCE WITH MERAK
D. DSouza (Schlumberger, USA) ...................................................................................................................86
A CONCEPTUAL COMPOSITIONAL-THERMAL SECTOR MODEL FOR SUPERCRITICAL CO2 INJECTION IN NORTH
KUWAIT ASSETS
M. A. Einstein (KOC, Kuwait) .........................................................................................................................87
EOR
A.Fil (Total, France)........................................................................................................................................88
PETREL RESERVOIR ENGINEERING - 2012 RELEASE HIGHLIGHTS
K. Fletcher (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) ................................................................................................89
NEW OFM FUNCTIONALITY: CUT-CUM METHOD
L. Frazer (ConocoPhillips, Norway) ................................................................................................................90
AN INTEGRATED SOLUTION TO DEVELOP UNCONVENTIONAL RESERVOIRS WITH MULTI-DOMAIN DATA AND
MODELING
U. Ganguly (Schlumberger, USA) ...................................................................................................................91
DESIGN, OPTIMIZATION AND UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX AND MAXIMUM RESERVOIR CONTACT WELLS
USING ECLIPSE AND PETREL
D. Gunasekera (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) .........................................................................................92
THE HESS ECONOMIC SUITE A CONTINUOUSLY EVOLVING CLOUD BASED ECONOMIC SOLUTION
B. Gurfinkel (Hess, USA) ................................................................................................................................93
BG GROUPS INITIAL EXPERIENCES WITH INTERSECT
S. Griffiths (BG Group, UK) ............................................................................................................................94
INTERSECT CHEVRON DEPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE & FUTURE PROMISE
J. Kikani (Chevron, USA) ................................................................................................................................95
A CASE OF INTEGRATED STUDY WITH PETREL AND ECLIPSE
W. Liu (CNOOC, China) ..................................................................................................................................96
MERAK - ENSURING BETTER INVESTMENT DECISIONS
R. Lobrecht (Schlumberger, USA) ..................................................................................................................97
INTEGRATED ASSET MODELER CASE STUDY VERACRUZ ASSET
J.F Martinez, A. Solis Franco & R. Ramirez (PEMEX, Mexico) ........................................................................98
MODELLING OF GEOTHERMAL WELL STIMULATION IN CARBONATES USING PETREL AND ECLIPSE
L. Matthes (Geoenergie Bayern, Germany)...................................................................................................99
SEVERNEFTEGAZPROM: USAGE OF PIPESIM HELPS TO DECREASE METHANOL USAGE
S. Medvedev (Severneftegazprom, Russia) ................................................................................................100
5

RESERVOIR ENGINEERING PRODUCT STRATEGY

T. Miller (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) ..................................................................................................101
MAXIMIZING HEAVY OIL RECOVERY WITH ECLIPSE AND PETREL
P. Naccache (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)............................................................................................102
SAGD RESERVOIR MANAGEMENT USING ECLIPSE THERMAL AND PETREL RESERVOIR ENGINEERING
P. Naccache (Schlumberger, United Kingdom), M. Picone, H. Agustsson and A. Kjosavik (Statoil, Norway)
.....................................................................................................................................................................103
MOVING TOWARDS DYNAMIC PLANNING
T.N. Nasaruddin & R. Hashim (Petronas, Malaysia) ....................................................................................104
FEEDBACK FROM AN EARLY INTERSECT ADOPTER
E. Obi (TOTAL, France) .................................................................................................................................105
REPRESENTATIVE RESERVOIR MODELING OF PEMEX FIELDS USING INTERSECT
R. Ortega, J. M. Amador, O. Morn, F. Garca, A. Galindo, F. Rodrguez de la Garza (PEMEX, Mexico) ......106
SUBSURFACE UNCERTAINTY EVALUATION OF AN OFFSHORE FIELD IN ANGOLA
N. Pinheiro & N. Carvalho (Sonangol, Angola) ............................................................................................107
DEVELOPING UNCONVENTIONAL GAS PLAYS WITH ECLIPSE AND PETREL
A.Primera (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) ...............................................................................................108
SOFTWARE DEMONSTRATION OF THE APPLICATION OF SIS TECHNOLOGIES TO FIELD DEVELOPMENT
A.Primera & D. Lucas-Clements (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) .............................................................109
STREAMLINE BASED GEOLOGICAL MODEL SCREENING WITH FRONTSIM AND PETREL
A.Primera (Schlumberger, United Kingdom ................................................................................................110
THE NEW REALITY AND VISION FOR PRODUCTION ENGINEERING AND ECONOMICS
S. Raphael (Schlumberger, USA) ..................................................................................................................111
BRINGING THE POWER OF INTEGRATED ASSET MODELING ONLINE
R. Sauv (Schlumberger, USA) .....................................................................................................................112
INTERSECT PETROBRAS EXPERIENCE
T.D. Serafini de Oliveira (Petrobras, Brazil) .................................................................................................113
INTERSECT AND ECLIPSE RESERVOIR SIMULATION - 2012 RELEASE HIGHLIGHTS
K. Shaw (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) ..................................................................................................114
PIPESIM 2012 - A NEW GENERATION
M. Shippen (Schlumberger, USA) ................................................................................................................115
A SOLUTION FOR BETTER HANDLING OF RESERVOIR MANAGEMENT FOR A LARGE FIELD WITH VERY LONG
HORIZONTAL WELLS AND EXTENSIVE WATERFLOODING
G. Soufiah (Maersk Oil, Qatar) ....................................................................................................................116

OPERATIONS
SAMARANG INTEGRATED OPERATIONS (IO) CONCEPTUAL DESIGN
C. Adnan Abd Razak (Petronas, Malaysia) ...................................................................................................118
PRODUCTION & INJECTION MONITORING AND SURVEILLANCE (MYSIP) - ALIANZA CASABE
O. Agudelo, M. Amaya, G. Nunez (Casabe Alliance, Colombia) ..................................................................119
NATIONAL PRODUCTION REPORTING AND PLANNING: A GOVERNMENT AGENCIES VISION FOR A CONSOLIDATED
PRODUCTION DATABASE TO MONITOR PERFORMANCE
G.W Agusetiawan (BPMIGAS, Indonesia) ....................................................................................................120
SCHLUMBERGER DRILLING SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY CAPABILITIES AND VISION
A.Akamine (Schlumberger, France) .............................................................................................................121
AUTOMATED WELL PERFORMANCE SURVEILLANCE AND ANALYSIS
H. Al-Zaabi and A. Khatib (KOC, Kuwait) ......................................................................................................122
AVOCET 2012 THE SCHLUMBERGER PRODUCTION OPERATIONS SOFTWARE PLATFORM
H. Arora (Schlumberger, USA) .....................................................................................................................123
THE VALUE OF ONLINE ARTIFICIAL LIFT MANAGEMENT
H. Arora & A. Francis (Schlumberger, USA) .................................................................................................124
EFFICIENT USE OF HIGH-FREQUENCY DATA THROUGH PRODUCTION DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
IMPLEMENTATION
A. Creemer (Corridor Resources, Canada) & M. Mohajer (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) .....................125
PRODUCTION OPTIMIZATION IN PROGRESSIVE CAVITY PUMPS (PCP) USING AN EXPERT SYSTEM OF MONITORING
AND DIAGNOSTICS
A.Gomez & C. Martinez (Petrocedeno, Venezuela) ....................................................................................126
INTEGRATED SOLUTION FOR REAL TIME PRODUCTION SURVEILLANCE AND OPTIMIZATION
R. Grigorescu (Bokor Alliance, Malaysia) .....................................................................................................127
WELLBORE INTEGRITY GEOMECHANICS AND TRACKING WITH TECHLOG AND AVOCET
S. Kisra & C. Taylor (Schlumberger, France) ................................................................................................128
VX SURVEILLANCE FROM MULTIPHASE METERING DATA ACQUISITION TO PRODUCTION REPORTING OVERVIEW
OF AN END-TO-END INTEGRATED WORKFLOW
C. Joly (Schlumberger, France) ....................................................................................................................129
THE KUWAIT INTEGRATED DIGITAL FIELD JURASSIC A GAME CHANGER FOR KOC
N. Al-Mai (KOC, Kuwait) ..............................................................................................................................130
SIAPPEP- INTEGRATED SYSTEM FOR MANAGING THE PRODUCTION IN PEP
E. Sampayo & R. Ostos (PEMEX, Mexico) ....................................................................................................131
CASE STUDIES IN PRODUCTION OPERATIONS FOR UNCONVENTIONAL RESOURCES
S. Scillitani (Schlumberger, Malaysia) ..........................................................................................................132
PETREL DRILLING PLANNING & OPTIMIZATION WORKFLOW
A. Seddiki (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) ...............................................................................................133
INTEGRATING REAL-TIME DRILLING, GEOMECHANICS AND G&G INNOVATIVE SOLUTION, UNLOCKING A NOVEL
DRILLING RISK MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE
G. Silva & U. Prez (PEMEX, Mexico) ...........................................................................................................134
PRODUCTION ALLOCATIONS DELIVERING CONSISTENCY AND VALUE TO ENGINEERING
R. Vilkki (Schlumberger, USA) ......................................................................................................................135

ENABLING SOLUTIONS
ASSURING HIGH QUALITY DATA IN THE STUDIO KNOWLEDGE ENVIRONMENT
V. Andresen (Schlumberger, USA) ...............................................................................................................138
ECOPETROLS DATA MANAGEMENT VISION A CORPORATE STRATEGY TO IMPROVE E&P DECISIONS
J.H. Angarita & T. Avella (Ecopetrol, Colombia) ..........................................................................................139
TRANSITION FROM MULTIPLE PLATFORMS TO SINGLE INTEGRATED PLATFORM TECHNOLOGY - FROM CHALLENGE
TO PERFORMANCE EFFICIENCY
D. B. A. Aziz (Petronas, Malaysia) ................................................................................................................140
ACCELERATE KNOWLEDGE SHARING FOR BETTER QUALITY DECISIONS
F. Broussard (Schlumberger, USA) ..............................................................................................................141
A FOUNDATIONAL APPROACH TO SUBSURFACE DATA QUALITY
M. Bryce-Borthwick (GDF Suez, United Kingdom) ......................................................................................142
CAIRN MAXIMIZES THE VALUE OF THEIR EXISTING TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT WITH STUDIO
A.Chakraborty (Cairn, India) ........................................................................................................................143
DATA DELIVERY AS A SERVICE FOR EXPLORATION WORKFLOWS
P. Coles (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) ..................................................................................................144
EXPLORE YOUR RESERVOIR IN THE NEW REALITY: INTEGRATION OF TOUCH TECHNOLOGY - A WORKING EXAMPLE
P. Dineen (Schlumberger, USA) ...................................................................................................................145
IMPROVE YOUR PETRELS WELL DATA QUALITY USING THE INNERLOGIX TOOL
D. Dwihananto (Chevron, USA) ...................................................................................................................146
ACCELERATING PETRO-TECHNICAL LEARNING IN THE E&P INDUSTRY
H. Edmundson (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) .......................................................................................147
MICROSOFT & SCHLUMBERGER - SEAMLESSLY UNITING THE BUSINESS AND PETROTECHNICAL WORLD
A. Ferling (Microsoft, USA) ..........................................................................................................................148
COST EFFECTIVE DATA MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS FOR PETREL
J.E. Fivelstad (Blueback Reservoir, Norway) ................................................................................................149
STUDIO ADVISOR; INTEGRATED TRAINING AND GUIDANCE WITHIN THE PETREL WORKSPACE
S. Freeman (RDR, United Kingdom).............................................................................................................150
RIG SITE TO APPLICATION -END-TO-END SERVICES
P. Galinski (Schlumberger, USA) ..................................................................................................................151
OCEAN FRAMEWORK ENABLES BORDERLESS EXTENSIBILITY OF THE PETREL E&P SOFTWARE PLATFORM
G. Gamst (Schlumberger, Norway) ..............................................................................................................152
THE DEPLOYMENT OF A READY-TO-EXPLORE PETREL READY ENVIRONMENT AS A CRITICAL STRATEGY FOR
EXPLORATION SUCCESS IN PETROLIA NORWAY
C. Guargena (Petrolia, Norway)...................................................................................................................153
WORKFLOW BASED TRAINING AT ARAMCO
B. Harbi (Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia) & X. Peltier (Schlumberger, France) ...............................................154
WHY IMPROVE? MEASURING THE VALUE THAT DATA AND DATA MANAGEMENT DELIVER
S. Hawtin (Schlumberger, United Kingdom) ................................................................................................155
FROM NICHE TO CORE; SUBSURFACE SOFTWARE IN A RAPIDLY CHANGING BUSINESS
J. Hodson & A. Alexander (Centrica, United Kingdom) ...............................................................................156
HYBRID COMPUTING: THE GAME CHANGER FOR UPSTREAM
M. Isernia (NVIDIA, USA) .............................................................................................................................157
A NEW OPTION FOR MANAGING DATA INTENSIVE SEISMIC WORKFLOWS
R. Johnston (Schlumberger, USA) ................................................................................................................158
THE NDC AS A NATIONAL SHOWCASE - IDEA TO EXECUTION
R. Johnston (Schlumberger, USA) ................................................................................................................159
SEISMIC DATA MANAGEMENT IN STATOIL
M. Juul (Statoil, Norway) .............................................................................................................................160
A NEW LOOK IN OPERATION SUPPORT CENTERS USING HYBRID VISUALIZATION SYSTEMS
D. Kedzierski (Barco, Belgium) .....................................................................................................................161
ASSESSING PETRO-TECHNICAL SOFTWARE TRAINING TO ACCELERATE THE VALUE OF TECHNICAL TALENT
8

S. King & K. Safton (Talisman Energy, Canada)............................................................................................162

HOW MAERSK EMBRACED EMERGING TECHNOLOGY TRENDS FOR EFFECTIVE DATA GROWTH MANAGEMENT OF
PETROTECHNICAL WORKFLOWS
J. Knudsen (EMC, USA) ................................................................................................................................163
NEXT GENERATION CHANGE MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND LESSONS LEARNED FROM A LARGE SCALE
CORPORATE DEPLOYMENT OF PETREL
A.Latham & G.Smith (Chevron, USA) ...........................................................................................................164
ENHANCED PETREL BACKUP AND RECOVERY WITH NETAPP
B. Lauritsen (Apache, USA) & O. Qazi (NetApp, USA)..................................................................................165
OPTIMIZED PETREL AND ECLIPSE ENVIRONMENTS AT APACHE
B. Lauritsen (Apache, USA) ..........................................................................................................................166
THE NEW APPROACH OF TECHNICAL DATA ADMINISTRATION IN PEMEX
L. Mateos (PEMEX, Mexico).........................................................................................................................167
FIVE STEPS TO ASSURING SUCCESS IN PETREL DEPLOYMENTS - WORKSHOP
E. Osjord (Schlumberger, Norway) ..............................................................................................................168
TRANSMISSIBILITY UPSCALING: A NEW INDUSTRIAL IMPLEMENTATION
P. Panfili, M. Botta, A. Cominelli (ENI, Italy) ................................................................................................169
NEXT GENERATION SERVERS AND WORKSTATIONS
S. Pinn (Intel, USA) & R. Bland (HP, USA).....................................................................................................170
KNOWLEDGE BASED APPROACH FOR ELECTRICAL LOGS MANAGEMENT IN PEMEX DRILLING DEPARTMENT
S.T. Subiaur (PEMEX, Mexico) .....................................................................................................................171
A PILOT STUDY: STUDIO KNOWLEDGE DEPLOYMENT IN TURKISH PETROLEUM CORPORATION
N. Temizhan, B. N. Tademir & T. Tan (TPAO, Turkey) .............................................................................172
DIGITAL OILFIELD - WORKSHOP: FROM MEASUREMENTS TO DECISIONS AND CORRECTIVE ACTION
I. Traboulay (Schlumberger, USA) ...............................................................................................................173

10

GEOSCIENCES

11

PETREL DRILLING - INNOVATIVE WELL PLANNING FOR GEOSCIENTISTS AND DRILLING

ENGINEERS
A. Akamine & C. Cuihong (Schlumberger, France)

The industry today has divided well planning workflows into two separate paths with different workflows being
employed by geoscientists and drilling engineers to serve different purposes. The objective of the geoscientist is to
find and produce oil, while the objective of the drilling engineer is to efficiently and safely drill the well.
Frequently, however, both teams pass through multiple iterations as they struggle to communicate and reconcile
the geoscience and engineering objectives and requirements to create an optimal solution for the well.
Petrel Drilling - the latest workflow from Petrel now uniquely combines these two workflows into one seamless
process from the geophysicist, geologist, and reservoir engineer through to the drilling engineer. Providing full
spatial context to drilling engineering workflows it facilitates more rapid and efficient well planning between both
geoscientist and engineer. From heavy oil, to shale gas, to deepwater and conventional drilling, wells can be
planned in a context that provides the information and critical insight to optimally engineer the well.

12

CAVENDISH INFILL WELL DEVELOPMENT UNCERTAINTY

A.Alexandru & P. Jeffs (RWE Dea, UK)

The Cavendish Field is located in UKCS Southern North Sea block 43/19a (P.607) on the Northern margin of the
Outer Silverpit Basin some 160 km NE of the Lincolnshire coast. The field was discovered in 1989 by Britoil
exploration well 43/19-1 which tested gas from two sandstone intervals within the Namurian (Upper
Carboniferous) at rates of 33 and 15 MMSCFD. The field was appraised in 1991 by BP well 43/19-2A which tested
gas from Westphalian A sandstones (Upper Carboniferous) at 17 MMSCFD. An additional appraisal well drilled by
Amoco (43/19a-4 & 4z) in 1996 was located downdip, on the NW flank, but failed to encounter commercial
hydrocarbons and effectively delimits the field. The field development was commenced some 6 years when RWE
Dea (UK) Ltd acquired a 50% interest, and Operatorship of, 43/19a in 2002. The field is named after the eminent
English scientist Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) who was renowned for his experiments on separating gasses from
water.
The Cavendish structure lies at the NW end of the Cavendish-Caister-Murdoch Ridge and is a SW dipping rotated
fault block bounded to the NE by an inverted extensional fault. The structure is dip closed down to 3,654 m tvdss
to the South, West and East and sealed by a combination of an intra Westphalian shale seal and the shales and
evaporites of the Permian Silverpit Formation. The Upper Carboniferous reservoir section in the pre-Permian
subcrop is attributed to be of Marsdenian-Yeodonian (Namurian B to C) age passing upward into the Westphalian
A. The reservoir consists of sandstones deposited in an approximately southerly prograding, fluvial-dominated
deltaic setting with the source area being the Fenno-Scandian Shield to the north. The rivers are interpreted to
have been of low sinuosity with a flow direction towards the south-southwest across a broad, low gradient fluvial
plain. Facies distribution will have been controlled by channel avulsion and base level changes related to sea and
lake level changes including periodic marine incursions that inundated the area. Distributary channel sandstones
(e.g. Rough Rock) are the most important reservoir facies with subsidiary crevasse splay, crevasse channel and
mouth bar sandstones also present. The sandstones are separated by shales, siltstones and coals deposited in
brackish, lacustrine, inter-distributary bay, coal swamp and marine settings. Time equivalent reservoir section
analogues are readily exposed in the Pennine Hills of Northern England.
The principal controls on reservoir quality are facies-related depositional texture, particularly grain size and
sorting, together with cementation by quartz, kandite, ferroan dolomite and the presence of illite. The better
quality intervals are the medium - coarse grained, moderately - very well sorted quartz arenites of the distributary
channel sandstones. They have porosities of 8-16% and permeabilities of 1-1000 mD. The crevasse-channel,
crevasse-splay and mouthbar sandstones are mainly fine-medium grained and, together with the fine-medium
grained distributary-channel sandstones, are moderately-well sorted and range in composition from
subarkose/sublitharenite to quartz arenite. In the authigenic phase, similar levels of quartz and kandite cements
are present. These facies generally display poorer reservoir quality, typically with porosities of 4-10% and
permeabilities of 0.01-1 mD.
Cavendish has been developed by three high angle production wells drilled through a six slot minimum facility,
normally unattended installation (NUI). The first two production wells were located to twin the 43/19-1 & 43/192A E&A wells on the crest of the structure in order to capture the reservoir performance seen in the DSTs in those
wells and minimise the risk of missing the risk of missing the target formations. The third well was located
further down-flank to the south-east in a location suitable to provide additional drainage of the productive
Crawshaw sands.
The objective of the study was to establish a modelling workflow that can be implemented as a general standard
for reservoirs in fluvial sands where the construction of a single Petrel static model is impractical as a result of the
stochastic deposition of the reservoir sediments. Whilst the stochastic modelling of well performance and
reserves is possible in the predevelopment phase, the use of historical production volumes and pressures to refine
the Petrel model through the improvement of modelling variables will be tested. The range of potential
performance of notional infill wells will be predicted from history matched models.
13

The project was executed in steps, starting with screening simulation in order to determine the range of connected
volume, selection of a base model, variable selection and range distribution and finalized with prediction profiles
for a new infill well. Linear and quadratic proxy were built in order to understand the influential parameters on
matching data, tubing head pressure and bottom hole pressure.

14

WATER SATURATION MODELING IN KHAFJI CARBONATE RESERVOIR

M. H. Al-Otaibi & R. Khamatdinov (KJO)

Within an oil reservoir the water saturation height functions can vary strongly. In particular for carbonates these
variations can be significant and difficult to estimate. The amount of hydrocarbons in a reservoir, the prediction of
recoverable oil and the future plans of developing this reservoir depends on many factors, one of which is the
accurate modeling of water saturation.
The Khafji carbonate reservoir is a heterogeneous reservoir with two different types of oil: light oil in the top of the
reservoir and heavy oil in the bottom of the reservoir. The challenge of water saturation modeling is primarily in
the heavy oil zone, where conventional height function approach produces poor match against water saturation
logs. Alternative method for water saturation modeling was utilized in order to obtain good match in both light oil
and heavy oil columns.
This presentation will describe a workflow where laboratory derived capillary pressure curves were used to
establish water saturation height relationships as a function of rock type (RT). Method utilizing Flow Zone
Indicators (FZI) was initially used as a basis for rock typing. Then a J-function derived from capillary pressure data
for each rock type or hydraulic flow unit was used to generate saturation height function for each RT. The
generated saturation undergone via several iterations to match the large span of open hole electric water
saturation logs above the free-water level (FWL).
The saturation profile generated by this workflow shows a good match to the measured Sw electric logs, and the
calculated fluid volumes are in agreement with companys approved reserves estimation.
The presentation highlights the benefits of utilization of Petrel software for the implementation of described
workflow, as well as the interactivity of pre- and post-processing of the results into the required plots.

15

IMPLEMENTING PETREL'S ANT TRACKING ATTRIBUTE IN DEFINING A FRACTURE CONCEPT TO

IMPROVE GAS RECOVERY FROM A CARBONATE RESERVOIR
T. Babi Puntarec, M. Plei & M. urekovi (INA, Croatia)

This case discusses the problem of water inflow in an offshore gas carbonate reservoir and the influence of
fracture networks on reservoir behavior. Gas production from the field started in 2006 and water breakthrough
problems emerged on three wells in 2009, while on one well there is still no water inflow. Current recovery from
carbonates reaches 30% and the intention is to analyze the possibility of intensifying gas production in order to
increase the ultimate recovery.
For the purpose of a better reservoir description and understanding of the possible relationship between the
fracture system and water inflow, a fracture concept is created. This process entails core descriptions,
petrophysical measurements, image log interpretations and advanced seismic attribute analysis within Petrel.
Existing cores are not oriented and the actual position of recognized features (beds, fractures, stylolites etc.) is
unknown. However, the presence of this data as well as their frequency and dip with respect to core axis is hugely
valuable information. ADN image log interpretation is available for two wells. Petrophysical measurements on
cores and log petrophysics are included in data synthesis. Petrel's Ant Tracking attribute enables characterization
of carbonate reservoirs in terms of structural discontinuity recognition. It is analyzed on the location of each well
and calibrated according to available well data. The intention is to find a correlation between detected
discontinuities from this seismic attribute and reservoir characteristics.
Two main orientations of discontinuity are observed; one is found mostly around the major faults and the second
one is further away from fault zones. The density of discontinuities varies. The dip of extracted fault patches shows
mostly vertical fractures. The fracture system is defined using the Ant Tracking attribute. A high correlation of core,
log, seismic and production data is established for all wells. Vertical fractures with medium and high values from
the Ant Tracking attribute detected on wells, upon reaching the GWC, certainly respond to water breakthrough.
Based on these accomplished results it is suggested to avoid zones of high vertical fracture intensity as targets in
carbonates. Finally, potential zones for new well locations are delineated in the field.

16

COMBINING SCENARIOS AND REALIZATIONS TO FULLY EVALUATE UNCERTAINTY

M. Beardsell (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

There is no more easy oil! This means when we find hydrocarbons today it is a risky business . small reservoirs,
tight reservoirs, deep reservoirs the list goes on. It is therefore more important than ever to quantify the risk
associated with each prospect. Practically this means evaluating the uncertainty in our reservoir models.
Uncertainty in a model can be thought of as a combination of the different possible scenarios and the uncertainty
within a scenario. For example there may be two possible geological hypotheses each with its own range of
uncertainty on the percentage of reservoir sand. This presentation will demonstrate how Petrel can combine the
scenarios and their realizations to give a combined quantification of uncertainty.

17

STRUCTURAL FRAMEWORK - FAULTS, SALTS & GRIDS

M. Beardsell & L. Truelove (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

3D reservoir modeling is now an accepted standard in the process of understanding a subsurface prospect. The
Petrel structural framework has been introduced in the last two years to address the need to accurately represent
increasingly complex geological structures with their associated grids to enable seamless consumption of these
reservoir models by reservoir simulators.
This presentation will show how Petrel 2012.1 can model even the most complex structures and illustrates new
ways to interpret multi-z geobodies. The presentation will be in the form of a live Petrel demonstration.

18

STRUCTURAL MODELING REVISITED - EXCITING NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN BUILDING

STRUCTURAL FRAMEWORKS IN PETREL
M. Beardsell (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

3D reservoir modeling is now an accepted standard in the process of understanding a subsurface prospect. As the
era of easy oil is now past, increasingly complex geological structures are being modeled, which push the limits of
current software functionality. Petrel 2010.1 saw the beginning of a new modeling standard introducing true,
seamless, integration of geological modeling with geophysics. In addition, new methods of grid generation mean
that we now send complex reservoir models to increasingly powerful reservoir simulators.
Petrel 2012.1 focuses on the most challenging and structurally complex reservoirs by introducing new workflows
that allow simultaneous interpretation of palaeo-depositional and deformed (present-day) domains, the
introduction of conformable layer-reconstruction methodologies and unique new ways to interpret multi-z
geobodies. Traditionally, many of these workflows have been the remit of specialist users, however, they are now
fully integrated in Petrel. This allows G&G users to create the most structurally complex reservoir models, apply
reconstruction techniques and represent the most complex geobodies before passing these seamlessly through to
traditional property modeling and reservoir engineering workflows.

19

10 YEARS OF OCEAN IN SHELL E&P; FROM LOBSTERS AND SHELLFISH TO A MARINE

ECOSYSTEM
R. Bennett (Shell, Netherlands)

The presentation will look at how Shell have sailed the Ocean*, from the early efforts on the Ocean framework
in late 2002, to the first deliverables from Petrel/Ocean in 2006. From there a look at a number of the technologies
we have developed in Shell over the past 5 years from our early efforts on generation of synthetic seismic and fault
transmissibilities to more recent work, such as developing new windows in Shell Petrel and implementation of new
technologies to support advanced Shell workflows.

20

INTEGRATION OF OUTCROP, REMOTE SENSING AND HISTORICAL DATA IN PETREL FOR

PROSPECT GENERATION IN A DATA POOR, MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN, ONSHORE GULF OF
SUEZ, EGYPT
A. Clare (Apache, Egypt)

The onshore East Ras Budran Exploration Concession is located in the eastern rift shoulder of the Gulf of Suez.
Over much of the concession pre-rift rocks are well exposed in a rugged hyper-arid terrain that has severely
restricted the acquisition of conventional subsurface data. Acquisition of high resolution remotely sensed datasets
(50 cm resolution 4 band satellite imagery and a derived 5m resolution digital elevation model) has provided the
impetus to delineate comprehensive surface geological and structural maps. Historical records from the early
1900s documenting prior mapping and drilling activity have also provided a great data source for exploration in an
otherwise data deprived environment. Integration of these disparate data sources in Petrel has enabled
structurally robust, detailed geological prospect models to be constructed. In addition, acquisition of a single 2D
seismic test line on one prospect not only enhanced the local subsurface understanding but confirmed the existing
geological models accuracy.

21

SOME PERSPECTIVES ON GRIDS, PROPERTIES AND FLUID FLOW

C. Daly (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

In this presentation we will review gridding from the perspective of reservoir modelling and fluid flow. For quite
some time, the industry standard has been to work with corner point grids built to conform to a structural model
with the optional use of local grid refinement around wells. This gridding approach is well understood in terms of
property population, upscaling and flow simulation. It is known to work very well in the majority of situations.
However, it does have the drawback that handling very structurally complex reservoirs can prove to be difficult.
An alternative, promoted by some researchers and service companies, is to use stair-stepped gridding. In this
approach, the structural modelling component is somewhat decoupled from the construction of the grid. While
stair stepped grids have some strong points, such as the robustness of the two point flux approximation, they by
no means have a clear cut advantage over pillar grids. A particular issue for these grids is that the transformation
needed to do property modelling (which always needs to be done on a flat depositional space) is more complex
than for the pillar grid. We will briefly review the issues associated with this.
Finally, we consider an approach under development which couples the gridding to the structural modelling more
closely through the expedient of constructing the grid in the depositional space. This looks to be a promising new
approach to the issue of gridding both for property population and for reservoir simulation.

22

REGIONAL PLAY FAIRWAY EVALUATION IN AREAS OF LIMITED SEISMIC DATA AVAILABILITY

A WORKFLOW EXAMPLE FROM ABU DHABI
J. Efstathiou (Statoil, UAE)

A major strength of Petrel is the ability to quickly and efficiently interpret 3D seismic data. By using a multitude of
seismic attributes spectacular images of depositional systems can be produced to guide exploration and
development programs. Alternatively Petrel can also be used for regional play fairway analysis in areas with limited
seismic data. An example is presented from Abu Dhabi where a detailed regional geomodel was produced solely
from published literature maps and available well top information. It should be emphasized that an understanding
of the local sequence stratigraphy is fundamental to building a geologically sound model.
The example presented covers the entire onshore and offshore Abu Dhabi and comprises 46 layers from present
day surface to Top Basement. Using this model a quick look charge and migration evaluation was performed using
the Petroleum Systems Quick Look Plugin (PSQL). A play fairway analysis for the Arab (Jurassic age) and Thamama
(Early Cretaceous age) reservoir is also presented.

23

PETREL FRONTIER EXPLORATION - BRAZIL WESTERNGECO MULTICLIENT DATA

A. Estrada (Schlumberger, Brazil)

In recent years, Brazil has drawn a lot of interest due to huge pre-salt carbonate reservoirs discovered in the
Santos Basin. Today the Brazil Equatorial Margin is generating new excitement, since it is analogous to recent oil
field discoveries on the West African coast. Join us for a virtual tour of the Brazil, WesternGeco Multiclient seismic
data available in ready-to-run Petrel projects, and see how this combination provides the ideal solution for
prospect identification. A 2000 km composite seismic section extending across multiple basins, covering two
hemispheres and three UTM zones will show the scalability of Petrel for regional interpretation work. Multiple
geophysical data such as pre-stack seismic, CSEM and gravity & magnetics will be integrated in order to help
reduce exploration risk. Finally, we will analyze a Petroleum systems model created with PetroMod, which will
identify several potential leads in the Potiguar Basin.

24

PETREL IN STATOIL EXPLORATION - RATIONALE AND IMPLEMENTATION

A. Groth (Statoil, Norway)

Petrel E&P Software Platform was introduced to seismic interpreters in Norsk Hydro in 2002, and was used
extensively in Business Development projects. In 2006, Petrel was chosen to replace GeoFrame applications in
Norsk Hydro, and a full implementation was initiated. Since the Norsk Hydro / Statoil merger in 2007 Petrel has
mostly been used in international assets and business development projects. In 2011 it was decided to increase
the number of Petrel licenses, and NCS teams as well as International asset teams were encouraged to select the
tool most suitable to meet their requirements in seismic interpretation.
In this talk, key features are presented to describe the basis for Petrels success as a seismic interpretation tool in
Statoil. Examples from a variety of NCS and international assets collected since 2002 are presented. Important
factors such as versatility and flexibility as a seismic interpretation tool have been critical in efficient exploration in
a company such as Statoil, with a large number of assets and activities worldwide.
The presentation focuses on why Petrel facilitates users to extract and visualize geological features of a 3D seismic
survey in a manner superior to what could previously be achieved using the more traditional seismic
interpretation tools. Accurate comparisons are presented, and a total of six contributing factors are identified to
demonstrate some of Petrels key capabilities.

25

PETROPHYSICS IN SHELL FROM STANDARDISING TOOLS AND WORKFLOWS TO THE ROLE OF

PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
J. Grtsch, A. van der Graaf, M. Kraaijveld & P. Zivkovic (Shell, Netherlands)

Shell is making significant investments into its software portfolio via proprietary developments as well as via
collaborating with 3rd parties in its efforts to drive technology and to standardise subsurface tools used for global
E&P operations - Petrophysics is one example for this.
In recent years Shell has replaced its proprietary petrophysical application LOGIC with the MS-Windows based
Techlog package via close collaborations with Techsia (now SIS). Recall has been Shells standard database solution
for log data for some time, but was recently also upgraded under Shell steer to cater amongst other functionality
for core and geomechanical data.
In order to improve data workflows Shell has financed and managed the development of the Recall Techlog
connector and developed the Techlog - Petrel connector in-house (now available from SIS via Ocean Store). Only
together, these tools enable seamless management of large petrophysical, geological and geomechanical data
sets, particularly in times of rapidly increasing numbers of wells drilled as a result of unconventional field
development.
All this is part of the drive to modernise but also to standardise tools and workflows within the Group. Following
global standardisation of these workflows, a next step in this evolution is Shells effort in driving proprietary
customisations forward. These global deployments comprises application support, proprietary Petrophysics help
files, managed Python script libraries and now also the first proprietary plug-in modules. In order to facilitate plugin developments, Shell is collaborating closely with SIS on development of the new Ocean for Techlog SDK,
similarly as done earlier for the Ocean for Petrel. Main objective is to enable rapid technology productisation and
deployment internally.

26

PETREL WELL SECTION A MULTIDISCIPLINARY CANVAS PROVIDING INSIGHTS FOR OPTIMUM

FIELD DEVELOPMENT
T. Hartman & H. Wang (Schlumberger, USA)

In order to get the most value from field development it is important to be able to analyze what is going on in
various aspects of a field, whether it is monitoring a well in real time, or understanding why a well is not producing
as predicted. The well section canvas is an integral part of optimizing field development. Enabling integration of
various types of information from different domains including wells, seismic, geological models, simulation results,
and other E&P data, geoscientists can better understand the geological challenges to make more informed
decisions.

27

CONTINENTAL SCALE PLAY EVALUATION WITH A SHARED EARTH MODEL IN 3D: A LIVE
DEMONSTRATION IN PETREL 2011
N. Harvey (Neftex Petroleum Consultants, UK)

Using Neftex Earth Model content and the functionality of Petrel 2011* we are able to build 3D geological models
at a scale appropriate for regional exploration. Petrel 2011 and associated Ocean Store software allow us to load
and manipulate all the data required to carry out play evaluations at a continental scale, and offers an
environment where all data and interpretations are fully integrated and can be viewed in both the depth and
geological time domains. This not only improves efficiencies, but adds increased insight into the geological basis
for petroleum system and play fairway analysis.
We present a live demo of a 3D Earth Model of the Alaska, Canada and Greenland region in Petrel 2011. This
portion of our global Neftex Earth Model is presented in the geological time domain and encompasses all strata
from basement to surface, and covers an area of c. 5,000 by 9,000 km with a grid size of 20km. Based on our
robust global sequence stratigraphic framework and a dataset based on publically available information, the model
st
nd
rd
is divided into 236 sequence stratigraphic layers corresponding to key 1 , 2 and 3 order depositional sequences.
By incorporating seismic and other data from the NPRA we show how the model can be refined and developed in
the geological depth domain to provide a rapid assessment of play potential of Cretaceous sand plays on North
Slope Alaska.
The resulting Earth Model allows identification and visualisation of the extent of key reservoirs, seals and source
rocks, greater understanding of their stratigraphic and geometrical relationships, and rapid assessment of their
quality and maturity, all within a global geological framework. Common risk maps can then be generated and
combined for any layer within the model, and for any play element. By continually updating the shared Earth
Model behind the evaluation in the light of new data and interpretations it should be possible to keep the play
assessment evergreen.

28

PRESTACK IN PETREL - A NEW INTEGRATED DIMENSION

E. Hoekstra & M. Herrara (Schlumberger, Norway)

As the industry is increasingly exposed to higher risk exploration, such as sub-salt plays, and evermore challenging
reservoir characterization studies (stratigraphic traps, unconventional reservoirs), asset teams are responding with
stronger data and cross-discipline integration. Over the last few years integration with non-seismic measurements
(Electro-magnetics EM, Gravity, Magnetics) and richer data representations (attribute space computations,
analysis and visualization) have been extensively used.
With WesternGeco technology in Petrel, prestack information can now be fully embraced in an integrated
environment. This benefits depth imaging studies, where multi-measurement and multi-domain integration is
critical to build structural velocity models in full geological and petroleum system context. Prestack data is also
critical for seismic conditioning workflows (improving the seismic stack), AVO reconnaissance, and reservoir
characterization studies.
The presentation will show the values of working with prestack data in a fully integrated environment: extending
conventional interpretation workflows towards seismic data processing and quantitative interpretation studies.

29

QUANTITATIVE INTERPRETATION WORKFLOWS - GAINING MOMENTUM IN THE INDUSTRY

AND IN PETREL
E. Hoekstra & G. van der Hoff (Schlumberger, Norway)

One of todays challenges in the E&P industry is the exploration and development of carbonate and
unconventional reservoirs, including heavy oil, shale gas, tight reservoirs and fractured reservoirs. This requires the
ability to produce accurate and increasingly complex reservoir and rock physics models. Quantitative
interpretation of rock properties plays an essential role in this, linking seismic and reservoir properties. Following
the recent introduction of stochastic and simultaneous inversion workflows, WesternGeco continues to integrate
its proven leading edge technologies around AVO, inversion and rock physics workflows into Petrel. In the
presentation we will demonstrate the strengths of using these latest AVO and inversion workflows in the Petrel
E&P software platform.

30

STRUCTURAL AND STRATIGRAPHIC RECONNAISSANCE

E. Hoekstra & M. Herrara (Schlumberger, Norway)

Reliable definition of trapping geometry, and reducing the uncertainty in the identification of stratigraphic traps,
are critical elements in finding and quantifying oil and gas reserves.
This presentation will demonstrate the most advanced technology to detect large-scale features in the subsurface
geology to aid an accurate structural interpretation. The methods reviewed will focus on utilization of random lines
in combination with the latest suite of structural attributes, which the user can operate in an interactive mode.
Both the parameterization of the attributes, and the visual blending techniques, provides for fast and efficient
seismic reconnaissance. GPU enabled volumetric visualization and extraction techniques aid in detailing the
stratigraphical contexts in the datasets.

31

REGIONAL GRAVITY MAGNETIC INVERSION WITH PETREL AND OCEAN FRAMEWORK

D. Huang (Jilin University, China)

SinoProbe, a mega national project in China, has been initiated to enhance understanding of deep structures of
lithosphere in China since 2008 by means of various exploration methods. The data sets, including gravity and
magnetic (GM) data from regional area and long seismic profiling, will be employed to represent huge area and
ultra long and deep information of the targets, in which most seismic data is recorded more than 20 seconds and
regional GM data obtained from thousands kilometers zones. A concept of all-in-one geological interpretation
which is successfully applied in O&G industrial can be inherently utilized in SinoProbe to construct geophysical
model with contributions from velocity-like model deduced from seismic data and from density and magnetic-like
models from GM data.
Petrel and Ocean, powerful software application and development platform created mostly for seismic data by
Schlumberger with great reputation in the O&G industry, have a great potential for user to extend the utilization to
deal with much deeper geophysical phenomenon. In SinoProbe study, none seismic data interpretation utilities has
to be enhanced by plug into Petrel-like workflows which can be implemented by Ocean API and SDK and C#
programming. A geophysical property model can be created by means of GM data constraints inversion with
making use of seismic or borehole data to eliminate the none uniqueness problem. In return, boundaries of the
model derived from the inversion can be applied to refine the structure of the model by seismic data, which way is
able to strengthen Petrel functionality and imaging of the deep target with GM data involved. A testing result
shows promising in which Moho interface is roughly outlined at about 10-12 second. Thanks to SinoProbe-09-02
for providing data for the study.

32

SCALING THE POWER OF PETREL

R. Kannan (Schlumberger, USA)

Improve your performance and productivity within Petrel with the Studio E&P Knowledge environment. For teams
who need scalability in their Petrel workflows, who need to use the most up to date information and companies
who want to manage their Petrel data in one place, Studio Knowledge for Petrel will take your interpretation
management and workflows to the next level providing a scalable, multi user solution for your asset teams and
company.

33

UNDERSTANDING FAULT RISK IN EXPLORATION PROSPECTS CASE STUDY OF USING THE

PETREL RDR PLUG-IN, DANISH CENTRAL GRABEN
M. Kent (Maersk, Denmark)

In 2011, Maersk Oil contracted the reprocessing of seismic data for the entire Danish Central Graben. The Prestack Depth Migration (PSDM) data was reprocessed by WesternGeco, to help mitigate any risk associated with
opportunities within the Maersk Oil operated study area. An initial screening of the seismic highlighted that the
most interesting prospects would rely heavily on the ability of seismic scale faults to hold back a significant
hydrocarbon column.
Using Petrel 2011, in conjunction with the Structural and fault analysis (RDR) plug-in, a complete structural analysis
of the identified fault system was performed. The work required careful interpretation and analysis of the 3D fault
system characteristics. This was accomplished by constructing a structural framework of the fault system and
assessing the likelihood of fault seal using the Structural and fault analysis (RDR) plug-in.
This methodology allowed for the results to be integrated into a standard exploration risk and volume assessment
workflow, enabling critical decision making on each prospect. This presentation will describe the workflow used;
challenges faced and shed

34

A NEW ERA IN SEISMIC INTERPRETATION - INTERACTIVE SEISMIC RECONSTRUCTION FOR

GEOLOGICALLY CONSISTENT INTERPRETATION
J. Klinger (Schlumberger, Norway)

A geological model is always only as good as the structural and stratigraphic interpretation that has been used to
build it. The QC steps in order to validate it are crucial and involve the interpreter either investing intense effort to
picture the tectonic and depositional history and verifying that it is geologically feasible; or building a model and
evaluate if the fault contacts and the facies distribution are plausible. Both solutions are generally very time
consuming; but what if the user could, automatically and interactively, QC the veracity of their interpretation? This
now becomes possible thanks to a unique and innovative integration of a geomechanical engine within the seismic
interpretation workflow. The user is now able to seamlessly un-fault and un-fold one or several horizon(s). This has
two immediate advantages. The first one enables the validation of the fault framework, from a geomechanical
point of view; the second is the direct use of the fault network in a reconstruction process to isolate and remove
the structural component from the stratigraphic interpretation. The latter allows the user to track horizons in a
deformation-less environment, providing a more powerful and user friendly experience to provide far greater
confidence in their interpretation.

35

CONVENTIONAL GEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION FASTER, MORE ACCURATE MAPS TO

BETTER UNDERSTAND HYDROCARBON PLAYS
M. Koley & H. Wang (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

Subsurface geological maps are the most important and widely used outputs to explore for and develop
hydrocarbon reserves. Hence when preparing subsurface maps, it is essential to use all the available data, evaluate
all possible interpretations and use accurate mapping techniques. Conventional geological interpretation
workflows in Petrel not only allow the integration of geological and geophysical interpretations to derive accurate
subsurface maps, but also enable rapid updating of maps such as structural or reservoir summation as new wells
are drilled in the field or an existing well interpretation is modified. Instant access to accurate subsurface maps
enables timely operational decisions for efficient reservoir management.

36

ENHANCING THE LIFE OF A RESERVOIR BY MAKING THE RIGHT WELL PLACEMENT DECISIONS
M. Koley & H. Wang (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

The goal in reservoir characterization is to establish a reservoir model based on explicitly modeling the known
heterogeneities (conditioning to well observations) and using statistical algorithms to systematically simulate the
spatial distribution at interwell locations. Heterogeneous reservoirs, however, can easily lead to serious
discontinuities in production from well to well, whether caused by sedimentological or structural factors or both.
Detailed reservoir descriptions incorporating different types of heterogeneities are needed to quantify the
uncertainty and possibly reduce economic risk.
The presentation is aimed at showing how geological models defined in Petrel by geostatistical distribution of well
data and conditioned with seismic inversion results in a better understanding of the reservoir properties.
Furthermore a detailed structural analysis enhances the knowledge of the reservoir compartmentalization and
together with fluid flow simulation results help in establishing optimum well locations to effectively sweep
hydrocarbons from the reservoir.

37

INTEGRATING DIFFERENT GEOSCIENCES & ENGINEERING DOMAINS FOR BETTER FIELD

DEVELOPMENT DECISIONS IN A CARBONATE RESERVOIR
M. Koley (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

The extremely challenging task of characterizing naturally fractured carbonate reservoirs requires the construction
of representative reservoir models that can correctly handle both fracture and matrix systems and their
interaction. These models must accurately predict fluid flow to deliver better production performance. Data
integration from multiple disciplines is critical. This presentation illustrates the workflow used to build a unified
fractured reservoir model using Petrel to address these challenges; and how the multidisciplinary interpretations
and models can be utilized interactively to optimize field development plans.

38

SEISMIC GEOMECHANICS: A NEW DIMENSION FROM SEISMIC TO DRILLING

N. Koutsabeloulis (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

Seismic geomechanics is the technology that provides a bridge between the seismic and drilling, utlizing both
seismic well-based data and operator experience. Delivering 3D mud weight cubes is the latest innovation for well
placement and drilling optimization, especially as drilling costs are escalating for delivering exploration wells and
ERD wells in deep and ultra-deep waters.

39

MULTI-SCALE 3D GEOLOGICAL MODELLING OF AN OUTCROPPING ANALOGUE TO BETTER

UNDERSTAND AND PREDICT FACIES GEOMETRY AND RESERVOIR QUALITY/DISTRIBUTION IN
THE SUBSURFACE: THE CASE HISTORY OF OMBRINA OIL FIELD RESERVOIR AND ITS MAIELLA
MOUNTAIN ANALOGUE
L. Lipparini (Medoilgas, Italy)

The use of outcropping geological analogues is proven to be a robust approach to collect data, ideas and geological
understanding, as well as integrate and improve the reservoir modeling of the subsurface.
In this respect, Medoilgas Italia Spa, the Sapienza University of Rome and Schlumberger SIS are collaborating in a
scientific project dedicated to the 3D modeling of Carbonate Oligo-Miocene Ramp deposits of the Maiella
mountain outcrops, where a well-exposed example of a homoclinal carbonate ramp do allow to study in detail the
depositional geometries and facies distribution.
The first 3D modeling exercise was carried out with the objective of reconstructing the geometrical and facies
relationships observed in the outcrops and existing in the subsurface, including a simplified 3D fault model:
starting from traditional field observation (geological mapping, stratigraphic, sedimentologic and microfacies
analysis), a workflow was defined to create the 3D model of the area (using Petrel software), combining various
spatial data sets such as geological mapping, measured stratigraphic sections, sedimentary facies and geometries,
through the following steps:

Digital project building: all available data loaded and georeferenced.

Topographic 3D model: DEM loaded, refined and integrated with geological transects and maps.
Outcrop Stratigraphic Sections to verticalized Pseudo-wells.
3D Geological Mapping: transferring observed geological limits and faults, formation boundaries and point of
interests including dip/azimuth information into the digital model.
Geometrical and structural model: combined outcrop data directly used to build a corner-point geocellular 3D
grid, incorporating faults observed in the field and surfaces, in accordance to identified stratigraphic
framework.
Facies Model: facies relationships have been modeled inside the 3D geocellular grid, mainly using the object
modeling methodology and deriving the main geometrical parameters from outcrop observations and the
conceptual model.

The work performed, and the final Petrel 3D digital model, help in better understand the relationships between
facies and the architectural framework at the basin scale and provide the base to refine and improve the modeling
of subsurface analogue reservoirs: in particular some modeling solutions have been already successfully adopted
during reservoir modeling of the Ombrina Mare Oligo-Miocene oil reservoir.

40

3D GEOSTEERING AND MWG (MODELLING WHILE GEOSTEEING) FOR COMPLEX RESERVOIR IN

SAUDI ARABIA USING PETREL
S. Logan & M. Al Hamad (Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia)

Introduction
In todays oil and gas industry, aligning the knowledge of many disciplines into one platform is the prevailing
direction of change. Integrated operations; collaborative workflows; seamless technologies: combining forces
achieves greater efficiency, cleaner data handling, and streamlined processes.
Advanced earth-modelling tools, such as Petrel* unified seismic-to-simulation software, mean users can gather
and unify all the relevant data in a single application and quickly update their models.
As more and more horizontal and multilateral wells are drilled within Saudi Arabia to drain reserves from thinner
and more inaccessible targets, asset teams find that they have smaller margins for error to work with.
The 3D Geosteering using Petrel* and modelling-while geosteering workflow is ideally suited to challenging
environments, where continuous monitoring and model updating are essential to steer the well within the
targeted reservoirs.
The Workflow
3D Mapping
Migrating GMD Geological Model To Petrel
Modeling & updating
Data Verification
Updating Formation tops
Loading off set wells
Layering identifications
Sector modeling
Well planning
Proposing & loading well plans
Synthetic Logging

41

INTEGRATION OF FACIES ANALYSIS AND GEOSTATISTICS IN THE PETREL MODELING OF SOUTH

SWAN HILLS DEVONIAN REEF RESERVOIR
S. Longfield, H. Slayman, S. Charbonneau & A. Seto (Penn West Exploration, Canada)

OBJECTIVES
The South Swan Hills reservoir is located in west-central Alberta, Canada. Discovered in 1957, this field, together
with other Devonian carbonate reef complexes in the area, is a major source of oil in western Canada. Higher than
expected oil recoveries from the field suggested an inaccurate STOIIP estimate. A geocellular Petrel model of the
reef and platform was completed to accurately ascertain the STOIIP, and to optimize future development of the
reservoir by identifying upswept oil zones for infill drilling.
PROCEDURES
The first stage of the modeling was a full field core study to determine facies types, depositional environments and
the stratigraphic architecture of the reef. The core was logged over a year and a half and used to create 2D facies
probability maps. These were used in Petrel in conjunction with a geostatistical algorithm to distribute each facies
within the inter-well regions. This allowed the uncertainty inherent in facies mapping to be factored into the
modeling, while at the same time honouring well data and facies relationships. A porosity model was generated
using a geostatistical algorithm, which honored the porosity log data at the wells, the porosity distribution within
each facies and, through the use of variograms, any geospatial trends. Uncertainty in the true facies, porosity and
fluid saturation distribution, as well as in the oil/water contact, was then quantified in order to determine a range
of possible STOIIP.
RESULTS
The P50 outcome or realization was selected, giving a STOIIP of 1.3 billion barrels. This volume is significantly larger
when compared to previous volume estimates of the field.
CONCLUSIONS
A geostatistical approach to the modeling of a reservoir and estimation of volumes is a relatively new approach
which may seem incompatible with traditional facies mapping. In this case, integrating the two methods has
enabled an accurate estimation of STOIIP to be made. Of equal importance is the Petrel models ability to quantify
and reduce uncertainty in future drilling and production operations.

42

REGIONAL VELOCITIES MODELING FOR THE PALEOCANAL DE CHICONTEPEC WITH PETREL

J.G. Lopez (PEMEX, Mexico)

The aim of this study is to obtain a regional velocity model to integrate geological and geophysical information
applying a stratigraphic methodology of the area. It is important to mention that the area of interest covers about
5600 km2 and many existing velocity models were generated locally and for those areas where no 3D seismic exist
such models will be difficult to control because not seismic velocities were considered only well logs and VSP, in
some cases the velocity functions were copied from one well to another. For these reason we have decided to
generate a regional velocity model to help us in the mitigation of the drilling risk associated to the time to depth
conversion.
The only velocity models available were generated from the 3D seismic but those are separated from each other
covering just a few areas of the entire area of study.
The beginning of the project was only using some seismic data such as Check Shots and VSPs to start with 180
functions from validated data and 8 regional grids where used.
The use of velocities like a property gave us as a result a more precise velocity model. Chicontepecs geology is
very complex, then we thought in the use of main horizons along with the stratigraphy in a geo-celular model to
propagate the velocities and doing a correction between the real data and the calculated data to obtain a velocity
model closer to the real data.
Many difficulties were faced in this project, there was not many digital data, a complex geology, different surveys,
problems with data processing, old or incomplete logs, few VSPs; all these maked this regional modeling a great
challenge.
This methodology was also applied to other projects one for a project with an extension of 500,000 km2 in the Gulf
of Mexico and the other one was for an specific area for a reservoir characterization project. The results in all these
were very satisfactory with the predicted depths.

43

IMPROVED STRUCTURAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURALLY FRACTURED HOTON FIELD,

UK SOUTHERN NORTH SEA, USING A GEOMECHANICAL APPROACH IN PETREL
L. Maerten (Schlumberger, France)

The Permian Hoton tight gas field lies below Zechstein salt on the eastern limb of the West-Sole salt structure in
the UK sector of the Southern North Sea. The Hoton anticline is part of a structure formed by compressional
inversion of earlier extensional faults. Additional to being sub-salt, the seismic imaging quality of the reservoir is
further compromised by challenging overburden velocities. Production into the Hoton wells is dominated by high
permeability intervals interpreted to be vast fracture networks. Models of the structural evolution of the Hoton
field form the basis for the prediction of fracture networks. Owing to the compromised seismic image these
models are highly uncertain, and thus several possible scenarios were tested and evaluated for their consistency.
In this presentation we illustrate how geomechanical technology originally developed by Igeoss and now
integrated inside Petrel are used to test various models of the tectonic evolution of the Hoton structure. We show
how the technology is used to check the consistency of seismic interpretations within these models; and how, in
order to constrain productivity of a potential infill well, the most appropriate forward model of the structure is
used to constrain discrete fracture models of the naturally-occurring fractures.

44

PETREL IN A GEOFRAME ENVIRONMENT QUICK ACCESS WITH MINIMAL CHANGE

MANAGEMENT
G. Martayan (Schlumberger, France)

Virtually all GeoFrame customers utilize Petrel to complete the exploration workflow and to help reduce risk in
their evaluations. GeoFrame users can now quickly and easily initiate a Petrel project and workflows from an
existing GeoFrame interpretation project. With GeoFrame 2012, GeoFrame seismic applications (IESX and
Charisma) now support the standard Petrel seismic volume format ZGY.
This allows a customer to have one single common seismic volume when using either GeoFrame or Petrel. With
new advances connecting Petrel directly and remotely to GeoFrame, Petrel users can now access the 3D and 2D
seismic volumes without transferring them. A diverse set of interpretation data types (3D and 2D seismic
interpretation, grids, and well data) can be accessed in minutes to quickly start Petrel risk-reduction workflows.
Several data types can also be brought easily back into GeoFrame where the advanced new data snapshot
technology of SNAPR assures a secure data environment.

45

SAVING TIME WITH DEPTH

H. Menkiti (WesternGeco, USA)

An accurate velocity model is key to producing the best possible subsurface image. In todays depth imaging
workflows, iterative tomographic updates & associated remigrations consume significant time. Reducing this
cycle-time means quicker access to the final depth image as well as a better understanding of the spatial risk
elements of subsurface reflectors. Through their localized seismic imaging workflow, leveraging the Petrel E&P
platform & Omega seismic processing software, WesternGeco has enabled rapid decision making - to help you
save time and money.

46

IMPACT OF STRIKE-SLIP FAULT DISPLACEMENT OF HYDROCARBON SOURCE ROCK

DEPOCENTER ON OIL FIELD DISTRIBUTION OF SALINAS BASIN, CALIFORNIA THROUGH 3D
BASIN AND PETROLEUM SYSTEM MODELING
T.A Menotti, S. A. Graham & J.M. Moldowan (Stanford University, USA)

The Salinas Basin, California contains a petroleum system that boasts the giant San Ardo oil field, which has been
producing heavy oil since the 1940's. Yet despite its relatively long-standing history as a steady source of oil
production, many aspects of the basin's geologic and petroleum system history are still poorly understood.
We aim to provide plausible explanations for the unusual bimodal distribution of oil fields in the Salinas Basin: one
half-billion barrel field versus six <1 mmbbls fields. Our approach involves 3D basin and petroleum system
modeling using PetroMod software (version 11, sp4 and version 2011.1.1), in conjunction with oil geochemical
analyses.
The lithologic transformations of the abundant siliceous Monterey Formation during burial, and the strike-slip
tectonics of the Salinas Basin present significant challenges to the conventional basin modeling workflow that are
at once complicated to implement yet necessary for understanding the basin's petroleum system. In particular,
beginning in the Late Miocene, the primary source rock depocenter was dissected by the Reliz-Rinconada fault, a
strike-slip fault related to the San Andreas fault system. Consequently, the western side of the depocenter now
resides ~40 km north of its southeastern counterpart.
Neogene strike-slip faulting of the primary source rock depocenter necessitates a 3D model approach in order to
capture the role of lateral translation of the pod of active source rock in forming the present-day oil field
distribution. Thus, the Salinas Basin offers an opportunity to explore modern basin modeling techniques in a
diagenetically complex, strike-slip setting, while addressing outstanding, unresolved geologic questions.
Currently, there is no standardized technique for 3D basin and petroleum system modeling with strike-slip faults,
however this is a crucial component to understanding the Salinas Basin petroleum province. Preliminary synthetic
models have successfully demonstrated plausible hydrocarbon generation-expulsion-migration histories that result
in multiple accumulation distribution possibilities.

47

MANAGEMENT OF STRUCTURAL UNCERTAINTIES WITH PETREL

T. Modiano (TOTAL, Nigeria)

A good assessment of geosciences uncertainties is of highest importance in the E&P decision process.
Uncertainties not only impact the decision to develop or not, but also the appraisal strategy, development
sequence and data acquisition program.
Structural uncertainties impact the geometry of horizons and faults which govern, with the fluid contacts, the
envelops of hydrocarbon pools and so the Net Gross Rock Volume (NGRV). The objective of the presentation is not
to discuss about the assessment of uncertain parameters but to present different approaches to assess the NGRV
uncertain distribution and link it with the other geosciences uncertainties.
In this presentation, we discuss about variations around a base case geometry. Management of scenarios, as
picking alternatives for example, is another problem, although each one can be considered as a different base
case.
The uncertainty associated with faults and horizons in depth can be divided into two origins: a picking uncertainty
and a velocity uncertainty. If picking uncertainty of the different horizons can be considered as independent,
uncertainty attached to depth conversion correlates between horizons because they share common velocity
intervals. This point is very important and ignoring it can lead to produce unrealistic horizon geometries and
overestimate the uncertainty range of reservoir interval thickness.
Although only one of them was really designed for addressing this topic, Petrel offers several ways to assess
structural uncertainties:
Uncertainty workflow manager
Velocity modeling and depth conversion
Local model update
The presentation will present the different approaches and discuss the advantages and drawbacks of each one in
terms of results, complexity, performance and integration in the whole uncertainty assessment process.

48

RISING TO THE CHALLENGES OF THE WELLBORE - THE SIS VISION FOR TECHLOG
B. Moss (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

The presentation explores the way in which Techlog covers many domains with interests in wellbore scale data
analysis. We open with Techlog being firmly positioned as the wellbore software platform placed in context with
other SIS software platforms: Petrel and Avocet. The coverage in Techlog of non-petrophysical domains such as
drilling, wellbore geology and wellbore reservoir engineering is illustrated with examples of use cases drawn from
both exploration and development activities. Advanced petrophysical capability is illustrated with reference to the
world renowned ELAN inversion technology and advanced acoustics processing that together permit the maximum
value to be extracted from complex wellbore data. A look at the future is offered with a brand new tool that treats
horizontal/high angle wells in a manner faithful to the particular geometrical relationships between such wells and
the geology.

49

TECHLOG - THE WELLBORE PLATFORM. BECAUSE EVERY WELL COUNTS

B. Moss & V. Vesselinov (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

We briefly review Techlog as the wellbore software platform in relation to the Petrel E&P software platform and
Avocet production operations platform. The importance of Ocean and Studio in context with Techlog is also
examined in terms of future development effort. Demonstrations of key new technology that illustrate the
breadth and depth of Techlog modules will be made covering wellbore stability, pore pressure prediction, wellbore
reservoir engineering, advanced acoustic processing and a demonstration of an important new user interface

50

CHARGE AND SEAL ASSESSMENT IN A STRUCTURALLY COMPLEX AREA IN VENEZUELA

M. Neumaier (Schlumberger, Germany)

Structural Restoration - using Schlumberger Dynel 2D software - of the Monagas Fold and Thrust Belt, Eastern
Venezuela Basin, has been incorporated into a petroleum systems model using PetroMod software. The evolution
of the petroleum systems coupled to, and governed by, the structural history has been modeled through
geological time, with a focus on the geomechanical properties and their impact on the hydrocarbon charge.

51

QUANTIFYING EXTENSION USING DYNEL 2D, AN EXAMPLE OF LATE PERMIAN TRIASSIC

RIFTING OF THE SOUTH KARA BASIN, RUSSIAN ARCTIC
V.A. Nikshin (Rosneft, Russia)

Using physical rock properties of the chronostratigraphic units interpreted within the depth-converted ~750 km 2D
seismic line we attempt to quantify amount of stretching within the large segment of Kara Sea rift system located
in Russian Arctic. Using this new straightforward technology presented in a software Dynel*, tasks like mechanical
restoration nowadays is accessible to everybody. Those who already encountered mechanical modeling very well
know how restoration tasks can be complicated requiring excellent knowledge of mechanics, mathematics.
However, after recent acquiring IGEOSS company, Dynel was assigned to the Schlumberger Exploration Concept.
This new concept allows such important tools like structural restoration and petroleum system modeling to be
accessible to everybody. In our example we used Dynel and very quickly restored a section within Russian Arctic,
exposing a pioneering attempt of quantifying such important event in petroleum geology like rifting.
According to numerous data from the main West Siberian basin, the timing of rifting was Late Permian Early
Triassic. Using mechanical rock properties of the investigated rock systems, the amount of stretching was
calculated by using the mechanical restoration software Dynel 2D. As Dynel2D honours the fundamental physical
laws, which govern rock deformation, initially we restored the most recent deposits, and gradually we restored the
entire sedimentary package arriving to a rifted fundament. The rifted Kara system is a member of giant Western
Siberian megabasin. As the South Kara basin is continuation of the aforementioned megabasin, numerous PermoTriassic rifts were developed [e.g. Shipilov, 1998]. Rift structures are very good imaged by very large amount of the
seismic data. On the northern part of the KoltogorskUrengoi rift zone (or one of the branches) the En-Yakhinskaya
well with a depth of 8250 m was drilled (SG-7). This well revealed all of the PermianTriassic sequence. At the base
of this sequence lies a basalt stratum with a thickness of 1.3 km. These basalts are overlain by strata made of clays,
siltstones, sandstones, and carbonates with a thickness of about 1250 m with age dating from middle Early Triassic
to the end of the Triassic. For each set of sedimentary and magmatic load we use different rock properties already
provided by the Dynel 2D database. For example, for a sand package we used a set of physical properties like
Poisson ratio (0.24), Youngs modulus (2.2e+10), Rock Density (2480 kg/m3), porosity (0.49), compaction constant
(0.274787). Note that each geological-restoration unit was simplified adapting to a predominant lithological
property that is assigned for each chronostratigraphic unit.
A section of seismic data that is roughly perpendicular to the direction of stretching was chosen. Detailed seismic
interpretation indicated the spatial distribution of sedimentary layers. Using Dynel easy-restoration program that
is based upon the linear elasticity principle, throughout Finite Element Method (FEM) we calculated restoration
steps for the entire section. The Finite Element Method is a numerical procedure which provides solutions based
on solving partial differential equations. The method requires the discretization of the domain into elements. Using
Dynel2D, geological packages are discretized with linear triangular elements, which form a mesh that is adjusted to
fit the shape of the structures under consideration. Easy comprehendible interface in Dynel, allows avoiding of
complicating equations that are core of this very useful technique. The same interface has been used for Dynel 3D.
The restoration boundary condition was allocated to the regional zero level level of the sea bottom. In addition
to restoration level, a thickness of 300m of water column, including strain based decompaction solver for large
(large +) systems using principles from Scater and Christy, [1980] were set.
The overall restoration results in Dynel 2D unraveled that rifting provides accommodation space ranging over 15
km for a chosen section of the basin. Note that calculated value does not reflect the total stretching value, since
the stresses are oblique and are not perpendicular to a chosen seismic line. This fact was confirmed by calculated
stress fields displayed as the restoration result displaying stress fields across the entire section. Another very useful
result provided by Dynel are displacement, strain and elastic stress field anywhere in the cross-section, the
regional petroleum system was further investigated by juxtaposing to the 2D basin model. By superimposing
results in Dynel and complex basin modeling in PetroMod, an exploration geologist can far more effectively
decrease uncertainties that accompanied almost every hydrocarbon exploration project around a globe. In
52

addition to uncertainties, results provided by Dynel and PetroMod are quantified meaning that behind each event
either tectonic or migration calculation is a number.

53

A PRACTICAL MODEL FOR ORGANIC RICHNESS FROM POROSITY AND RESISTIVITY LOGS USING
TECHLOG
S. Osman (Sudapet, Sudan)

A practical method, the delta log R technique , for identifying and calculating total oranic carbon in
Organic rich rock has been developed using well logs (resistivity, density, sonic and neutron). The method employs
the overlaying of a properly scaled prosity log (generally the sonic transit time, neutron and density) on resistivity
curve (preferably form a deep- reading tool). In watersaturation, organic-lean rocks, the two curves parallel each
other and can be overlain, since both curves respond to variations in formation prosity ; howerer , in either
hydrocarbon reservior rock or organic-rich non reservior rocks , aseparation between the curves occurs . Using
the Gamma ray curve, reservoir intervals can be identified and eliminated or added depending on the the way
analysis should go.
The separation in organic-rich intervals result from three effects :the porosity curve response to the presence of
low density , low velocity kerogen and hydrogen conten index difference or hydrogen and the resistivity curve
response to the formation fluid . in an immature organic-rich rich, where no hydrocarbons have been generated ,
the observed curve seperation is due to solely to the porosity curve response . in mature source rocks , in addition
to the porosity curve response , the resitivity increases because of the presence of generated hydrocarbons . The
magnitude of the curve separation in non-resrvoir is calibrated to total organic carbon and maturity, and allows for
depth profiling of organic richness in the absence of sample data . this method allows organic richness to be
accurately assessed in a wide variety of lithologies and maturities using common well logs.
By building Python scripts or using the mathpacK in TechLog software appling emprical relationshion the practical
model can be achieved.On top of that a master plan will be implemented through sudapet as data centre to apply
the practical model and regular interpretaion modules using Techlog. More over the the TOC results can be used as
input for the basin modeling analysis of the same field.

54

SALT CANOPIES AN INTERPRETERS CHALLENGE

B. Otto (Wintershall, Germany)

As part of a salt cavern project, a complex salt canopy composed of two salt domes had to be interpreted twice
using state of the art 3D PreSDM data.
Since current grid based seismic interpretation systems still provide certain limitations that directly affect the
seismic interpreter (the multiple z-value problematic) two different workflows have been developed and tested for
its appropriateness.
In Workflow #1 fault sticks have been used for interpretation of the salt envelope interface including base of
allochthonous salt. Thus we did not suffer at all from any multiple z-value limitations as well as grid library
constraints. Furthermore we have been benefiting from an improved visibility due to cross posting of intersecting
fault sticks. Another positive side effect was the reduced number of data objects that again reduced the time to be
spent for documentation of interpretation process. The downside of this approach in the other side was that by
the end of this process fault sticks had to be exported to reconstruct this 3D point cloud within another third party
software to finally get one closed salt envelope surface.
In Workflow #2 GeoFrames geobody concept has been utilized to directly benefit from an improved visibility
within GeoViz and IMAIN, thus not being forced to export/reimport any data into other third party software. In
addition the VIVA2 display has been intensively used to compare the underlying 3D velocity model against the salt
geo-body to identify any zones for further potential processing improvements.

55

TECHLOG GEOLOGY THE VALUE IN RESOLUTION

C. Parsons (Schlumberger, France)

By its nature, an increase in resolution in log analysis comes at the price of a smaller volume of investigation.
However, with borehole images, it is the very fact that imaging tools provide the highest resolution downhole
measurement that allows the geoscientist to expand their investigation from the wellbore to the reservoir scale.
The spatial information derived from the orientation of geological features aids interpretation of medium to large
scale structures away from the well. Identification of diagnostic depositional features can be critical for
understanding depositional environment and therefore reservoir properties distributions. Fine scale layering and
texture of reservoir properties have an important role in reservoir producibility and ultimate recovery. New tools
in the Techlog wellbore software platform allow subsurface professionals to unlock the value contained in their
high resolution data.

56

TECHLOG, KEY PLATFORM FOR ECOPETROL CROSS SEGMENT GROWING STRATEGY

C.Patino (Ecopetrol, Colombia)

Background
ECP is the national Colombian oil company, the current production including partnerships is 950.000 B/D, and the
goal for 2015 is 1.5 Million B/D.
Besides their own internal duties, ECP is responsible of monitoring and defining guidelines for new opening
acquisitions in country.
As a growing oil company, they need to be capable of analyzing the wellbore information in a very efficient way
and providing timely answers for decision making that will allow accomplishing competitive corporative goals.
Part of the Ecopetrol growing strategy has been oriented to the integration of wellbore data and new technologies
application to petrophysical workflows. As a consequence, a versatile platform capable of supporting these
objectives was required.
Business departments like Exploration, Reservoir Engineering, Production, and New Business Development were
using different platforms to analyze the information. This implied a lot of re-working and wasted time
importing/exporting the same data.
Decision was made to evaluate new software alternatives in the market with advanced functionalities capable of
supporting these new challenges, select the best option based on a decision matrix and standardize the wellbore
interpretation software.
The product basically needed to be able to:
-Integrate different types of wellbore information in a single platform to maximize the data usage and in that way
capitalize the acquisition investment.
- Efficient data management
- Support new technology in workflows for more accurate analysis
- Offer solutions in complex lithology environments
Project Milestones
The first step taken to evaluate the software was a six months pilot project using data from a key ECP field; several
Techlog modules were tested during this period.
Since Techlog added value was proven, a formal process was started to compare with other tools in the market.
The second step was performing a formal assessment process comparing top three petrophysical software
vendors: IP, Geolog and Techlog. This process took three months, including the IT tests and the preparation; it was
leaded by a multidisciplinary evaluation committee. Techlog was selected as the best technology offer based on a
detailed decision matrix.
In parallel, some demo licenses were placed in strategic departments for one year. The required support to
complete petrophysical interpretations and other workflows was provided during this whole period.
Implementation
The implementation of Techlog in Ecopetrol consisted in five stages:
- Database filter to select necessary information to be migrated.

57

- Migration of projects from previous platforms (Geolog, Openworks, Geographix, Powerlog, IP). Noting that CIROP
(SLB-ECP alliance for Production) petrophysical projects migration process had priority and was concluded during
purchasing process.
-Data base clean up of migrated projects. This included, eliminating duplicated variables and multiple versions,
homologating processes and tops versions.
-Training for IT group Data Management oriented training, Final users training - Basic Modules training and
advanced applications training for specialists group.
- On site support and on the job training.
Impact
Strategic Ecopetrols fields located in Colombia were used in the Techlog pilot project.
All wellbore data available from this field was integrated in the petrophysical workflow which allowed obtaining
more accurate results, increasing the amount of reserves previously estimated and finding new prospects
opportunities.
With the Techlog implementation in Ecopetrol,it is expected that the number of wells and fields analyzed will
increase rapidly, improving in this way the analysis efficiency.
In the other hand, the corporative language among business segments have been unified which has improved
drastically the communication and processes flow.
The incorporation of new technology in current workflows has allowed more accurate models construction and
more accurate results.

58

PETROLEUM SYSTEMS MODELING AS A TOOL FOR THE PREDICTION OF FLUID COMPOSITION:

THE PETROBRAS EXPERIENCE IN EXPLORATION
H. L. de B. Penteado & L.M. de Arajo (Petrobras, Brazil)

Petroleum exploration is moving towards ever deeper and complex prospects. Considering the huge costs involved
in offshore operations and the economic dependence of discoveries on petroleum type, it is of utmost importance
to be able to predict fluid composition and properties. A compositional kinetic model for petroleum primary and
secondary cracking using classes for PVT modeling has been developed for Brazilian lacustrine and marine sourcerock sequences. This kinetic scheme has been widely applied by Petrobras in 3D petroleum systems modeling with
PetroMod* in Brazilian marginal basins to assess the timing of oil and gas generation, and for the prediction of
petroleum composition and PVT properties.
A total of more than 70 non-biodegraded oils from both lacustrine and marine Brazilian source rocks, with API
gravities ranging from 27 to 55, was characterized by quantitative gas chromatographic analyses. Mass
percentages of oil fractions based on boiling point and molecular weight ranges (C6 to C60+) were estimated. With
these results, a PVT-type description of compound classes was adopted for the expelled oils. Combining results for
the oils with those for the gas phase, an enhanced PVT description was achieved for the whole petroleum (C1 to
C60+).
The kinetics for primary cracking of lacustrine and marine source rocks were derived from Rock-Eval data, with
corrections introduced for the actual petroleum expulsion efficiency because most of the heavy components
(resins and asphaltenes) of early-generated oil remain adsorbed within the source rock. As kerogen cracking
proceeds, heavier and less stable compound classes can undergo secondary cracking, thus producing lighter and
more gas-rich petroleum. The kinetics and stoichiometry of secondary cracking of each compound class were
derived from experiments of artificial cracking of oils using several pyrolysis techniques. By coupling the primary
and secondary compositional kinetic schemes, petroleum composition and its PVT properties (density, API gravity,
GOR, saturation pressure) can be continuously assessed throughout source-rock maturation and petroleum
migration using PetroMod as petroleum systems modeling software.
Petroleum compositions provided by this new PVT-type kinetic scheme reproduce well those of real accumulations
in Brazilian marginal basins, thus allowing its application as a powerful predictive tool in exploration prospects in
frontier areas. Additionally, the modeled temperature history of reservoirs has been used to estimate the extent of
petroleum alteration by biodegradation.

59

ADVANCED CORE-LOG INTERPRETATION USING TECHLOG

T. Pritchard (BG Group, United Kingdom)

The Techlog platform facilitates the access of petrophysicists to an advanced range of mathematical tools that can
be used for improved signal processing and core analysis, as well as means to automate improved core-log
integration procedures to yield more accurate results. In this presentation the ability of Techlog to improve
formation evaluation will be illustrated using examples from conventional and unconventional formations, and
proposals for additional development of future Techlog modules for integrated shaly sandstone formation
evaluation will be discussed.

60

EXXONMOBILS GLOBAL DEPLOYMENT STRATEGIES FOR PETREL

W. Ragosa (ExxonMobil, USA)

ExxonMobils approach to managing Geoscience technical software is aligned with our corporate approach to the
Energy business. We take a long-term perspective; we focus on operational excellence; and we have a disciplined
approach to capital investment. Our approach to the global deployment of Petrel has been focused on these key
tenants. This presentation will begin with a high level overview of ExxonMobils Geoscience Technology principles,
and will then concentrate on ExxonMobils global deployment of Petrel. The presentation will include a discussion
of techniques that ExxonMobil has implemented to maximize business value from Petrel. These include multiple
deployment and uptake strategies, investments in infrastructure, and modular training delivery, based on a
constant learning approach.

61

EXPLORATION RISK ASSESSMENT OF AN AREA IN GUAJIRA OFFSHORE COLOMBIA USING

PETREL AS CENTRAL TECHNOLOGY
V. Ramirez, P. Correa and A.M. Lopez (Ecopetrol, Colombia)

This project was developed in the Guajira offshore basin, located in the North of Colombia which is one of the
most important prospective areas in the Colombian petroleum industry.
The scope of the project was to provide a framework for the evaluation of hydrocarbon potential and assess the
exploration risk of an area in offshore Guajira putting special emphasis on the methodology and technology
capabilities for the whole exploration system elements evaluation (Trap-Reservoir-Charge and Seal). Trap analysis
included seismic interpretation, structural modeling and time to depth conversion; For the reservoir
understanding, a petrophysical evaluation and a seismic inversion was perform and used to populate a 3D Property
model. Generation and migration were simulated to quickly understand the possible accumulations due to charge
and top and lateral seal was evaluated into this project. At the final stage, those previous elements of the
exploration system were integrated into a risk analysis procedure to better understand the chance of success of
the play. Finally, volumetric and economical estimations were run over the 3 different leads identified as part of
this project.
This project included the complete exploration workflow on a real area of Ecopetrol and with the real challenges
that we face in exploration. All the exploration elements of the exploration system were evaluated and combined
into a single model to finally rank the risk on the leads identified in an area of the Guajira offshore basin.

62

PETREL THE VISION CONTINUES

T. Randen (Schlumberger, Norway)

Petrel has revolutionized the E&P software industry by bringing disciplines together with best in class science and
by providing an unparalleled productive environment. These are the underlying principles that continue to guide
the development of Petrel as the E&P software platform. The commitment to further expand the capabilities of
Petrel have also resulted in dramatic strides forward in the development of the Ocean software development
framework. With a software engineering team of unrivalled scale, Petrel continues to bring innovative thinking to
its users and now more than ever is positioned to deliver technologies from across all of Schlumberger with
contributions from WesternGeco, Well Services and the Drilling Group.
A fundamental commitment to quality continues to increase the overall reliability and performance of the
platform. The introduction of the Studio E & P Knowledge Environment in 2011 further enhanced the enterprise
scalability of Petrel with improved productivity and access to knowledge. In this presentation, we will explain how
the 2012 releases of Petrel will help you achieve critical insight and how we will continue to strengthen and expand
the platform.

63

FACIES AND PETROPHYSICAL MODELING USING SEISMIC ATTRIBUTES: AN EXAMPLE OF A

STRATIGRAPHIC RESERVOIR
J. Rodas (Petroamazonas, Ecuador)

Reservoir characterization with a high stratigraphic component represents a real challenge when only well log
information is available. Improvements in seismic acquisition, processing and 3D software modeling allow
incorporating information coming from seismic in order to better define the 3D distribution of the sand bodies in
this kind of reservoirs.
M1 sequence of the Eden Yuturi field in the Oriente Basin Ecuador is composed of nonconsolidated sands
deposited during progradation stages of the coast line creating coastal flat tide dominated environments. The M1
reservoir bottom is a good seismic reflector, however the top cannot be identified easily and the thickness maps
generated from the wells are not enough to define this seismic level; 52% of the M1 sandstone corresponds to
sands with a high kaolinite presence affecting negatively to the porosity and resistivity well logs complicating the
facies and petrophysical properties 3D distribution.
To built the structural model we obtained a Maximum Trough Amplitude attribute from the 3D seismic cube (-90
2
phase) where we could see a good correlation (R =0.79) between net sand thickness and amplitude values in each
well. This lineal function helped us to generate the M1 reservoir isopach map and thus define the true structural
configuration of reservoir top. Facies were defined using a cross plot between acoustic impedance and porosity
with great results. For 3D porosity distribution the porosity cube coming from seismic inversion was used as a
second variable (SGS-Co-krigging) in property modeling.
As a result of this project integration, we were able to quantify the Original Oil in Place and the oil reserves
associated to this reservoir more precisely. In addition we were able to capture the fluid movements and the
pressure decline in the M1 reservoir (2psi/bl). This study also shows us that at the end of the year 2015 the
reservoir will release gas, so an Enhance Oil Recovery program was implemented using this model to avoid such
reservoir event.

64

WESTERNGECO AND STATOIL: SEISMIC PROCESSING AND DEPTH IMAGING COLLABORATION

P.Singer (Statoil, USA)

Since its founding in 1972, Statoil has had a strong, unwavering commitment to the development and
implementation of leading-edge technologies. Not surprisingly, the focus has been on those technologies having
the greatest impact on E&P efforts on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Given the moderately complex geology
offshore Norway, depth imaging has not been a historical key technology for Statoil, as time data has traditionally
proven sufficient to successfully explore and develop hydrocarbon resources. Today, there is an increased use of
depth imaging on the NCS as the need for structural detail has grown. In addition, Statoil is present in more than
30 countries internationally, and is exploring in salt basins where depth imaging is an absolute requirement to see
and develop prospects beneath complex salt canopies, e.g. Angola, Brazil, and the U.S.A. This is especially true in
the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), where Statoil has acquired a significant acreage holding in the deep water. As a result,
Statoil has designated depth seismic imaging and interpretation as a business critical technology, and has devoted
significant resources towards the goal of rapidly becoming an industry leader in this area.
In 2009, Statoil created a depth imaging group in Houston to help mature its prospect inventory in North America,
but specifically the GOM, through advanced imaging. As this team grew and began working on more projects, it
realized the need to increase its internal capacity and capability. Statoils use of various software packages was
both inefficient and error prone, since different workflows, data formats, and even geodetic definitions were
required by each package. In 2011, Statoil began searching for a platform which integrated processing, imaging
and interpretation, the ideal scenario involving a collaborative partnership with a leading imaging contractor. It
quickly became evident that the WesternGeco GeoSolutions offered the way forward, as it could provide a tailormade solution to address the specific needs of the Statoil processing/imaging team in Houston, and could be
readily expanded to Statoils other imaging centers.
In June 2011, Statoil and Schlumberger/WesternGeco entered into an innovative and exciting agreement. This
agreement is unprecedented in Statoil history as it encompasses not only hardware and software, but also
collaborative R&D and co-located personnel. The Houston Imaging Solution, implemented in mid-October 2011,
uses the latest Omega desktop, which integrates both the Omega processing/imaging package with Petrel for
velocity model building and interpretation. This integration, via a common platform, is already improving
communication between the imaging group, now comprised of both Statoil and WesternGeco personnel, and the
interpretation staff all located on the same floor in Statoils Houston office. In addition, it allows rapid
implementation of different salt interpretation scenarios, which is critical for obtaining the best subsalt image.
The Houston Imaging Solution is a dynamic process. Early implementation has not just given positive initial
results, but also identified a number of challenges which are being addressed through a continuous feedback loop
and close collaboration and cooperation. The presentation will address where we are, where we are going, and
how Statoil, with Schlumberger/WesternGeco, is addressing its depth imaging challenges not only in the
competitive Gulf of Mexico, but potentially worldwide.

65

APPLICATION OF A PETROPHYSICAL GROUPING APPROACH TO CARBONATE RESERVOIR

ROCK-TYPING IN A SUPERGIANT ONSHORE ABU DHABI (U.A.E) OILFIELD, BASED ON
CAPILLARY PRESSURE DATA AND PROPAGATION USING SELF-ORGANIZING MAPS
M.R.P. Singh (ADCO, United Arab Emirates)

Using Techlog, a rock typing approach has been applied to a Thamama reservoir within the ASAB field. This
reservoir is defined by four main zones, each of them layered in several subzones.
A phase of data QC in Techlog on logs (from 363 wells) and core data (from 128 wells) enabled the creation of a
homogeneous set of data for use in the workflow.
Petrophysical Groups (PG) possessing distinct properties of porosity and permeability have been defined at the
core scale from Mercury Injection Capillary Pressure (MICP) measurements from 25 wells, by use of an indexed Self
Organizing Map (SOM) in Techlog. This technique worked on the shapes of the capillary curves and defined groups
possessing a specific range of phi:k data.
Using a second stage, supervised SOM, the PG derived from mercury curve shapes have been quantitatively
propagated throughout the routine core data (porosity and permeability from normal plug data). In this way, the
data coverage of the PG has been expanded from the sparse mercury curve data into the more voluminous routine
core porosity and permeability data.
Based on the geological structure of the field (Crest, Mid-Flank and Flank sections), three vertical proportionality
curves were created and then combined with the log data within each section to provide a basis for propagation of
the petrophysical groups throughout the entire depth intervals of all wells comprising each area.
Through this multi stage process, petrophysical groups based solidly upon real formation variability observed in
capillary curve shapes were directly propagated through the routine core data and into the log data domain using
indexed Self-Organized Maps (SOMs), at each step. A benefit from the approach is that the statistical definition of
each PG can be controlled from the SOM and the variability observed in the routine core data within each PG used
to create a predicted permeability curve, with very good accuracy when compared against the original core data.

66

A NEW 3D GEOLOGICAL MODELING APPROACH FOR FRACTURED BASEMENT RESERVOIR - A

CASE STUDY FROM THE NAMCONSON BASIN, SOUTHERN OFFSHORE VIETNAM
H.P. Son (CSJOC (Con Son Joint Operating Company), Vietnam)

The fractured granitic basement in the NamConSon basin in southern offshore Vietnam has become a new
exploration target for oil companies in recent years due to its hydrocarbon potential. Some oil and gas fractured
basement reservoirs were discovered in this basin in the last decade. However, there is the major challenge in
characterization of such reservoir types.
This presentation tries to share a new approach in 3D geological modeling for fractured basement reservoirs via
the integration of a complex of geological, tectonic and seismic data analysis in Petrel.
In this study, available regional geology data including structural geological information and outcrop observations
have been collected to help the geologists and geophysicists to gain a basic understanding of the local geological
settings related to the basement and fracture development. A detailed tectonic analysis helps us to define the
tectonic evolution and the tectonic movement mechanisms in geological history, and the fracture systems in the
area.
A full suite of well data in the same area including conventional open hole logs, advanced well logs (i.e. borehole
images and SonicScanner), mud logs as well as PLT (production logs) and DST data was carefully studied to extract
all possible pieces of information related to natural fractures and faults. This resulted in two main outputs the
fracture density log along the wellbore and the defined potential fracture/fault system including their dip and
strike. Then the seismic attributes were fully calibrated by fracture outputs from the existing wells and
transformed into 3D fracture density volume using Petrels neural network algorithms.

67

GEOMECHANICAL INTEGRATED STUDY IN NATURALLY FRACTURED RESERVOIRS

J. Teixeira, C. Ferraris and F. Maggi (Petrobras, Bolivia)

This paper proposes a new technology and workflow for the study of naturally fractured reservoirs, which allows
modeling processes that affect the rock mechanics (elastic and plastic conditions), in order to calculate the stresses
and strains that occur in the reservoir due to changes in pressure, saturation, and temperature in the porous
medium when the field is under production. These changes can modify volume functions, permeability and/or
transmissibility of the system.
Studies are conducted through interdisciplinary interaction where geophysics, geology, reservoir production and
Geomechanics converge, using tools as the suits of Petrel, StoneFish, ECLIPSE, and VISAGE*. This workflow
proposes the creation of coupled simulations of geomechanical properties (stress dependant) along with a
conventional simulation of dual porosity models.
A finite element model (FEM) that represents a detailed geological model with the ability to calculate and visualize
the behavior of pressure, stresses and strains, porosity and permeability in complex structures is used for this
purpose. The coupling works as follows: ECLIPSE estimated variations in pressure and saturation of the porous
medium for a defined time step, VISAGE calculates, for the same time step, stresses and strains due to the
variation in pore pressure. Variation of stresses affects the fracture system, which is the reason why VISAGE
calculates the changes in the properties of it (permeability and porosity) and update the ECLIPSE model. With the
updated properties ECLIPSE runs the next time step, generating a sophisticated coupled model of multiple time
step. This coupling is done automatically.
The study was prepared together with the company Schlumberger, Division DCS-Geomechanics, San Alberto and
San Antonio blocks gas fields. The reservoirs are naturally fractured sandstone of Devonian age, which have an
average of 3% primary porosity; the fields have a 8 TCF demonstrate each. The whole production is average of
1050 MMscf of gas per day through 13 wells.
This methodology will allow studying the main changes of permeability and porosity in the field, and how these
changes will impact directly on the dynamic behavior of the fractures system on time and the depletion of the
reservoirs. Although, this variation in the fracture system could change the future productivity and the not desired
production of formation water. This fact of incorporating and quantifying these phenomena will allow to have a
more accurate calculation of field reserves the framework of the development plans of these projects.

68

RAPID DATA EVALUATION OF PLAY AND PROSPECT POTENTIAL WITHIN AN OFFSHORE

ACREAGE RELEASE
N. Tessen (Schlumberger, Germany)

Rapid evaluation of available information and data within a regional geological context is frequently required when
assessing acreage for license rounds and farm-in opportunities. We will illustrate a new methodology to derive
play chance maps from all elements of the petroleum system. Play fairway maps of physical properties and
interpretations are converted using algorithms into play element chance maps, which are combined to give an
assessment of overall play risk within the area - pointing to the areas with the best chance of exploration success.
Consistent evaluation of prospects within each play may then be performed using the play chance maps to
determine chance of success and the physical property maps used to determine prospect specific parameter
distributions. Unlike traditional common risk segment maps or spreadsheet evaluations, the play chance maps and
prospect assessments are rigorously linked to the data and interpretations used to build them. All the inputs and
processes are clearly documented within Petrel and can be efficiently and dynamically updating when new data or
interpretations become available. The workflow is suitable for rapid evaluations and insures consistent evaluation
for risking and ranking of opportunities within a play as well as comparison with opportunities in other plays.

69

WORKFLOW INTEGRATION TO EVALUATE THE PETROLEUM SYSTEM IN SOUTH SUMATERA

BASIN/INDONESIA
J.C. Tobing (Medco, Indonesia)

Medco is the biggest Indonesian private Oil&Gas company and own several licenses-block in South Sumatera Basin
area.
The reserve replacement for these mature fields is a very crucial activity in the company mind today. The last
discover was in 1994 with the Kaji Semoga field, therefore it is important to re-evaluate and explore more in these
blocks in South Sumatra Basin area to find more plays in order to replace and increase the reserve potential,
beside of that we started to feel the need consulting help and tools to answer this challenging work.
Before there were many different software from different vendors to try to answer this work, which was
generating a lot of communication problems which were delaying the decision making and reducing the
collaboration work between different disciplines to achieve the objective of generate new plays.
To solve these problems we decided to look for simplification solution of software focusing on get a single and
integrated solution to evaluate plays and generate new leads. Due to this in 2011 we started a program called
software portfolio simplification. This project is planned to have 5 years of duration with one phase every year.
In the phase 1 of this program Medco started selecting software which are integrated and can bring different data,
information in a single canvas and interpreting various challenging play systems regarding South Sumatra.
Petrel and Petromod were selected as the main platform for this integration as it can help the users to expand
from play level interpretation to reservoir modeling which can further be integrated for reservoir simulation work.
This program required a lot of change management because it complexity and changed the existing technical
workflow, especially in Exploration part such as: Seismic Interpretation, Basin Modeling and Structural Analysis.
The streamlining of G&G workflow has also started together with a team of experts from Schlumberger in which
they were using these new tools along with Medco's G&G experts to accelerate new plays generation in the
Sumatra basin.
Today all workflow in the G&G area can be integrated and interpreted in one single canvas combined with all
data/information that we owns to easier review and take decision. This integrated platform now allows us to
include existing facility, roads, provinces, forestry information along with interpretation work.
Today we can say that there is a good progress in integrating the information, reducing time to look for data,
enhancing workflow capability with Schlumberger software.
As a way forward from the first phase, we are going to start the second phase where petrophysics part will be
included in the program and more integrated workflow will be introduced between G&G, Reservoir engineering
and production optimization domain.

70

ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPING SHALE RESOURCES

K. Tushingham (Schlumberger, USA)

Shale gas development has been expanding at a rapid pace in many basins in North America and has garnered
considerable interest in mature markets around the world. Success in these shale gas plays requires seamless
integration, analysis, and visualization of many types of data to reduce completion risk and maximize reservoir
contact; thus leading to a more profitable project. Understanding the uncertainties in shale plays is key to
development success. In this presentation we will demonstrate a powerful workflow to reduce uncertainties
around reservoir heterogeneity, completion strategy, well placement and stimulation by integrating the data into
a model centric approach.

71

UNDERSTAND YOUR ASSETS WITH STUDIO PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS FOR PETREL

G. van der Hoff & D. Koncz (Schlumberger, Norway)

Do you need to perform reconnaissance on high well count datasets with Petrel? Would you like to add knowledge
and context to your reservoir models? With Studio for Petrel, find what you need and understand what your
organization has. Using the powerful capabilities of Studio Find we will show you how to perform fast detailed
searches through your Petrel environment, using web services, keywords and filters to rapidly identify and
consolidate the information you need. Knowledge sharing technology to deliver and update all of your associated
information together - in the context of your model - including annotations, images, pdfs, websites and well
schematics will also be reviewed to help you access the insights you need.

72

ONGC & OVL TAP INTO INNOVATION IN INDIA VIA THE OCEAN ECOSYSTEM
N. Verma (ONGC Videsh Limited, India)

Introduction
At the heart of every energy companys business model is an increasingly complex exploration and production
workflow that holds the potential to create enormous value.
Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) & ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) have made the attempt to integrate these
workflows so as to create value for upstream companies.
Workflow means collaboration and a new collaborative workflow demands innovation. Since ages, people have
wanted to tap this innovation. In India, academia is considered as a huge pool of innovators. There has always
been a need for collaboration of industry and academia. But, there was a lack of platform, at least in the multidisciplinary E&P industry.
Schlumbergers Ocean* provided ONGC & OVL with the long awaited platform to tap innovation through
collaboration between operators, service providers and academia.
The Schlumberger Ocean competitions in 2010 & 2011
SIS India has been hosting Ocean competitions since 2010, where students from various Universities use Ocean
and showcase their innovation as an Ocean for Petrel plug-in.
Tapping into innovation
ONGC & OVL have been a constant supporter of innovation and academia and has encouraged these events we
had high-level management attending and judging it.
Through Ocean, ONGC & OVL realize that big breakthroughs can be made through small out-of-box ideas. Young
talent is now being taken more seriously and their ideas are being positively exploited for the better of the
industry. We will present our plans to take this innovation to the next level; where we will build plug-ins, involve
universities and motivate students to learn and contribute to our industry.
Conclusion
ONGC & OVL have been looking for a system that would enhance their total efficiency. We found our answer in
Ocean.

73

INTEGRATED EXPLORATION PROSPECT GENERATION USING PETREL STRUCTURE AND FAULT

ANALYSIS
P.E. Wrum (Talisman, Norway) & M. Seignole (Envision, Norway)

This presentation highlights an exploration prospect generation workflow with critical application of Petrels Fault
Analysis module, integrated with structural mapping, seismic inversion (AI), petrophysical modelling of GR and
VShale, and velocity modelling.
The prospect reservoir is Upper Jurassic sandstone situated in a downthrown fault block with 3-way structural dip
closure and uncertainty associated with the fault throw and sealing capacity. A well on the upthrown block was
dry, but encountered 90 meters of high NTG good quality Upper Jurassic sands.
Primary prospect risks are migration into the structure and lateral downthrown fault seal to the North of the
proposed location. Integrated Petrel workflows have enabled an iterative de-risking of the fault seal with
calculations of fault throw and displacement juxtapositioning, shale gouge ratio and clay smear, coupled with the
uncertainty analysis of the resultant reservoir volumetrics.

74

EFFICIENT ASSESSMENT WORKFLOWS FOR SHALE OIL & GAS RESOURCES

B. Wygrala (Schlumberger, Germany)

Objective assessments of unconventional oil and gas resources in shale plays are difficult not only due to sparse
data, but also due to the lack of generally accepted assessment methodologies and to often simplistic assumptions
concerning the geological factors which control resource properties and richness. With the industry now
increasingly interested in shale oil, scientifically more rigorous applications have become critical, for example to
more clearly differentiate between gas and oil prospectivity and properties. However, at the same time,
assessment procedures need to be more efficient due to the resource contraints which are an inherent feature of
the E&P industry.
The principle limitations of resource assessments are due to two key factors: a) lack of direct connections to the
geology of the area of interest, and b) lack of auditability of the underlying data and methodology. Based on longterm and close cooperation with E&P companies, national hydrocarbon authorities and geologic surveys, we have
developed resource assessment workflows which are: scientifically more rigorous; enable all of the data and the
entire assessment process to be fully audited; ensure direct and efficient connections with the underlying G&G
data; and which ensure that the controlling geological processes are taken into account.
The methodology is particularly suited to unconventional resources. Whether a target is more likely to contain oil
or gas and what their properties are is a function of the entire geologic history which controls petroleum
generation, expulsion vs. retention and the resulting petroleum quantities and qualities. An exploration case
history for unconventionals from an Arctic region in North America will be used to illustrate the workflows.

75

INTEGRATING SEISMIC TECHNOLOGY & GEOLOGIC THINKING USING GEOFRAME AND PETREL
IN THE EARLY EVALUATION OF RESERVOIR POTENTIALCASE STUDY ON THE JZ20-A
STRUCTURE IN BOHAI BAY, CHINA
D. Zhou, Z. Zhang & J. Wang (CNOOC, China)

Integration of seismic technology & geologic concepts is a continuing trend in the development of seismic
interpretation techniques. Its core idea is based on the close integration of seismic interpretation and geologic
concepts which leverage the geological model to constraint the uncertainties of seismic, and leverage the extent of
seismic data to constraint the sparseness of geologic information.
In this paper, we take the JZ20 - A structure in Bohai Bay as an example, describing the research on detailed trap
description and reservoir prediction. We analyse the use of integrated seismology & geology technology in the
Early Evaluation of its reservoir potential. We find that an emphasis on the close integration of seismic technology
and geologic thinking is the key to accurately depict geologic bodies. We draw conclusions of the extended value of
these techniques to further studies.

76

PETROLEUM
ENGINEERING

77

PELICAN LAKE SURVEILLANCE: POLYMER FLOODED HEAVY OIL RESERVOIR

C. Alpaugh (Cenovus Energy, Canada) & M. Mohajer (Schlumberger)

Pelican Lake is one of the largest polymer flooded fields in the world, producing about 63,000 barrels of oil per day
from the Wabiskaw formation in the Athabasca oil sands region of northern Alberta, Canada. The operational focus
of this field, which has been developed with long-reach horizontal wells, is on increasing heavy oil production using
infill drilling and advanced oil recovery techniques. The original oil in place is estimated to exceed 6 billion barrels.
Although the majority of fields in this region are successfully produced by steam-assisted gravity drainage, Pelican
Lake presents a greater challenge technologically because of the unique characteristics of the reservoir; i.e.,
average net pay of 9 feet, high permeability, and viscosities ranging from 800 to 80,000 centipoise. The field is
being produced by a combination of waterflood and polymer flood programs.
As a result of the high number of wells (~2,200), massive amount of available data, and high level of activities (up
to 300 wells drilled per year), data-driven techniques are used by the companies operating in this field to monitor
production, choose infill drilling locations, forecast rates, and analyze performance.
In this paper, using public data, we review the development history of the field, including the pay and viscosity of
each area of the field, the various well spacings and polymer locations that have been tried, and success to date.
We also comment on the effect of the polymer on the mobility ratio. Based on our observations of this public data,
we demonstrate the viability of conventional waterflood surveillance techniques, propose additional techniques,
and show how they can be used to meet the unique requirements of this field.

78

DELIVERING WELL PERFORMANCE WORKFLOWS IN PETREL

M. Anderson (Schlumberger, USA)

The Petrel E&P platform is in constant evolution. By merging production workflows usually performed outside
Petrel with existing G&G and Reservoir Engineering (RE) workflows, Petrel enforces the multidisciplinary
approach taken within the oil industry. The result is that production geologists, reservoir engineers and production
engineers will be able to share reservoir and production data and models across the full span of their workflows
using Petrel. Ultimately, this will lead to more informed and faster decisions before, during and after the well life
cycle. The vision of the Petrel Production Engineering (PE) project is to create a suite of tools in Petrel powered
by production. Key to the success of this new PE capability is to coordinate the delivery of functionality, which is
used in both production and reservoir engineering workflows. We will, therefore, build upon the solid RE concepts
such as fluid models and well completions to deliver complementary workflows, such as VFP table creation, nodal
analysis and the import of production data and completions information from OFM.

79

AN INTEGRATED PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT APPROACH FOR IMPROVED BUSINESS

PERFORMANCE
M. Back (Schlumberger, USA)

This presentation will cover a business planning solution recently deployed using Merak Peep, Capital Planning and
esi.manage - from 3esi - at an independent North American oil and gas company. It will show how an integrated
portfolio management and operational planning approach can be used at each stage in the asset life cycle for
improved long term strategic and shorter term business planning. It will focus on what the critical business issues
are, how to model the corporate long term direction through measurable goals and key performance indicators,
and what key objectives companies pursue when allocating and budgeting capital. The presentation will highlight
some specific examples of ways in which portfolio management can resolve operational issues such as rig
scheduling optimization, facility constraints and asset performance monitoring while maintaining the golden
thread connection to the long-term strategy.

80

OPTIMIZATION OF DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATION OF UNDERGROUND GAS STORAGES

WITH STATIC AND DYNAMIC MODELING
F. Bhm, J. Hllwart, A Salzwedel and H. Matthiesen (EON Gas Storage, Germany)

E:ON Gas Storage is using Petrel* and ECLIPSE* in an integrated workflow in the planning and operation phase of
underground gas storages. This applies for depleted gas fields/aquifers as well as salt caverns. Comparable with
the E&P industry standard, static models are being built based on the available subsurface data (seismic, wells
etc). Special features have been implemented, such as the positioning and the dimensions of salt caverns in the
salt layers. But mainly depleted gas fields are modeled and handed over to dynamic modeling. Dynamic modeling
after the history matching is used to optimize the operations of the storage cycles (injection- and withdrawal
capacity) as well as the cushion gas/working gas ratio. With the integrated workflow and the modeling economic
efficiency of underground gas storages is maximized.

81

HYDROCARBON RESERVES INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN TNK-BP

E. Botvinovskiy (TNK-BP, Russia)

Summary
Implementation of a Hydrocarbon Reserves Information Management System is based on Merak software. The
system allows TNK-BP to estimate and manage hydrocarbon reserves in terms of International (SEC/PRMS) and
Russian national reserves classification systems. The system is a foundation element to making efficient long-term
investment decisions.
Project background
The estimation, tracking and management of reserves and resources are fundamental to oil and gas companys
operations. All oil and gas companies that are traded on New York or London Stock Exchange have to estimate and
report their reserves in accordance to US Security Exchange Commission (SEC) or Petroleum Resources
Management System (PRMS) guidances. There is a common worldwide practice that an external auditor performs
the SEC/PRMS reserves estimation and provides their customers with reserves reports which are then submitted
to NYSE or LSE. Organized in this way the SEC/PRMS reserves estimation process can look like a black box from
customers side.
The main objective of the project was:
Implement reserves estimation practice into the companys production subsidiaries and involve production
unit engineers in the process;
Create an effective reserves management system;
Determine the long-term strategy of production unit development;
Project objective
This joint reserves storage system allows TNK-BP to track both Russian reserves for government authorities and
SEC/PRMS reserves for investors into a single information environment. This practice gives an advantage to
compare reserves at any company level and indentify more profitable assets for long-term planning. Key elements
of projects scope are as follows:
1. Uploading historical reserves data into the database and creation of an extensive reporting system for both
SEC/PRMS and Russian reserves classification systems;
2. Estimation of SEC/PRMS reserves for 2010 (economically profitable oil and gas volumes) the result of joint
work by both TNK-BP and SIS specialists;
3. Development of custom solutions for reserves engineering which speed up the reserves estimation process;
4. Development of business processes and recommendations for the TNK-BP corporate workflow;
Project results and benefits
The reserves management system will make SEC/PRMS reserves estimation process absolutely transparent for
TNK-BP. The clear understanding of real oil and gas assets value will allow TNK-BPs top management to improve
long-term decision making. The value of proved P90 (and also probable P50 and possible P10) reserves has
the direct impact on market value of a company. It is then natural to expect that the appropriate use of reserves
management will potentially lead to increasing the Companys market value.
Involvement of the production unit engineers into the reserves estimation process allows an increase in the
overall level of understanding and avoids any inconsistency.
For both SIS and TNK-BP the scale and innovation of this project have created new relationships. These
relationships have created a new level of confidence and collaboration that were proven by joint project
presentations at the SPE Reserves Workshop (March 2011) and the SIS User Conferences (April 2011/October
2011). This knowledge sharing has lead to new business opportunities for TNK-BP. SIS has engaged other
companies to implement similar systems for SEC/PRMS and Russian reserves estimation.
82

OFM 2012 - A NEW GENERATION

A. Brown (Schlumberger, USA)

OFM 2012 introduces a full redesign of the user interface using the latest Microsoft Ribbon technologies providing
not only a new modern look, but also setting the foundation for significant enhancements in usability. The new
user interface will enable users to: easily discover previously hard to find functionality; improve the productivity of
the application for new and existing users alike; learn and use the application faster than ever before for both new
and occasional users.
We are also proud to introduce the new Solutions Catalog powered by the OFM data dictionary. OFM will now
come with pre-prepared solutions and analysis, including charts, plots and maps that a user can select from for
waterflood, SAGD, unconventional, WAG, CBM, shale, conventional oil/gas and many more workflows. This
expands on OFMs flexibility and allows users to build simple and advanced surveillance and analysis without the
complexity of creating these solutions from scratch. The user or company can also supplement the Catalog with
their own local best practices and share them as existing Catalog items. This powerful addition to OFM allows for
the replication of expertise from your best engineers, which can then be available across the organization. We
have also incorporated the latest GIS based technology to give the user a more powerful alternative to the current
base map. OFMs GIS can now connect to GIS servers and display available GIS layers providing users of OFM a
greater understanding of contextual information about the asset and its surroundings.

83

OFM 2012 - A NEW GENERATION DEMONSTRATION

A. Brown (Schlumberger, USA)

In this session we will give a live software demo to provide an overview of the exciting new capabilities in OFM
2012.

84

AN EXPERIMENTAL BENCHMARK BETWEEN STATE OF THE ART AND NEXT-GENERATION

SIMULATORS: END USERS VIEWPOINT
A.Cominelli (ENI, Italy)

State of the art simulators such as ECLIPSE 100 and 300 have been continuously developing over the last 30 years
to efficiently model the fluid flow in mildly heterogeneous reservoirs. These have been optimized to efficiently
solve models with approximately regular corner point geometry grids. The computational engine was designed for
serial computing and often does not benefit from parallel simulation. While these simulators are more than fit for
purpose for most of the reservoir studies, the modelling of complex reservoirs featuring strong heterogeneity, dual
properties media embedding significant discontinues changes in hydrocarbon composition distribution and in the
reservoir geometries could be a challenging task from computational standpoint. To that extent several
formulation of Next generation simulators have been proposed in the past, but showed very limited success in
solving those class of problems. The development of INTERSECT (IX) as a possible alternative to ECLIPSE for solving
challenging reservoir simulation models has therefore generated interest and raised expectations.
During the summer of 2011 Eni has elected to benchmark INTERSECT against ECLIPSE 100 and 300. The evaluation
was aimed at identifying challenging cases where INTERSECT could be used effectively to achieve real business
value. The benchmark process was based on existing ECLIPSE simulation decks, identified as the most challenging
reservoir models within Eni from computational standpoint. Those models were migrated to INTERSECT data sets
using the 2011.1 beta Migrator.
While the Migrator convert the majority of ECLIPSE data set, some keywords are either not migrated or only partly
migrated which can be a challenge.
The test-cases included:
A dual-porosity/dual permeability (DPDK) compositional model,
Multi-million cells black-oil models,
Highly heterogeneous faulted black-oil models.
The evaluation was based on both computational efficiency and solving the engineering problem performance.
From the engineering standpoint a key issue was the need to replicate as closely as possible some of the invoked
ECLIPSE functionalities and in particular of interest the development strategy. The computational efficiency was
analysed through performance improvement from parallel scalability and runtime speedup.
The benchmark gave the following results:
Whereas ECLIPSE has shown difficulties simulating some reservoir dynamic behaviour, INTERSECT provided
significant performance benefits, often making possible simulations that were not previously practicable;
INTERSECT non linear convergence criteria are often stringent and tight when compared to ECLIPSE 100 and
there is often room for relaxation which can provide further performance improvements;
The domain partition is not optimal for DPDK models and impact the runtime scalability
In INTERSECT some key functionality provided by ECLIPSE is not currently available, e.g. the miscibility
modelling,
The migration process could be time consuming to mimic the Eclipse functionalities as it may lose some of the
logic implemented in existing ECLIPSE development strategy model
Even though still lot of work needed to be done to meet the ECLIPSE engineering standards, the improvements in
simulation performances for critical and complex company fields were remarkable and in one case beyond our
expectations. Furthermore, INTERSECT embed great potential for solving several class of challenging problems that
current available solution cannot solve or struggle to solve at best.

85

ENTERPRISE PLANNING - MAXIMIZING CORPORATE PERFORMANCE WITH MERAK

D. DSouza (Schlumberger, USA)

To remain competitive in todays business environment, companies are increasingly challenged to make good
decisions by maximizing insight into production, capital expenditures and financial performance. The ability to
make solid strategic decisions by leveraging value from vast amounts of data is driven by access to the right
information, at the right time, in the right context. Business Intelligence helps organizations turn raw data into
useful and meaningful knowledge which enables more timely and better informed decisions.
During this interactive session, we will demonstrate how Merak Enterprise Planning can be used to enhance a
companys business intelligence initiative. There will be a specific focus on addressing complex questions across
multiple segments of the organization Production, Economics, etc. Audience members will be encouraged to
share their challenges, insights and experience.

86

A CONCEPTUAL COMPOSITIONAL-THERMAL SECTOR MODEL FOR SUPERCRITICAL CO2

INJECTION IN NORTH KUWAIT ASSETS
M. A. Einstein (KOC, Kuwait)

A conceptual fully compositional thermal sector model is being evaluated as a novel application of Supercritical
CO2 injection in North Kuwait Assets. The main target for this novel technique is to increase final recovery by
promoting both the revaporization of heavy ends from the liquid banks into the upper gas phase and by the
natural swelling effect of CO2 on liquid hydrocarbons.
Main acting mechanisms playing an important role in this process are the removal of liquid banks and the
acceleration of gas revaporization into the upper gas phase during reservoir injection and production processes.
This new technique is considered in addition a Green Technology as it favors CO2 entrapment and sequestration
hence adding strategic value to the corporation.
For gas condensate reservoirs, as pressure depletes close to, or below to the dew point, a number of
thermodynamic events take place at interstitial level depending on the physicochemical description of the fluid.
These events turn more critical as the produced streamlines approach the sand face inwards from the external
radius of the reservoir.
As a function of the available mole fraction of the asphaltenic compounds dissolved into the native fluid,
accelerated asphaltene deposition may occur in the neighboring region of the well due to increasing drawdown
imposed during normal production. Similarly, as pressure depletes near the wellbore, liquid dropout may also
occur hence imposing a complex problem of relative permeability variation as well therefore impacting well
productivity or deliverability and finally ultimate recovery.
The need for properly addressing and describing these events in reservoir management is widely recognized. For
gas condensate reservoirs, besides pressure and temperature, fluid properties also vary with radial distance to the
wellbore as Joule Thompson effect turns critical in this regions imposing sudden cooling due to adiabatic gas
expansion. For this conceptual model, the need for Local Grid Refinement (LGR) techniques is recognized to
properly describe these fluid flow phenomena.

87

EOR

A.Fil (Total, France)

TOTAL has been a power user of ECLIPSE simulators suites since the mid 90s and have been a major influence on
the direction taken for modelling EOR processes. This presentation outlines the functionality and workflow
practises currently employed by TOTAL to undertake a polymer flooding project.
TOTAL has used ECLIPSE extensively to match lab data, field application and perform studies on sensitivities of the
geological setting as well as the design of the polymer flood itself.
These workflows initially match laboratory data to parameters such as relative permeability, adsorption, residual
resistance factor, bypassed pore volume whilst on the field scale well injectivities or adjustments to the geological
model are undertaken.
Aspects of importance such as rock dilation, non-Newtonian flows and best practises are discussed in addition to
the suggestions for further developments that would aid TOTAL in better understanding the uncertainty and
include advances in polymer design.

88

PETREL RESERVOIR ENGINEERING - 2012 RELEASE HIGHLIGHTS

K. Fletcher (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

The Petrel E&P software platform enables experts to combine the richness of their domain-specific information
and knowledge into a single, model-centric, subsurface representation, while also delivering a fully featured
reservoir simulation pre- and post-processing environment with guided engineering workflows. In this
presentation we will preview the highlights of the 2012.1 release including the new simulation results analysis
tools, the assisted history matching workflows, and the new run management tools for remote simulations.

89

NEW OFM FUNCTIONALITY: CUT-CUM METHOD

L. Frazer (ConocoPhillips, Norway)

Traditional decline curve analysis relies on curve fitting the primary producing phase while excluding other phases.
Both the Arps and Modern decline models consider only one producing stream when forecasting future rates.
Although single phase trending is appropriate in many cases, incorporating other streams can improve forecast
reliability. In addition, the ability to predict water and total liquid production can be leveraging from an economic
and facility handling standpoint. Commercial multiphase decline analysis software has generally not been readily
available. ConocoPhillips therefore worked with Schlumberger to incorporate this approach within OilField
Manager (OFM) using a user function. OFM can now forecast oil rates using the log(WOR) versus cumulative
production and the liquid rate versus time trends. This log(water cut/oil cut) versus cumulative oil forecasting
approach is referred to as the Cut-Cum Method. Information is presented on the theoretical background of the
approach and the associated iterative solution method employed within OFM. Examples from the Ekofisk Field are
also presented that illustrate how the Cut-Cum Method can generate reasonable oil rate forecasts in cases that are
not suitable for standard Arps decline curve analysis.

90

AN INTEGRATED SOLUTION TO DEVELOP UNCONVENTIONAL RESERVOIRS WITH MULTIDOMAIN DATA AND MODELING
U. Ganguly (Schlumberger, USA)

Multistage stimulation has become a norm for unconventional reservoir development; however, many challenges
remain in optimizing the recovery in these plays. How many treatment stages and where along the wellbore
should they be placed to optimally exploit the hydrocarbon reserves? How can engineers best select perforation
cluster locations and spacing? These are critical and difficult questions to answer when designing completions for
unconventional reservoirs, such as tight sand and shale. Thus far the tedious manual approach and absence of a
single integrated solution to properly account for the rock heterogeneity has been an impediment to optimal
design. This has resulted in the non-optimal practice of geometrically dividing wellbores into stages and evenly
spacing the perforation clusters.
Addressing the challenges of unconventional reservoir development, this presentation will show how - using a
Petrel based software solution - microseismic measurements incorporated with geological and geophysical data to
calibrate fracture geometry, and rigorous simulation modeling capabilities for accurate production evaluation
enable optimal multistage completion and stimulation. Application of the models and workflows is also illustrated
in field experiences from unconventional reservoirs

91

DESIGN, OPTIMIZATION AND UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX AND MAXIMUM

RESERVOIR CONTACT WELLS USING ECLIPSE AND PETREL
D. Gunasekera (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

In the constant struggle to replace reserves operators must tackle increasingly complex environments. In these
challenging reservoirs, you can increase recovery and improve well performance using complex wells with
multilaterals and inflow control devices. With ECLIPSE reservoir simulation software and the Petrel E&P software
platform, you can have confidence in your well design and perform robust simulations of the complex well
topology often required in these cases. Using the advanced multi-segment-well (MSW) model you can accurately
simulate multi-branched wells and correctly describe multiphase flow in the wellbore. Placement and design of
these wells needs to address the reservoir uncertainties. Therefore, improved risk assessment is increasingly
important. Petrel software enables you to evaluate the impact of uncertainty on well placement and completion
strategies. Capabilities include sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, optimization functions for well placement,
completion design, and recovery forecast optimization.

92

THE HESS ECONOMIC SUITE A CONTINUOUSLY EVOLVING CLOUD BASED ECONOMIC

SOLUTION
B. Gurfinkel (Hess, USA)

At Hess Corporation, we have been using Merak Peep* with FML (Fiscal Model Library) as our core economic
engine since 2007. One year after the implementation, we developed our first Merak Peep extension called The
Budget Tool that optimized the workflow for the capture of project level production, capital expenditure, reserve
migration, and economic data for all our Production and Developments assets.
Since then, the need for economic services has grown dramatically within Hess: we now self certify reserves, the
number of wells to be evaluated has increased in tandem with our unconventional portfolio, and senior
management now requires more probabilistic based analysis.
In order to meet this growing demand, we designed and implemented the Hess Economic Suite in 2011.
This presentation describes the principles that were used for the design and development of the Hess Economic
Suite. These principles, many of them inspired by web and smart phone application development, make it easier
to continuously expand and improve the suite functionality, thus fulfilling an ever evolving set of user
requirements.
Finally, we will explain how the "cloud" based platform that the Hess Economic Suite uses, reduces calculation
and response time by running, when possible, economic cases in parallel.

93

BG GROUPS INITIAL EXPERIENCES WITH INTERSECT

S. Griffiths (BG Group, UK)

Following the commercial release of Intersect, in Q4 2011 BG Group began trialling this new simulation engine on a
variety of technically challenging reservoir modelling problems, the early indications of which will be discussed
during this presentation.

94

INTERSECT CHEVRON DEPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE & FUTURE PROMISE

J. Kikani (Chevron, USA)

INTERSECT - The next generation reservoir simulator, developed jointly by Chevron and Schlumberger has reached
a critical milestone of commerciality. Modern software technologies and development methodologies have been
used that potentially allow this to become an extensible, model-shareable product with the ability to link with
rd
framework solutions as well as other critical 3 party workflow products that oil companies need.
Chevron has an active deployment and testing program underway for some years and has acquired a fair amount
of experience. This paper will present Chevrons experience in deploying INTERSECT within our Business Units,
highlighting some of the critical capabilities for wide-ranging use as well as key differentiating features relative to
current legacy products.

95

A CASE OF INTEGRATED STUDY WITH PETREL AND ECLIPSE

W. Liu (CNOOC, China)

When an oilfield development enters a high water cut period, production declines sharply, that makes the oilfield
development encounter bottleneck. In order to achieve a breakthrough by continuing to enhance the oil recovery,
detailed geological and reservoir engineering study is needed as guidance for feasible ODP (Oilfield Development
Plan) design.
This presentation takes an oilfield located in the South China Sea as an example, and demonstrates the application
of integrated reservoir description workflow in Petrel and ECLIPSE.
A bottleneck has been encountered with production declining sharply due to the field entering a high water cut
period. In order to achieve a breakthrough of continuing to enhance oil recovery, a detailed geological and
reservoir engineering study is needed as guidance for feasible ODP (Oilfield Development Plan) design.
A number of difficulties was faced during the study, including a highly heterogeneous reservoir with unstable &
discontinuous interlaying, which made building an accurate water saturation model very difficultly. Furthermore,
multiple reservoirs, highly deviated wells, lack of PLT data and complicated well conditions resulted in very high
uncertainty on the residual oil distribution.
A series of methods were used to solve these difficulties:
(1) Detailed stratigraphic correlation to describe inner-reservoir architecture.
(2) Different methods were used together with J functions to build water saturation model.
(3) Geological and reservoir engineering work was integrated to optimize the geo-model, so as to reduce
uncertainty.
(4) Saturation matching was done to get a reasonable initial fluid distribution and configure the saturation
difference between model and log data in well locations.
(5) Using Petrel RE software, the saturation matching pattern of each reservoir was made, based on production
rate splitting adjustments.
Overall, based on detailed geological modeling and numerical reservoir simulation study, a more accurate reservoir
description and understanding of the remaining oil distribution were achieved, which builds a firm basis for good
oilfield development.

96

MERAK - ENSURING BETTER INVESTMENT DECISIONS

R. Lobrecht (Schlumberger, USA)

Oil and gas companies have to make strategic investment decisions on new acquisition, exploration, and
development opportunities around the world to compete in todays challenging business environment. Those who
can manage risk while navigating through the flood of incoherent information to identify trends, uncover new
opportunities and act quickly will make better business decisions and gain a competitive advantage and ultimately
drive shareholder value.
Solutions using Merak technologies enable:
Economists and engineers to incorporate risk and uncertainty in economic evaluations for exploration,
field development planning, investment decisions, acquisition and divestiture, annual planning cycles, and
reserves evaluations.
Reservoir engineers and reserves managers to aggregate technical and economic reserve estimates.
Business planners to optimize a portfolio of opportunities to meet asset, business unit, or corporate goals.
Technical experts, asset managers and executives to develop a common understanding of the plan,
compare alternatives, and benchmark against actuals.
This talk will provide an overview of Merak solutions, and will highlight the latest capabilities and benefits.

97

INTEGRATED ASSET MODELER CASE STUDY VERACRUZ ASSET

J.F Martinez, A. Solis Franco & R. Ramirez (PEMEX, Mexico)

The integrated asset modeling methodology has been in use in the Veracruz asset of PEMEX since the end of 2009.
In the Cauchy dry gas field, for example, several scenarios have been run and analyzed that assess the impact of
the reservoir dynamics on well production and the networks, and vice versa. The impact of the compression
systems, the water management, and the various restrictions have been assessed and quantified in order to avoid
liquid loading, as well as to perform optimization. This has helped the asset define and implement an optimum
exploitation plan for the field.
Starting December 2010 new fields have been put in production in the asset, such as Kabuki-Aris. For these fields
the integrated asset modeling methodology has allowed to perform a timely and effective planning of the short
term and medium term field development strategy. The objective is to optimize hydrocarbon recovery and to
improve the management of the produced fluids through the integration of various workflows from the
operations, engineering and productivity departments in charge of the fields.
The specific work being presented at the SIS Forum had the objective of generating scenarios and production
forecasts for the joint development of the Kabuki-Aris and Cauchy fields utilizing integrated asset modeling, and to
define and evaluate the optimum development scenarios from the technical and economical points of view. Some
of the scenarios considered were related to primary recovery with natural flow and recovery with help of
compression and pumping. The observed benefits include:
Uncertainty reduction for the evaluation of development scenarios
Accurate prediction of well potential and production forecasts
Identification of bottlenecks and opportunities for optimization
Utilization of the integrated asset model in the monitoring of daily operating conditions of the wells and
networks, helping the timely detection of anomalies and effective identification of improvement opportunities

98

MODELLING OF GEOTHERMAL WELL STIMULATION IN CARBONATES USING PETREL AND

ECLIPSE
L. Matthes (Geoenergie Bayern, Germany)

A fundamental aspect for high flow rates in geothermal wells is an optimized hydraulic connection to the reservoir.
Stimulations by acidizing enhance flowpaths between reservoir and wellbore. ECLIPSE and Petrel can be used to
simulate the radius of investigation during acidizing for successful well stimulation in carbonates.

99

SEVERNEFTEGAZPROM: USAGE OF PIPESIM HELPS TO DECREASE METHANOL USAGE

S. Medvedev (Severneftegazprom, Russia)

Joint stock company Severneftegazprom with stakeholders Gazprom, BASF and E.On is a base supplier of natural
gas for first stage of Nord Stream global pipeline project, which was launched in 2011. Company performs
production from Cenomanian reservoir of Yuzhno-Russkoe field. Started in 2007, Company produces 25 billion m3
of natural gas /year.
Extraction and transportation of gas faces problem of gas hydrates formation. Gas hydrates may cause flow issues
and affect operations of company.
Severneftegazprom routinely injects methanol to pipelines and every well annulus in order to eliminate gas
hydrates. In addition to significant cost of methanol itself, there are complications and extra costs related to
transporting this chemical to the field by seasonal ferry.
To achieve field development cost-effectiveness, the company requires accurate well models, correctly tuned gas
production network models, and the ability to determine which wells do require methanol injection.
In 2010 Severneftegazprom selected Schlumberger PIPESIM solution for automated field development analysis and
initiated joint project with Schlumberger to prepare and to analyse field model in PIPESIM.
PIPESIM software is a steady-state, multiphase flow simulator for the design and diagnostic analysis of oil and gas
production systems. PIPESIM software tools model multiphase flow from the reservoir to the wellhead. PIPESIM
software also analyzes flowline and surface facility performance to generate comprehensive production system
analysis. Usage of simulation approach helped to optimize well regimes, to decrease daily volumes of methanol
injection, to improve quality control of measured data from wells and well test results.
The system was used to build models of all the production wells and the pipeline network, from downhole to
processing plant input. Data sources included well test results, pressure/volume/temperature data, daily
production reports, and data from the SCADA system. Results of checking model forecasts versus fact data
determined that the model was of excellent quality.
Using the proven field model, a joint team of Severneftegazprom and Schlumberger engineers analyzed well
operating regimes to estimate the rate of gas hydrate formation. The operations detected more than 100 wells
with hydrate-free regimes, which resulted in a series of workovers to optimize methanol use. Overall methanol use
was decreased by 30%several hundred tons between April and September 2010.
As next steps, field model in PIPESIM will be used as part of integrated model of the field (from reservoir to
processing facilities). The integrated model will help to find optimal ways of long-term gas production network
management. Using existing reservoir model in ECLIPSE* combined with gas producing network model in PIPESIM*
via Avocet IAM* technology will allow Severneftegazprom to make precise forecasts, calculate different field
development scenarios in fast way, optimize well operating regimes, decreasing OPEX and CAPEX, and prolonging
the life cycle of the field.

100

RESERVOIR ENGINEERING PRODUCT STRATEGY

T. Miller (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

There are three product lines in the Schlumberger reservoir engineering software portfolioECLIPSE industryreference reservoir simulator, INTERSECT next-generation reservoir simulator, and the Petrel E&P platform for
reservoir engineering. This presentation will provide an overview of these technologies, the strategy for their
evolution, and the reservoir engineering themes and challenges addressed by them.

101

MAXIMIZING HEAVY OIL RECOVERY WITH ECLIPSE AND PETREL

P. Naccache (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

Heavy oils are set to form a larger proportion of our energy supply, with predicted reserves far out numbering
conventional oil stocks. For many operators, heavy oil fields will form an important part of their asset portfolio and
help with their reserves-replacement ratio. This presentation describes the background and challenges for heavy
oils, and the capabilities of ECLIPSE and Petrel that can help in planning recovery from such fields.

102

SAGD RESERVOIR MANAGEMENT USING ECLIPSE THERMAL AND PETREL RESERVOIR

ENGINEERING

P. Naccache (Schlumberger, United Kingdom), M. Picone, H. Agustsson and A. Kjosavik (Statoil, Norway)
Schlumberger Technical Services needed to evaluate the capabilities of ECLIPSE and Petrel to design a SAGD
process for extra heavy oil recovery. Statoil generously provided field data for the study from one of their Canadian
oil sands assets. The field is situated in the Athabasca region of Canada and covers an area over 2 km2 with a
reservoir thickness of 40 m and is very heterogeneous with several shale barriers. This heterogeneity makes it
critical to plan the well placement and reservoir production strategy; the steam chamber growth and therefore
efficiency of SAGD is limited and becomes uneconomical if not adequately managed. To help address some of the
critical decision parameters, a project was undertaken to set up:
1) A full field reservoir simulation model
2) Advanced completion designs
The full field reservoir simulation model includes 24 well pairs, with a fine resolution grid totaling 4 million cells.
This scale of a SAGD thermal model has not been seen in published literature and is a significant step towards
enabling the client to investigate questions about well lengths and inter-pair spacing in the presence of geological
diversity. The essence is to quantify and manage the heat injection and propagation within the reservoir, as heat is
the major cost in a SAGD project.
Steam recirculation during the pre-heat period is a common scenario. With ECLIPSE Thermal and Petrel RE the
reservoir engineer has unprecedented control to vary the volumetric steam injection rate and injection time to
maximize the NPV.
The Statoil configuration plan for the wells includes advanced completion equipment such as dual tubing strings,
ESP pumps, steam splitter and flow diverter devices. The ability to explicitly model such detailed wellbore design in
a dynamic simulation is treading new territory. The well configuration design (location and number of downhole
devices, port sizes, tubing diameters) and well injection/production controls (steam injection rate, producer
subcool) can be investigated to determine the appropriate operational parameters that improve the steam
chamber distribution and increases oil recovery.
Using an integrated environment like Petrel allows the use of Uncertainty & Optimization algorithms to
automatically run large number of simulation cases to find the optimum answer, which is a potential next step for
this project.

103

MOVING TOWARDS DYNAMIC PLANNING

T.N. Nasaruddin & R. Hashim (Petronas, Malaysia)

The E&P Strategy and Portfolio group (EPSP) is responsible for the strategic plans of the entire E&P business for
Petronas. As such, one of their primary activities is to efficiently track and acquire exploration, development and
production plans which are generated by the various business units, sectors and divisions that are responsible for
Petronass E&P businesses.
EPSPs biggest challenge is be able to obtain accurate plans from the hundreds of project and planning teams in
Petronas at any time. Exploration, development and production plans that are generated by an asset team
typically ends up distorted if they reach the hands of EPSP, which sits right on top of the Petronas organizational
hierarchy. And this could be due to a multitude of reasons, ranging from manual data entry errors to lack of data
ownership. Some of these issues, which are seen trivial, have huge impact to the Petronas organization moving
forward. In order for EPSP to be able to address these challenges, they have put together a short term and long
term plan.
The short term plan is to automate the extraction of data from Petronass business units planning systems. The
solution, which leveraged on the Schlumberger software technologies that are currently being used in Petronas, is
called the EPSP Bridge as its main function is to bridge planning systems from Petronass business units and
automate wherever possible the transfer and handling of data. The short term solution enabled what was
seemingly impossible due to the large amount data sets generated by Petronass various business units, sectors
and divisions and brought quick wins to EPSP as now they are able to quickly gain visibility on Petronass plans
generated from across the entire organization. However this is not end-goal, hence the solution is short term.
As the short term solution only bridges existing planning systems in Petronas, it is only as good as these systems.
Data integrity is still an issue as there is virtually no control of how data evolves from one version to another.
Production forecasts that end up on EPSPs hands are completely different than their original versions that were
generated by the asset teams.
The other limitation is exploration, development and production plans are available only once a year during the
Petronas planning cycle. EPSP requires that these plans must be continuously be updated and refined by all assets
teams across Petronas and the integrity of these plans must be preserved when they evolve to become sanctioned
plans and subsequently executed projects. In addition, EPSP must have the ability to assess the status of all the
plans and projects from Petronass business units at any given time. In short, EPSPs the long term plan and
ultimate goal is to enable what the industry has termed Dynamic Planning for Petronas.
Petronas is currently working with Schlumberger to embark on an initiative to expand the EPSP Bridge and further
enhance the current Schlumberger software technology footprint with the objective of supporting Dynamic
Planning for Petronas.

104

FEEDBACK FROM AN EARLY INTERSECT ADOPTER

E. Obi (TOTAL, France)

TOTAL has been a power user of ECLIPSE simulator suites since the mid 90s and has been involved in the
development of the thermal version of INTERSECT* (HOT) as Schlumberger and Chevron partner. This gave Total
the avenue to be early adopters of the INTERSECT simulator performing in-house testing of pre-beta, beta and
commercial versions. This presentation highlights the results from six full Field cases that were run using the
2011.1 release which brought additional options necessary to run our target models (API tracking and coupling).
1.

A black-oil model with API tracking, containing 1.2 million active cells. This model illustrates the ability of
INTERSECT to run on a fine grid (40m by 40m by 1m cell size), avoiding the painful process of up-scaling.
Performance results from a 16-processsor run shows IX is about 40 times faster than the equivalent Eclipse
100 case.

2.

Two complex reservoirs containing hundreds of stair-steps faults resulting in the generation of several NNCs.
ECLIPSE struggles with this model and only runs satisfactorily if MINPV option is used. The use of MINPV
disables several grid cells impairing an accurate representation of the flow paths in the reservoir. The fluid is
modelled in black-oil with API tracking. Both reservoirs were run in INTERSECT as standalone and coupled flow
models.

3.

Two compositional models, previously ran using E300 in a merged grid, are run using Intersect as two
standalone grids coupled together. On reservoir A, pressure maintenance by water injection is controlled by
GPMAINT. The gas produced from both reservoirs A and D are injected into reservoir D.

4.

A deep-offshore field with 3 reservoirs producing into a common surface network has been modelled either
with a common merged grid or with 3 standalone grids coupled together using reservoir coupling. In both
cases, the surface network is simulated using GAP and INTERSECT-FM link.

5.

A very large multi-million cell model for a huge gas condensate field has been run using both black-oil and
compositional PVT to push the limits of both ECLIPSE and INTERSECT on HPC machines.

6.

A 9-pairs SAGD or 2-pair steam-gas co-injection case illustrates the benefits of INTERSECT for simulating large
and complex thermal models.

105

REPRESENTATIVE RESERVOIR MODELING OF PEMEX FIELDS USING INTERSECT

R. Ortega, J. M. Amador, O. Morn, F. Garca, A. Galindo, F. Rodrguez de la Garza (PEMEX, Mexico)

Currently, PEMEX E&P faces demanding challenges in reservoir dynamic modeling for their strategic fields. Todays
reservoir dynamic modeling is oriented to build models with much greater detail, and thousands to million active
cells, to take advantage of the geologic characterization to support field development planning for each
investment project.
While is required more detail in the reservoir characterization, the dimensions of the numerical models can grow
considerably (to millions of cells) with the consequent impact on the performance degradation when using
common commercial reservoir simulators.
INTERSECT, the Schlumberger next-generation simulator, has functionalities that allow developing workflows
involving giant models, special gridding features as coarsening and local grid refinements, structured and
unstructured grids and complex well geometries, as well as much better computational performance and
scalability to generate multimillion cells reservoir models of highly heterogeneous fields.
In this regard, PEMEX Reservoir Modeling Group joined the SIS Technology Adoption Program of INTERSECT, in
order to gain knowledge over this technology and confirm the potential benefits it can provide to the current
challenging scenario for reservoir modeling.
This document shares the work carried out over two PEMEX fields, CHAC and JUJO-TECOMINOACAN, into an
evaluation framework with the main objective of accurately represent fluid contacts movement, and near wellbore
effects like breakthrough of gas and/or water using detailed reservoir models of multimillion cells with INTERSECT.
Overall performance for CHAC superfine (13 MM cells) model, yield speed-up values up to 15, for 248 processors.
Unstructured LGR around the wells provided by Petrel RE and INTERSECT coupled with higher computational
efficiency allowed to predict accurately near-well flows. During the evaluation was also confirmed that there is
more work to do over JUJO-TECOMINOACAN model although general results showed potential benefits of
INTERSECT to address key challenges for gas/water breakthrough and fluid contact advances modeling in mature
carbonate fields.

106

SUBSURFACE UNCERTAINTY EVALUATION OF AN OFFSHORE FIELD IN ANGOLA

N. Pinheiro & N. Carvalho (Sonangol, Angola)

Description
For almost 2 years the Angolan National Oil Company (Sonangol P&P) followed essentially a deterministic
approach to evaluate the development concept for two marginal offshore reservoirs. Although uncertainty in the
evaluation was acknowledged and some sensitivity and probabilistic estimate of STOIIP were carried out no
systematic evaluation of uncertainty and risk assessment of the development concept in terms of recovery was
undertaken.
A collaborative Sonangol P&P and SIS and project was undertaken to perform an integrated subsurface uncertainty
analysis to establish probabilistic reserves as input to the concept selection process.
The role of SIS was to develop the methodology and workflows in Petrel to generate probabilistic reserve profiles.
The role of SPP was to provide the domain input and take engineering decisions.
Application
The concept evaluation methodology and workflows used here can be applied to any oil and gas field development
evaluation under uncertainty.
Methodology, Results/Observations, and Conclusions
The project was broadly split into 4 phases Problem Framing, Geological Uncertainty Analysis, Concept Fine
Tuning and Dynamic Uncertainty analysis. STOIIP reconciliation between static and dynamic models is assured
automatically in the workflow. The impact of static uncertainties is propagated through to the production profiles.
Although a fully probabilistic evaluation of reserves was crafted the final approach used was essentially
probabilistic STOIIP estimation followed by a scenario based reserves uncertainty analysis. Problem framing
sessions and trial runs led to the conclusion that this was a valid approach given data and resource availability and
the decision criteria for concept selection.
The project has been successfully delivered on time and budget and allowed SPP to meet the partners and peerreview teams stringent review criteria and presentation deadlines. SPP plans to use this study and its results as a
template for similar studies in future throughout their assets.

107

DEVELOPING UNCONVENTIONAL GAS PLAYS WITH ECLIPSE AND PETREL

A.Primera (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

Unconventional gas plays such as shale, coal and tight gas have distinct properties: extremely low matrix
permeability; complex fracture network distributions; and adsorbed gas often making up nearly half of the gas
content. Development challenges include optimizing well spacing to balance gas production with development
cost, determining the best completion and stimulation strategy for hydraulic fracturing, and quantifying the
producible volumes to estimate the reserves and ultimate recovery. Overcoming these challenges requires
specialized methods and state of the art technology. This presentation will showcase how ECLIPSE and Petrel
software can enable you to more accurately simulate the physics of shale gas reservoirs, model natural and
induced fracture networks, model complex wells, and perform sensitivity analysis for volumetric calculations.

108

SOFTWARE DEMONSTRATION OF THE APPLICATION OF SIS TECHNOLOGIES TO FIELD

DEVELOPMENT
A.Primera & D. Lucas-Clements (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

In 2012 oil and gas companies are expecting to invest 598 billion dollars to develop oil and gas fields. With easy oil
running out, companies are looking at more challenging environments for green fields such as offshore Brazil and
Angola, while at the same time increasing the ultimate recovery by redeveloping brown fields such as the North
Sea. Critical decisions are based on the input of geoscientists and engineers in different disciplines. Much of the
input data has varying degrees of uncertainty.
There is an increasing need for oil and gas companies to bring more complex fields on-stream in a shorter
timeframe and demonstrate, in the field development plan, that the field will achieve the highest level of
hydrocarbon recovery. Many projects still overrun their budget and timelines and fail to deliver the potential value
to their investors.
In this presentation there will be a demonstration of the SIS Field Development System. The demonstration will
show how SIS technology is applied at the appraisal, concept, design and execution phases of a field development
to help increase the value of the field. The demonstration will show an unparalleled integration across disciplines,
and a platform on which the geoscientist and engineers can truly exploit their knowledge to provide their
companies with the best return on resource.

109

STREAMLINE BASED GEOLOGICAL MODEL SCREENING WITH FRONTSIM AND PETREL

A.Primera (Schlumberger, United Kingdom

This work aims to provide a higher level of integration between geoscientists and engineers, provide a framework
to assess the aggregated effect of uncertainty, and increase the efficiency of history matching and confidence in
forecasting. Sub-surface uncertainty is processed in multiple realizations of the geological model, where tens or
hundreds of equi-probable images of the reservoir can be produced. Noting that geological models often contain a
large number of cells it is not efficient to run flow simulations on all models. Therefore a few models are selected
to represent the range of uncertainty and can be used to adequately assess risks. For example, dynamic sensitivity
or experimental design based field planning studies require reference and low/high cases. Selected models are
often scaled up with further validation in order that they maintain the character of the original models.
The most common approach is to use static ranking to select the simulation models, only taking into account static
properties such as porosity or interpreted net-to-gross, this analysis does not take into account the effect of
permeability or the conductivity across faults. On the other hand this leads to non-adequate history matching
practices due to the lack of information that the reservoir engineer may have. However, streamline simulation
with assumptions such as non gravity or capillary pressure effects could help to obtain a sense of connectivity for
every realization with minimal cost from the simulation point of view.

110

THE NEW REALITY AND VISION FOR PRODUCTION ENGINEERING AND ECONOMICS
S. Raphael (Schlumberger, USA)

In recent years, Schlumberger has invested heavily to develop next-generation integrated solutions for production
engineers, economists and broader petroleum engineering and management disciplines. A consolidation of
production and economic software development teams in the Houston Technology Center has helped focus these
efforts. Continued commitment to implementing the latest science coupled with the development of rejuvenated,
customer-validated user interfaces has led to significant feature and usability improvements to OFM, PIPESIM and
Merak Peep. We will discuss these efforts and the next phase of evolution including the relationship of these
foundation technologies with the Avocet and Petrel platforms.

111

BRINGING THE POWER OF INTEGRATED ASSET MODELING ONLINE

R. Sauv (Schlumberger, USA)

Digital technology continues to grow in sophistication and now pervades most activities in oil and gas fields. Use
of digital technology by oil and gas producers is not new, but what is new and part of the intelligent field vision is
linking different technologies to accomplish a system-wide task - seeing the big picture through Integrated Asset
Management.
An example of new technology that can produce real benefits is integrated asset modeling. It rigorously integrates
traditional tools; reservoir simulation, wellbore, network, process and economic models to arrive at an end-to-end,
total asset solution.
The main penetration for Avocet Integrated Asset Modeler has been at the reservoir engineering level performing
FDP / FEED activities in forecasting mode. The goal in 2011 was to provide key functionality in the application to
target online applications using asset model based solutions. Avocet Integrated Asset Modeler has been deployed
in facilities engineering / front-end engineering & design studies (slow loop) to production engineering (medium
loop) this release targets production operations (fast loop). The concept of the asset model moves from single
use to many uses at all levels of the production business.
In this presentation, an example will demonstrate the use of Avocet Integrated Asset Modeler in an asset model
based surveillance mode as well as on demand optimization in response to unscheduled events.

112

INTERSECT PETROBRAS EXPERIENCE

T.D. Serafini de Oliveira (Petrobras, Brazil)

INTERSECT, the next-generation simulator from Schlumberger, proposes to be especially efficient tackling large
and heterogeneous reservoir models, like those Petrobras is facing now. Since 2010, Petrobras has been engaged
as an early adopter in evaluating INTERSECT. Three main initiatives have already been conducted.
One of them, the second in chronological order, was conducted on a representative model of a pre-salt field that
used a 7-component compositional formulation, possessed 3 million active cells and was tested in up to 64 cores.
This work was done along with NACAD/COPPE-UFRJ (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), using INTERSECT v.
2011.1 beta.
The other two initiatives, which will be fully presented in this work, were conducted on a turbidite offshore field
ECLIPSE model. In June 2010, a study was carried out at the Schlumberger Abingdon Technology Centre for two
weeks, using INTERSECT v. 2010.2 beta. The task of migration from ECLIPSE to INTERSECT could be evaluated, as
well as their features' compatibility. Some simplifications were necessary but most of the ECLIPSE modeling
options were reproduced for this case. Since this was a relatively small black-oil model (50 k active cells), it was not
scalable enough to appraise the numerical performance of INTERSECT, and a geological model of this same field,
containing 6.8 million cells, was used thereafter. The numerical performance was very good up to 256 cores.
In the second half of 2011, the same model used in the first study was considered again. We used Migrator 2011.1
and INTERSECT 2011.1, which removed many limitations of the early versions and offer a new user-friendly
interface (through IXF files) to modify the model. This time the migrated model could be fine-tuned and fewer
simplifications were necessary. Other models were built from the refinement of the original one, in order to
appraise the numerical performance of INTERSECT.

113

INTERSECT AND ECLIPSE RESERVOIR SIMULATION - 2012 RELEASE HIGHLIGHTS

K. Shaw (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

Built on a heritage of 30 years of reservoir simulation the ECLIPSE industry standard simulator and INTERSECT nextgeneration simulator offer the most comprehensive set of solutions for optimizing management and maximizing
recovery of hydrocarbons from the reservoir.
ECLIPSE reservoir simulation software offers the industrys most complete and robust set of numerical solutions
for accurate prediction of dynamic behavior, for all reservoir types to address structure, geology, fluids, and
development schemes. ECLIPSE software covers the entire spectrum of reservoir simulation, specializing in black
oil, compositional and thermal finite-volume reservoir simulation, and streamline reservoir simulation.
A previously unobtainable representation of the reservoir is now possible with INTERSECT the next-generation
reservoir simulator from Schlumberger. It accurately and rapidly models complex geology and wells, honoring
detailed reservoir characterizations with minimal or no upscaling. Supporting advanced production controls for
flexible operational field management, it handles thousands of wells in mature fields, as well as rapidly simulating
all fluid types and recovery processes in a single simulator. See the latest capabilities and client case studies.
Please join us for a review of the 2012 simulator release highlights including an update of client case studies for
INTERSECT.

114

PIPESIM 2012 - A NEW GENERATION

M. Shippen (Schlumberger, USA)

Whether designing artificial lift systems for a handful of deepwater oil wells or optimizing large onshore gas
gathering networks containing hundreds of wells, the ability to accurately simulate total system performance is
critical to achieve maximum production. PIPESIM multiphase flow simulation software from Schlumberger has
evolved over three decades to establish itself as the industry-leading solution for modeling such systems. We are
proud to present a complete redesign of the PIPESIM user interface which represents a major advancement in user
experience and lays the foundation for tighter integration with other SIS products such as Petrel Reservoir
Engineering. This demo will highlight some of the advancements made in well design and network simulation and
illustrate just how simple it can be to simulate a complex model.

115

A SOLUTION FOR BETTER HANDLING OF RESERVOIR MANAGEMENT FOR A LARGE FIELD WITH
VERY LONG HORIZONTAL WELLS AND EXTENSIVE WATERFLOODING
G. Soufiah (Maersk Oil, Qatar)

Maersk Oil Qatar operates Al-Shaheen Field, in the North of Qatar. Al-Shaheen Field is developed with extensive
use of Maersk Oils horizontal well technology. The world record extended reach horizontal well is drilled by
MAERSK Oil Qatar in Al-Shaheen Field. The field counts to be the largest oil producer in Qatar and has extensive
waterflooding operations.
Due to complexity of the field, in-depth reservoir management is required to better handle the production
performance. The main objective of building Al-Shaheen project using OFM is to have an integrated solution for all
the teams where they can perform reservoir management workflows with live data from the field. The expected
result is a comprehensive project where different sources of data are available in an easy to use structure; and a
single application to find all required templates to perform reservoir management workflows.
To create integration between teams, a unified well model is designed that matches production and geological
data structures. The model connects the surface well heads where production is measured with the producing
wellbore which is usually the final side-track drilled in a horizontal well. This solution is technically achieved on the
database level, where a link is established between the data sources used by geologists and petroleum engineers.
To allow for better waterflood management the first step is to implement the PVT into the project. MAERSK Oil
Qatar has its own set of optimized correlations as macro files which are now replaced by user functions
implemented in Al-Shaheen project. The second step is to setup patterns. Patterns of the long horizontal wells are
defined as polygons in the Petrel geological model. They were imported in the solution as map annotations. The
third step is to create waterflood analysis templates which allow engineers to monitor performance of water
injection. The advantage of using OFM for this project is the benefit of creating a single calculation for voidage
which gets applied on the entire Al-Shaheen project. Voidage balance can now be easily analyzed on pattern,
reservoir, and field levels.
With a field of long horizontal wells, it is not accurate at the same time challenging to analyze KPIs (such as GOR)
using standard tools (such as bubble maps) on well level. For that, a new solution is developed to view KPIs on
producing patterns. With the geological polygons previously imported to the project, a user function is created to
assign colours for each pattern depending on the KPI value. The result is a dynamic feature that creates coloured
maps based on any selection of wells and KPI. Hence, rapid identification of areas with increased or decreased KPI
performance.
A link is created between the project and the reserves data available in the forecasts data source. Engineers can
now analyze the different forecast cases using simple plotting mechanism, and compare them to each other and
with historical production.
The expected value of the solution exceeded the expectations. All team members now use the solution to use
various workflows which helps them better manage the field. This solution sets as a standard for global MAERSK
Oil for re-implementation in other offices.

116

OPERATIONS

117

SAMARANG INTEGRATED OPERATIONS (IO) CONCEPTUAL DESIGN

C. Adnan Abd Razak (Petronas, Malaysia)

Implementation of Integrated Operations (IO) in Samarang redevelopment program will enable real time
production, reservoir and process surveillance & optimization, to gain understanding of the reservoir to better
manage the asset. Various initiatives has being planned to ramp up production, ranging from infill drilling, GLO,
production enhancement, commingling zones and GASWAG EOR. Understanding the complex interactions
between reservoir, productions networks and process facilities requires state of the art modeling technique and
technology that treats the asset as a whole. This is necessary since the decisions taken on the production networks
and process facilities will impact the reservoir performance. This is achieved by creating an Integrated Asset
Model that consists of various reservoir simulation models with common production network.

118

PRODUCTION & INJECTION MONITORING AND SURVEILLANCE (MYSIP) - ALIANZA CASABE

O. Agudelo, M. Amaya, G. Nunez (Casabe Alliance, Colombia)

The Casabe Technology Alliance between Ecopetrol and Schlumberger started its operation in 2004 in Casabe field.
The field came originally into production several decades ago and by 2004 was producing close to 5,000 BOPD.
The alliance went into a re-development of the field with an aggressive strategy to increase Oil production through
selective water injection for secondary recovery. The re-development considered a significant increase of
producing and selective injector wells, something that poses a challenge in terms of injection and production data
handling, engineering worklfows for better decision making.
Casabe Alliance decided to implement an integrated operation decisional system for supporting key production
and operational business processes bringing to end-users the right information at the right time for better
decision. The scope includes not only automation of some business processes along with the underlying system
but also the business change management activities for managing the change.
This project consists in adjusting operational processes, in providing access to required information through a
single point of entry, in automating some surveillance activities and in publishing results to end-users for improving
production analysis:
1. Component 1: Data Management
Data consolidation and creation of only one and unique source of information for CASABEs asset historical
production.
2. Component 2: to-be Production business processes and mapping of information flows.
Analyze and document the current injection / production process, which allow identify improvements related to
data management
3. Component 3: Production information and engineering workflows Management
Expert Automatic System Intelligent workflows based on pattern recognition.
Data visualization and alarms generation.
Link operational Data Base with the other applications (e.g. OFM*, Merak)
Ensure data quality for the follow up and analysis.
The key benefits for the Casabe Alliance are Opex Reduction and Production increase. In additional are the
following benefits:
Decision making process Improvement that should impact OPEX (reduction) and Production (increase)
Protect the historical data: Accessibility, tracking , integration of in a timely manner
Surveillances focus in production and Injection wells (manifolds)
Effective water flooding control
Timely decision from current and reliable information

119

NATIONAL PRODUCTION REPORTING AND PLANNING: A GOVERNMENT AGENCIES VISION

FOR A CONSOLIDATED PRODUCTION DATABASE TO MONITOR PERFORMANCE
G.W Agusetiawan (BPMIGAS, Indonesia)

BPMIGAS have a responsibility to promote the commercialization of fields from discovery to abandonment in a
safe and economic manner from the perspective of the country. Operators in Indonesia have their own perspective
when they propose the Plan of Development (POD) and annual operational plans. Oil and Gas companies operate
under a joint venture arrangement with the government of Indonesia called a Production Sharing Contract (PSC).
BPMIGAS is the executive state agency that serves as the upstream regulator and manages and implements these
PSC agreements. In order to perform its role, BPMIGAS must have the ability to see a complete picture of industry
performance, understand the issues, and take action by adapting technical work programs to manage the overall
performance of the industry, especially to align with state and government policies and directives.
The foundation of the vision is to collect current monthly production data from the PSCs into a central production
database that provides timely access to quality data enabling work flows, such as:

Technical and financial assessment of partner work plans

Comparing partner development and enhancement plans versus expected results
Monitoring production results compared to production targets

This vision is common amongst government agencies and corporate organizations of large operators.
Schlumberger, using the Avocet Platform, has pioneered a solution approach called the Production Data Collection
(PDC) System. A PDC system, approved by BPMIGAS, has been successfully piloted by Pertamina where data from
34 different assets are collected into a common corporate PDC. During the initial phase the PDC system is used to
monitor KPIs and provide corporate reporting. However, future phases will enable cross domain workflows that
integrate reservoir, production, and planning departments.
This presentation will explain the challenges that BPMIGAS have in supervising nearly 300 PSC and their vision for
deploying a PDC system. Examples that illustrate the key performance indicators and expected planning benefits
will be discussed.

120

SCHLUMBERGER DRILLING SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY CAPABILITIES AND VISION

A.Akamine (Schlumberger, France)

The continual development of leading-edge drilling technologyborne from the increasing integration of
geosciences and drillinghas driven Schlumberger to continue to revolutionize downhole measurements,
transform industry standards, and empower collaboration between all stakeholders to deliver better drilling
results and advantage for our customers.
Drilling software today fills two roles. The first - Schlumberger workflows - exploit new drilling measurements and
advanced modeling to optimize the engineering and technology selection for new wells and workovers. The
second are client workflows built around the geologist and drilling engineer designed to facilitate the exchange of
knowledge required to maximize well potential and performance both today and in the future.
Built on a vision to create new and innovative ways to improve drilling efficiency, assure wellbore integrity and
define well placement in full spatial context with the reservoir. This presentation will show the rapid development,
progress and path ahead for Schlumberger drilling software.

121

AUTOMATED WELL PERFORMANCE SURVEILLANCE AND ANALYSIS

H. Al-Zaabi and A. Khatib (KOC, Kuwait)

Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has implemented SIS DECIDE!* for automation and integration of workflows with
several other systems custom made and proprietary to KOC. The presentation will shed light on our approach to
utilize DECIDE! in an integrated manner with other systems to achieve business processes automation for
enhanced well performance surveillance and analysis.
Well performance surveillance plays a vital role in decision-making and is a key to prioritizing well work-overs and
optimizing production; Analysis of the well performance trends has been facilitated by integration with OFM and
the parameters are visualized through OFM* - Well Performance.
The data is being acquired from different sources including corporate databases and high frequency data (sensor
readings).
Live well models updating has been implemented for SIS PIPESIM* as well as PETEX PROSPER models. The models
are used for estimating the well production rates.
The approach here is to automate the updating of the well models using the information coming from the sensor
readings and then running them to get the estimated production on daily basis. The workflows are also intelligent
enough to flag the need for model calibration.
KOC Well Performance Workflow consists of the following integrated components:
Daily Production Potential
Real time rate estimation
ESP Surveillance
Productivity Index Calculation
FBHP Extrapolation (Flowing Bottom Hole Pressure)
Well Test Validation
Well Status
Well Models Updating and calibration
The workflows outputs are integrated with the following:
OFM for further analysis and visualization
SIS FieldBA as a parallel input to enhance Back Allocation.
KOCs Field Data Quality Optimization system where it is being used to improve optimization
recommendations for different scenarios.

122

AVOCET 2012 THE SCHLUMBERGER PRODUCTION OPERATIONS SOFTWARE PLATFORM

H. Arora (Schlumberger, USA)

Meeting production targets is a continuous challenge. Confidence is needed to take the right course of action in
the field at the right time. To achieve this, you need systems that deliver understanding from consistent and
reliable information, regardless of the assets you operate. The increasing complexity of todays production
operations demands that the information derived from various automated systems, data historians, field systems,
and measurement devices is collected and made available when you need it.
The reality is that the full value is undermined by the demands to effectively analyze the mountain of acquired
data by engineers already tasked with the management of a large number of wells. The overload is compounded
by the use of outdated systems that are prone to error. Finding reliable and validated information is an everyday
battle that limits the effectiveness of people and the decisions they make.
New in 2012, the Avocet production operations software platform is engineered to overcome these difficult
challenges so that production targets can be delivered consistently. This presentation will show how Avocet
enables an extensive range of solutions that empower the producing Asset to:
See a clear, complete and up-to-date picture of your operations
Understand the reasons for your production shortfalls and how to fix them
Act with confidence to close the gap between your actual and potential production

123

THE VALUE OF ONLINE ARTIFICIAL LIFT MANAGEMENT

H. Arora & A. Francis (Schlumberger, USA)

Do you need to keep track of your artificial lift equipment? Monitor equipment and get data for analysis?
Determine operating points using nodal analysis? Predict failures and events before they happen? Optimize on
constraints but deliver production?
SIS now offers online lift management capability for ESP pumps on the Avocet platform. The technology
incorporates map-based navigation and alarm notification for monitoring purposes and an ability to track
downhole ESP configuration and related run life operational activity. Using integrated PIPESIM based nodal
analysis models the software can determine operating conditions and estimate flow rates on the surface.
Schlumbergers Artificial Lift Segment uses patented Schlumberger algorithms on the Avocet platform to optimize
production rates based on available power to run ESPs or with available gas for gas lifted wells.

124

EFFICIENT USE OF HIGH-FREQUENCY DATA THROUGH PRODUCTION DATA MANAGEMENT

SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION
A. Creemer (Corridor Resources, Canada) & M. Mohajer (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

The McCully Field (New Brunswick, Canada) is highly instrumented and generates a massive quantity of highfrequency data stored in a data historian. Data time range and frequency of interest had to be manually retrieved
through spreadsheet macros for analysis, plotting, and gas allocation. As the production history grew, the amount
of data generated was overwhelming and unconsolidated, making the task of manual data handling and
visualization both difficult and time consuming.
The implementation of a production data management system resulted in a fully automated, end-to-end workflow
that acquires five-minute data from the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system into the
operating database; performs accurate allocation of gas, condensate and water volumes; as well as creates and
distributes daily production summaries to a custom email list in a matter of minutes.
The implementation of an automated approach was driven by five main objectives:
automate production data acquisition
optimize field production through real-time well surveillance
increase data processing speed (reduce time spent on data handling, preparation, cleansing and reporting)
take advantage of existing high-frequency database
improve communications regarding well performance between office and field operations
After a successful implementation, data acquisition time has been reduced from a manual 30 minutes to an
automated 5 minutes each day. Daily production reports, instead of only being accessible through the server, are
now automatically emailed to a distribution list within the company. Real-time well surveillance is now possible
from the main office and not only through the SCADA system in the field, which provides the engineering group
with a better understanding of individual well performance and also allows any production disruptions to be
identified early and resolved efficiently. Finally, the consolidated database is now integrated with engineering
analysis tools for further use of information, which ultimately increases the effectiveness of the technical team.

125

PRODUCTION OPTIMIZATION IN PROGRESSIVE CAVITY PUMPS (PCP) USING AN EXPERT

SYSTEM OF MONITORING AND DIAGNOSTICS
A.Gomez & C. Martinez (Petrocedeno, Venezuela)

This paper describes the development implemented for production optimization in 50 extra heavy oil wells
producing with Progressive Cavity Pumps (PCP) based on neural network determining flow rate estimation and
setting up templates of PCP's well performance.
Petrocedeo, JV between PDVSA, Total and Statoil, operates an extra heavy oil field in the Orinoco Belt in
Venezuela, with more than 500 shallow wells producing through cold heavy oil production (CHOP) using diluents.
All the wells use Progressing Cavity Pump (PCP) as artificial lift system and most of them possess a very good level
of instrumentation, they are managing three sources of analogue data for each PCP well, including the downhole
gauge, the variable speed driver (VSD) and the wellhead data. While it has become accepted practice to monitor
these parameters in real time, the great quantity of data request to be transformed into knowledge information
allowing to production engineers to take proper decisions at the right time.
Identifying the underperformance wells based on flow rate estimation proves by itself to be a challenge and being
able to estimate it 24 times by day by well is even more challenging. The solution developed for Petrocedeo
covers from data integration and engineering workflows to visualization, furthermore the technology deployed
Avocet Workflow Manager (AWM), OFM and Avocet Surveillance to be implemented in 2012.
The add value identified by the customer is summarized through key performance indicators regarding the
identification of underperformance producer wells and a series of templates identifying wells with production
losses, wells with production as expected, wells with high productivity to be optimized, wells with overtorque in
the sucker rod and wells with poor efficiency in energy consumption and diluents injection (light oil) into the wells.

126

INTEGRATED SOLUTION FOR REAL TIME PRODUCTION SURVEILLANCE AND OPTIMIZATION

R. Grigorescu (Bokor Alliance, Malaysia)

In a dynamic brown field response time to instabilities is critical in achieving the production targets. These
challenges are effectively overcome with an integrated solution for production surveillance and optimization by
maximizing the value of the real time capabilities the field already has in place.
Background
The field is located offshore and is unmanned, with operational and maintenance interventions on an as-needed
basis. Most of the wells are producing with assistance of artificial lift. Gas lift is the main artificial lift method used
in the field for ~ 90% of the active wells while few wells are equipped with ESPs and some are naturally flowing. A
SCADA system is available in the field, data transmitted including gas injection pressure and rate, tubing and casing
head pressure, manifold pressure and compressors performance. With the latest field redevelopments additional
data was included in the system, including downhole gauges and ESPs gauges. Even though the existing system has
managed to reach these objectives, further automation and system integration were required to obtain even more
challenging oil gains.
Challenges
Aging facilities and fluctuation in lift gas availability lead to frequent platform shutdowns and process upsets. This
causes significant production deferment, taking few days to bring the field back to stable flowing conditions.
Intensive proactive surveillance with prompt gas lift reallocation and detection of wells quit is required to minimize
such unplanned deferments.
The solution
Avocet Surveillance links up real-time operational data historian system and corporate production information
management system and is coupled with the Well-Network suite of simulation tools to provide an integrated suite
of production surveillance, diagnostic and optimization application modules. Customized automated surveillance
workflows were built to generate alarms and notifications to end users to minimize the response time to field
instabilities and increase the efficiency of daily oil and gas operations activities. The workflows implemented
covered field, platform, well status, drawdown monitoring and daily well testing prioritization plan. The results are
displayed in one web based system where the users can easily navigate from field to platform and then to well
level review the alarms and diagnostics and carry out the preliminary analysis to come up with the remedial plans.
Value Creation
From systematic tracking of daily deferment and field production up to 2% gain in oil rate could be achieved. This
takes into account only the field and well problems which can be influenced by the system. In addition ~ 4%
increase in field oil rate is achieved from gas lift reallocation provided the main constraint in the field is the gas lift
supply.
In addition the system integrates multiple sources of data for rapid and enhanced analysis. By having the
opportunity to trace all the well alarms in time the tool has become the main reference for well reviews and
candidate recognition for production enhancement. This optimizes resources time and productivity by allowing
them to spend more time analyzing and optimizing the field rather than processing and validating the data.
The workflows created and stored in the workflow library constitute an important means of knowledge transfer for
new people joining the team. The system has improved the communication between the disciplines and asset
team due to the fact that the alarms and visualizations cover all these aspects: operations, production
optimization, reservoir surveillance and KPIs monitoring in one web based system readily accessible to each of
them.

127

WELLBORE INTEGRITY GEOMECHANICS AND TRACKING WITH TECHLOG AND AVOCET

S. Kisra & C. Taylor (Schlumberger, France)

More of todays well construction and field development projects are both technically and economically
challenging. Failure to understand a fields geomechanics represents a potentially expensive risk. Developing a
consistent mechanical earth model that integrates geological and drilling data can help mitigate that risk and
provide benefit throughout the life of the field.
Two examples using Techlog and Avocet will be used to demonstrate the value of the workflow. In the first
example, a pre-drill model for pore pressure and fracture gradient is created in Techlog in order to design a
suitable casing program and to verify that ECD measurements were in the appropriate mud weight window during
the drilling process. In the second example, casing and pipe integrity data is analyzed and then tracked in the
Avocet platform to assure wellbore integrity through the life of the field.

128

VX SURVEILLANCE FROM MULTIPHASE METERING DATA ACQUISITION TO PRODUCTION

REPORTING OVERVIEW OF AN END-TO-END INTEGRATED WORKFLOW
C. Joly (Schlumberger, France)

Multiphase metering is the continuous flow rate measurement of a well's individual phases without prior
separation. This method provides significant onsite cost savings, as well as improved test data quality and
availability, enabling quick well performance trend analysis and well diagnostics. Early and continuous monitoring
can significantly improve well performance and reservoir knowledge.
Schlumbergers Vx advanced multiphase flowmeter technologyis at the core of the PhaseTester portable
multiphase flowmeter and the PhaseWatcher permanent multiphase flowmeter. These meters provide major
performance improvements over traditional flow testing methods, including faster and more efficient operations,
excellent dynamic response to fluctuating flows, little or no stabilization time, and the ability to handle complex
flow regimes such as slug flow, foam, or emulsions at high pressure and high temperature.
This presentation will discuss the full value chain beyond Vx measurement using Avocet technologyan integrated
surveillance solution that incorporates well test management and validation, production allocations and reporting
to ultimately enable better asset management decisions.

129

THE KUWAIT INTEGRATED DIGITAL FIELD JURASSIC A GAME CHANGER FOR KOC
N. Al-Mai (KOC, Kuwait)

Optimization, timely decision, and safety are key requirements for achieving KOCs gas production targets. In
2009, KOC launched the Kuwait Integrated Digital Field Jurassic (KwIDF-Jurassic) project together with SIS as a
cross-domain solution supported by a wide array of products including Avocet Surveillance, Avocet Volumes
Manager, DECIDE!, PipeSim, OFM, and Petrel.
Of significance is that for the first time in Kuwait, KOC has achieved objectives that include design and installation
of every component of a digital oilfield solution: surface instrumentation (SCADA system), comprehensive
infrastructure (communication & data), data management, intelligent workflows, function-relevant visualization,
ergonomic collaboration, and Change Management. Further, new Digital Field Work Processes, supported by
sophisticated collaboration rooms, have been developed to enable proactive, real-time decisions to be made in
accordance to the exploitation strategy defined for the field.
The intelligent workflows incorporate the requisite underlying production science to liberate engineers from
tedious manual data preparation, redirecting their focus to optimization analytics. In effect, by applying
petrotechnical know-how, cross domain experience, and scientific principles, KwIDF Jurassic is automating the
evolution of data to knowledge, thereby enabling a new standard of asset awareness not previously achieved with
other solutions.
The resulting collaborative work environment ergonomically ties together work processes from different teams
such as Production Support, Field Development, and the facilities operator. KwIDF Jurassic thus unifies KOCs
technical resources, achieving a new level of decision-making behaviors and cooperation. For example, the
subsurface team can now also make real-time contributions to Production Operations as opposed to being limited
to only the traditional non-operational role of studies and reviews.
This paper presents a case study demonstrating the methodology and tools KOC used to achieve timely and
reliable data delivery for the Jurassic asset as part of the KwIDF Jurassic project.

130

SIAPPEP- INTEGRATED SYSTEM FOR MANAGING THE PRODUCTION IN PEP

E. Sampayo & R. Ostos (PEMEX, Mexico)

The PEMEX management of Transportation and Distribution of Hydrocarbons (GTDH) has among its functions the
operational monitoring of the operational processes for collecting, conditioning, distribution and delivery of oil in
shipping ports, refineries and petrochemical plants.
Throughout this process it is generated a high volume of critical information that are required during the decision
making process that ensure the safety of operations, prepare hydrocarbon under expected quality, provide fuels
for operations centers, platforms, batteries, and gas for secondary recovery and artificial lift.
All critical variables such as pressure (P), temperature (T), volume (V), quality (C) and events (E) which are
generated and captured during the operational processes and delivery points to the GTDH, are required for the
hydrocarbon accounting and the distribution of commercial volume to the fields and producing wells.
In this regard, the SIAPPEP system is being configured to organize a unique operational database totally integrated
with PEP institutional systems for capturing, validating and processing every all the critical information (P, T, V, C,
E) to support the following strategic business objectives of the GTDH:
-

Regional and Nationwide hydrocarbon balance

To minimize the uncertainties between the production reported by the asset and GTDH management
Monitoring of safety operation of the transportation system and its equipment and facilities
Monitoring of hydrocarbon quality coming for the dehydration system.
Scenarios evaluation for flow assurance
Integration of engineering tools for simulation and recommendation for optimization

The management of operational, volumetric and quality data is supported by three basic components:
The physical network of production that covers all production facilities such as wells, platforms, stations,
separators, compressors, rectifiers, tanks, meters, pipelines, pumps, valves, buoys, etc. with its nominal design
setting
Usage of business rules, algorithms and API standards for adjusting the volume by variations in pressure,
temperature and density as well as the evaluation of operating and transportation scenarios.
Enabling of the collaborative environment for the issuance of reports and dashboards that can support the
decisions making process on operational, tactical and strategic level in PEMEX.
Derived from this solution to be implemented in PEMEX, it is standardized all the business processes, engineering
and accounting workflows in southwest, northeast, south and north regions, thereby it improves the operational
efficiency, maintain safe operation and reduce operating cost.

131

CASE STUDIES IN PRODUCTION OPERATIONS FOR UNCONVENTIONAL RESOURCES

S. Scillitani (Schlumberger, Malaysia)

Avocet production operations software delivers solutions for all types of operational settingsconventional land,
offshore, deep offshore, FPSO vessels, coalbed methane and heavy oil. Each environment brings unique challenges
and the flexibility of Avocet ensures that solutions can be rapidly tailored to deliver streamlined, fit-for-purpose
workflows. This presentation illustrates the capabilities of Avocet and the value that it brings for two
unconventional asset operators.
Firstly, we highlight how an Integrated and Automated Production Data Management System developed for Ember
Resources in Canada enabled management of unconventional gas wells and met the demands of new industry
regulations. The flexibility of Avocet allowed Ember to implement specialized workflows and reduce the number of
wells that require gas analysis testing.
Secondly, we discuss a coal seam gas management system developed for Origin Energy in Australia. The system
translates data into information and has provided a foundation layer for managing the production and
deliverability for thousands of wells. Enabling timely decision making through the use of accurate, validated data
and automated workflows has helped Origins engineers focus on problem solving and analysis.

132

PETREL DRILLING PLANNING & OPTIMIZATION WORKFLOW

A. Seddiki (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

Applying geologic knowledge to drilling operations works best when drilling and subsurface teams share a common
understanding. Petrel provides the means to visualize and analyze drilling and subsurface data within a single
platform enabling you to respond quickly to changing conditions for safer and more efficient operations. In this
presentation we will show how drilling domain practitioners, using Petrel, are provided with tools to help enhance
well productivity, boost drilling performance, control drilling risk, and reduce uncertainty. Petrel has advanced
tools to analyze offset well data, evaluate performance, and identify optimum drilling parameters within a real
time enabled platform. In addition, Petrel users can also correlate drilling problems with earth properties and
upscale them into your model to quickly identify zones that are likely to cause challenges.

133

INTEGRATING REAL-TIME DRILLING, GEOMECHANICS AND G&G INNOVATIVE SOLUTION,

UNLOCKING A NOVEL DRILLING RISK MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE
G. Silva & U. Prez (PEMEX, Mexico)

Introduction
Reducing formation related drilling risks remains one of the biggest challenges today. To achieve this, innovative
techniques need to be explored. In response, Schlumberger deployed a ground-breaking multi-segment (D&MDCS-SIS) initiative to reduce PEMEX Cantarell drilling risks combining real-time drilling, geomechanics and G&G
interpretation. The successful introduction of this novel solution was the first of its kind by these Schlumberger
segments.
Integrated Solution
Two stages of pre-drill design and real-time monitoring solutions were provided. The focus of the service was to
provide competent critical information and optimum solutions for the client to make best informed decisions.
Pre-drill design
Pre-drill and real-time well trajectory optimization was perfomed in Petrel
and presented to client and rig site team by Schlumberger DCS. The key stages included:
Extract offset well data.
Create knowledge base using offset wells information.
Construction of calibrated geomechanics model.
Integrating the 3D-seismic ant-tracking Petrel model to optimize well trajectory
Real-time monitoring
During drilling, the multi-disciplinary team worked together to identify, prevent, and mitigate possible events.
Aligning with PEMEXs main objectives to reduce formation related drilling risks, the following were the tasks
undertaken:
24/7 Real-time drilling operations surveillance using PerformToolKit* and InterACT*.
Real-time geomechanics analysis using Petrel and DCS tools.
Real-time formation seismic-discontinuities analysis in Petrel (i.e. faults, fractures).
Real-time update of the multi-disciplinary Petrel models.
Results
This multi-segment application in PEMEX Cantarell was successful based on the following:
Contributing to reduce formation related drilling NPT events by 17-31% and drilling time by more than 10
days/well.
PEMEX savings of more than USD$2M/well.
PEMEX acknowledged the positive impact of this service confirming their interest in using it in future drilling
campaigns.
The success of this multidisciplinary project clearly shows the benefit of a stream-lined integrated solution
combining drilling-geomechanics-G&G within a single platform

134

PRODUCTION ALLOCATIONS DELIVERING CONSISTENCY AND VALUE TO ENGINEERING

R. Vilkki (Schlumberger, USA)

Production allocations are the bridge between the fully accurate (down to dollar and cents) financial world, and
the relatively inaccurate (+/- 1% at best, much worse in most real live scenarios) engineering world. The challenge
is to reconcile estimated quantities with the exacting needs of business.
The various user groups of allocation results have different requirements and business drivers for allocation
results. For accounting purposes the key factors are consistency, repeatability and auditability for financial
statements. Engineers look for accuracy, sensitivity and confidence for engineering and reservoir analysis. One
solution is to produce two sets of numbers, but for most companies this approach is not practical, since it would
lead to internal confusion and cause auditing problems for public companies (you cant have two sets of books!).
Most companies therefore choose to have one set of allocated numbers, based on the financial requirements.
Modern production surveillance systems are typically based on theoretical production models (well and network
models) fed by high frequency data. Production allocation/balancing is used as a tool in the model calibration, the
results produced by the models are compared against the actuals derived from allocation systems, and if the
variance is out of range a deeper investigation is needed to identify if the issue is caused by a measurement error,
invalid model or some other anomaly. This presentation discusses how Avocet solutions deliver value by providing
allocations that deliver repeatable and meaningful answers for engineers.

135

136

ENABLING SOLUTIONS

137

ASSURING HIGH QUALITY DATA IN THE STUDIO KNOWLEDGE ENVIRONMENT

V. Andresen (Schlumberger, USA)

Studio provides a new and exciting environment that enables Petrel users to work individually in their own
sandbox while maintaining a collaborative environment within their team. This presentation will show how you
can use Data Quality Management (DQM) integrated with Studio to migrate from an existing project based data
environment into Studio Knowledge and to deliver high quality, trusted data. This initial migration followed by an
on-going data quality management process is key to improved and sustained user productivity.

138

ECOPETROLS DATA MANAGEMENT VISION A CORPORATE STRATEGY TO IMPROVE E&P

DECISIONS
J.H. Angarita & T. Avella (Ecopetrol, Colombia)

ECOPETROL is the National Oil Company of Colombia and one of the leading companies in Latin America. Their
vision in the short term goes even further than reach the 1 Million BOPE production; position Ecopetrol as one of
the leading E&P global companies.
In terms of operations, Ecopetrol in LatinAmerica is the top-4 player, just behind Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil, and
growing. Ecopetrols main objective is to reach a daily production of 1.0 MBOE by 2015, and 1.3 MBOE by 2020.
Other targets in production include 390 MBOE added reserves, 190 MBOE production reserves and 80 MBOE
purchased by the same year. Achieving such challenging goals implies for Ecopetrol among others, to improve
corporate efficiency and productivity, to more effectively use their information to create value for the company,
and last but not least, to have the best possible data with known quality as a corporate strategy.
Ecopetrols exploration data comes from different sources and with different reliability levels, which creates a
very complex data landscape. These data when loaded into the interpretation software become the raw material
for the petrotechnical experts, to create new prospects, run analysis, and primarily, to make decisions based on
heterogeneous E&P data.
Ecopetrol together with Schlumberger shared visions, and then, GITEP (Spanish- Gestion de Information Tcnica de
Exploracin y Produccin) emerged as the Corporate Solution to fill up the gap traditional Data Management
practices will not support, while integrating several stakeholders, and data entities from multiple domains. Such
innovated initiative, involved not only technology and processes, but also, quality standards, quality
measurements, workflows, best practices, governance to the corporate business processes, and last but not least,
a complete Enterprise Information Architecture.
Several icons must be mentioned as key components in Ecopetrols data management vision, specially deployed by
the GITEP foundation; active top management involvement, definition of an integrated data workflow (FII),
implementation of a clear data governance model and data ownership, successful migration processes from legacy
applications to the new technology solution, and lastly, implementation of an assertive change management and
knowledge transfer practice.
After applied all the definitions and methodologies suggested by GITEP, as one of the actions to drive Ecopetrol
toward its targets, key tangible benefits in the exploration processes, were proven in a short span of time:

Smooth project initiation by getting timely and reliable data loading time from weeks to days
Close to 25% on Time to Prospect generation, positioning Ecopetrol as one of the leading player in the area
Ensuring consistent information across the different data sources and interactive systems
Well header information completed and standardized, adhering to the ANH (National Hydrocarbon Agency)
regulations
Data uncertainty mitigation, by reducing data duplication
Full data tracking and monitoring, along the Integrated data lifecycle (FII)
Known and improved data quality, from less than 50% to more than 90%
Full corporate data integration (National and International Assets)

139

TRANSITION FROM MULTIPLE PLATFORMS TO SINGLE INTEGRATED PLATFORM TECHNOLOGY

- FROM CHALLENGE TO PERFORMANCE EFFICIENCY
D. B. A. Aziz (Petronas, Malaysia)

PETRONAS E&P had been using multiple G&G interpretation application platforms and project databases since
early 1990. As operation grew over the years, PETRONAS realized it was getting difficult to manage so many
interpretation platforms and databases. A number of bottlenecks appeared that were impeding speedy progress of
vital exploration projects.
After an assessment study, a corporate decision was made to go for a single unified platform that will bring more
integration and synergy in the way assets teams perform their reservoir characterization workflows and also
improve the current data management methodologies. By moving to a single unified platform, PETRONAS hoped
to enhance their exploration success, maximize performance & productivity and reduce cost of ownership of the
exploration tool by remedying the following:

Data integration to support interpretation work flow process

Data integrity and data duplication
High cost for software maintenance and support services
High unproductive time

Out of a number of technology providers, SLB was chosen for their Petrel* G&G solution. Petrel was deployed
companywide in PETRONAS on April 1, 2010. The two main aspects during the transition were user and
data/project migration.
It was a big mission PETRONAS embarked on as it involved transitioning a user base of over 200 G&G experts from
several different applications to Petrel platform, and also a very large amount of data that had to be migrated to
Petrel. With assistance from SIS team in Malaysia providing the required transitional training program & on-site
support personnel, we were able to move all our data and projects.
After one and half years (18 months) of implementation, significant value realization such as optimization through
workflow integration and as a result reduction in project turnaround time have been observed across the board.
A continued effort is still ongoing to further improve our users Petrel experience through improved user capability
and workflow optimization.
Also several initiatives have been identified and some of them are already in action, to provide PETRONAS E&P a
more controlled environment for managing data coming from different areas and projects in a while helping to
mitigate the data integrity concerns.
It is extremely essential for us to monitor efficiency and productivity gains for PETRONAS using Petrel. This is the
only way we would be able to capitalize on PTL technology that we currently have, secure a return on our
investment & identify areas for improvements.

140

ACCELERATE KNOWLEDGE SHARING FOR BETTER QUALITY DECISIONS

F. Broussard (Schlumberger, USA)

See how Studio improves your teams performance by streamlining key team communication and reporting by
integrating the Schlumberger petrotechnical desktop with your Microsoft business environment. How much time
do you use each month locating data, accessing it, looking for a team member to discuss the interpretation or ask
their opinion on a problem? Why and how decisions are made in all aspects of the workflow, having instant access
to team members and the data they created, collaboration across the enterprise and access to your resources
from one location can dramatically reduce non-productive time. Showcasing the capabilities of Studio with Petrel
and Techlog this presentation will demonstrate how fully leveraging and capturing the knowledge of your team will
help you to improve productivity today, tomorrow and in ten years.

141

A FOUNDATIONAL APPROACH TO SUBSURFACE DATA QUALITY

M. Bryce-Borthwick (GDF Suez, United Kingdom)

GDF Suez E&P UK has been active in the North Sea since 1998. From 2009 onwards, it has experienced rapid and
ongoing expansion, accompanied by increased demands on the IT infrastructure and data management
environment. Volumes of subsurface data are growing and headcount climbing. With the increasing range and
complexity of business processes especially the move into operatorship the current data management
environment will increasingly struggle to support subsurface business without increased risk, cost and
inefficiencies.
To help maintain efficiency and minimise risk, a significant step change is required in the way the Company
manages subsurface data. In July 2011, the Subsurface Data Quality Improvement project (SSDQI) was initiated to
deliver:
Data sets of improved and known quality
Improved confidence in data through better traceability and accessibility
Clarity on the systems, processes and responsibilities in managing data and maintaining its value over the long
term
To achieve these objectives, the SSDQI project is developing a data management framework comprised of:
A robust data architecture, built around Schlumbergers ProSource and InnerLogix products
A fit for purpose governance model with clearly understood roles and responsibilities
Standards and processes for subsurface data management
Data quality metrics and tools to measure quality over time

142

CAIRN MAXIMIZES THE VALUE OF THEIR EXISTING TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT WITH STUDIO
A.Chakraborty (Cairn, India)

Cairn has been traditionally using GeoFrame as the software of choice for its reservoir characterization
studies and database management capabilities. To meet the challenges of future, a modern innovative
workflow integrating different disciplines with best of science seems to be the choice going forward. Petrel
and Studio* provided a great opportunity to fulfill these requirements for Cairn.
The following challenges needed to be addressed:
Cairn has many Petrel users & projects with a potential to keep increasing. Hence its difficult to manage these
projects.
There is lack of data management practices, which lead to less confidence in data and results saved in user
projects.
Users are working in silos in their exploration and modeling projects, which makes collaboration and knowledge
transfer difficult.
To address these challenges and enhance productivity, reference project network was implemented. This led to
ease of managing master projects with high confidence data and results. This also allowed for greater collaboration
between the various domains. In addition, an exploration database was required to handle large amount of data &
multi user collaboration.
Addressing all these issues, Studio was piloted successfully in our environment. The extension of this pilot involved
deploying this prototype across all the exploration teams with greater control on quality of data and ease of
access. Successful deployment of Studio will inspire advanced data management practices amongst administrators
and users.
As a result Cairn maximizes the value of their existing technology and infrastructure investment by implementing
data and project management best practices along with collaboration among domains.

143

DATA DELIVERY AS A SERVICE FOR EXPLORATION WORKFLOWS

P. Coles (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

With the renewal of the contract to manage the UKs CDA DataStore, Schlumberger have introduced new
innovative data delivery services to enable access to well and seismic information from a National Data Repository
direct to a users application such as Petrel and Techlog.
Data delivery is enabled using secure data exchange technology over an Internet connection. The workflows
dramatically reduce the barriers to the timely access to the centralized data assets held within a master ProSource
repository.
The services incorporate automated data transformations and data corrections and allow the user seamless access
to data for all exploration data types including 3D Seismic datasets.
In this presentation we will show the methodology and benefits of data delivery as a service for exploration
workflows where direct application access to a Corporate or a National Data Repository can enhance productivity
and market opportunities.

144

EXPLORE YOUR RESERVOIR IN THE NEW REALITY: INTEGRATION OF TOUCH TECHNOLOGY - A

WORKING EXAMPLE
P. Dineen (Schlumberger, USA)

Take your everyday interpretation workflows to the next level by integrating the touch capabilities we are familiar
with from our personal devices with the petrotechnical desktop, thus enabling new efficiency for tasks and a new
and exciting ergonomic way to work.

145

IMPROVE YOUR PETRELS WELL DATA QUALITY USING THE INNERLOGIX TOOL
D. Dwihananto (Chevron, USA)

InnerLogix/Datalogix tools and workflows are used in various ways across Chevrons business units in support of
Petrel. This presentation will focus on certain uses in Chevrons Global Business Unit. Chevrons Next Gen project
has also utilized Innerlogix capabilities to improve the deployment of Petrel overall. In our Chevrons Global
Business Unit deployments, Innerlogix helped to improve the well data quality for Petrel projects. Additionally, the
implementation of InnerLogix well synch for Petrel 2011 Studio Knowledge is improving Petrel integration with
external datastores. Challenges, benefits, and the futures of using Innerlogix tools in your Petrel Framework will
be reviewed.

146

ACCELERATING PETRO-TECHNICAL LEARNING IN THE E&P INDUSTRY

H. Edmundson (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

Accelerating petro-technical learning is essential for all players in the upstream industry. It is the only solution for
resolving the demographic crisis of skilled professionals. It is also key to ensuring that the industrys skill base is
equipped to address the increasingly complex and challenging recovery of oil and gas resources.
The key to acceleration is maximizing the efficiency of learning, achieved by using a competency management
approach that ensures that learning fits defined paths of personal development. It is also essential to balance
different learning modes with a blended implementation. These include learning from instruction-led classes,
integrated workflow classes that combine technical and software components, learning from coaches and
mentors, self-study, and learning on the job.
Our presentation reviews the key factors in accelerated learning and the challenges in implementation.

147

MICROSOFT & SCHLUMBERGER - SEAMLESSLY UNITING THE BUSINESS AND PETROTECHNICAL

WORLD
A. Ferling (Microsoft, USA)

SIS technology, including Petrel and more recently Studio, has sought to leverage the strength and ubiquity of
Microsofts technology for the PC. In recent years, Microsoft has significantly increased its capabilities in corporate
computing. With these increasing capabilities more and more organizations and industries have standardized their
corporate desktops onto Microsoft including the back office software to support them. In the same period, SIS
has also established Petrel as the desktop standard for the petrotechnical user. Over the years this mirrored
development across all scales of corporations has led to increasingly beneficial technology synergies. Most recently
these have been manifest in the Studio offering, which will now reach beyond Petrel into the other software
platforms from Schlumberger, to develop a shared and common standard for both OS/environment,
petrotechnical functionality and business software.
In this presentation, we discuss how the tight integration of the Microsoft business desktop and Schlumberger
petrotechnical desktop are providing organizations more freedom to focus on productivity and less on the
management of infrastructure.

148

COST EFFECTIVE DATA MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS FOR PETREL

J.E. Fivelstad (Blueback Reservoir, Norway)

Petrel data management can become challenging as the number of Petrel users and projects grow. Blueback
Reservoir is focusing on providing solutions to help data managers and Petrel users maximize their investment and
use of Petrel.
The presentation will show two case stories from oil companies that have utilized software technology and
services from Blueback Reservoir to improve on their data management for Petrel.
In the first case a large asset team in a supermajor was faced with issues of unknown data quality, sub-optimal
performance and lack of data structure in their Petrel projects after using Petrel for modeling and RE workflows
since 2004. The aim for the asset team was to create a Petrel data environment that would support the current use
of Petrel and easily expand for broader use in the future. Bluebacks Project Tracker Plug-in for Petrel was used as
the primary tool in order to achieve the aim of the project, which included complete analysis of their Petrel
projects, data quality and integrity, design and implementation of new data structure and most importantly
monitoring of the new data structure and business rules for data management.
In the second case, a small independent oil company utilized the Blueback Project Tracker to analyze their Petrel
project portfolio with regards to key parameters like Petrel version, duplication of data, inactive projects etc. The
presentation will show how the company quickly gained control over their project portfolio and are now able to
ensure compliance with their data management policies using the Project Tracker.

149

STUDIO ADVISOR; INTEGRATED TRAINING AND GUIDANCE WITHIN THE PETREL WORKSPACE
S. Freeman (RDR, United Kingdom)

Studio* Advisor delivers embedded training, good practices, modeling workflows and background theory across all
domains within Petrel along with the ability to embed company specific content within the Petrel workspace.
This solution delivers context associated content, accessed by right clicking on any object or process and allowing
the user to view training workflows, quality checks, video reference guides and more.
Studio Advisor comes with over 800 pages of content, over 300 video reference guides, over 70 training sequences
and numerous quality checks for all the principal processes, objects and typical modeling workflows.
In-house user generated content can be linked with Advisor pages and internal documents and instantly published
across the organization. This offers a more comprehensive, more effective and more consistent usage of Petrel
across the breadth of Petrel users within a company.

150

RIG SITE TO APPLICATION -END-TO-END SERVICES

P. Galinski (Schlumberger, USA)

Follow the flow of data from the rig into your E&P software applications and discover the technologies and
services that are available to filter and seamlessly deliver the appropriate real-time data channels required for your
specific Techlog or Petrel workflow.

151

OCEAN FRAMEWORK ENABLES BORDERLESS EXTENSIBILITY OF THE PETREL E&P SOFTWARE

PLATFORM
G. Gamst (Schlumberger, Norway)

The Ocean software development framework is the most productive developers kit in the oil and gas industry.
Innovations based on a company's specialized workflows or intellectual property are seamlessly integrated into the
mainstream Petrel platform.
In the past four years, over 25 oil and gas companies have chosen to develop their own proprietary Ocean plug-ins
to create a differentiating advantage over their peers in exploration, development and production. At the same
time, over 50 independent software companies have leveraged the Ocean software development kit (SDK) to
create value added plug-ins to be licensed on the Ocean Store, or through their own channels to market.
In this presentation we will review the power of the Ocean SDK and how it can help you to extend you workflows
in Petrel. Who it is for, how it works and what you can do with it. We will also share examples of different
approaches to illustrate how others are using Ocean today to create advantage for their company.

152

THE DEPLOYMENT OF A READY-TO-EXPLORE PETREL READY ENVIRONMENT AS A CRITICAL

STRATEGY FOR EXPLORATION SUCCESS IN PETROLIA NORWAY
C. Guargena (Petrolia, Norway)

The Norwegian Offshore Continental Shelf ranks number two globally in terms of hydrocarbon discoveries since
2008, a result of a stable fiscal regime and excellent tax incentives to stimulate exploration. Much of the energy
and innovation that has been injected into the market has come from new players who have been awarded
licenses in recent rounds, both in existing areas and new areas such as the Barents Sea.
As a new player starting business in 2011, Petrolia needed to get up and running as quickly as possible and become
pre-qualified by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate as a licensee. A critical part of this strategy was a turnkey
Petrel solution with a complete PetroTechnical Computing environment (PTCi), Petrel interpretation software and
Petrel-Ready datasets with projects covering the whole Norwegian sector. Within a few weeks of being registered
as a company in Norway, Petrolia had interpreters evaluating prospects and is on track to become prequalified
before the end of 2011.
This presentation briefly describes the exciting Norwegian market, and how geophysical and geological
interpretation in Petrel with all the Norwegian data in standardised Petrel projects and the right PCTi environment
are strategically critical to Petrolias success.

153

WORKFLOW BASED TRAINING AT ARAMCO

B. Harbi (Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia) & X. Peltier (Schlumberger, France)

UPDC, A new development center for all employees
UPDC is the Upstream Petroleum Development Center, a major investment of Aramco in the future of its
employees. It is a major initiative to expose all professionals to the interpretation techniques used in developing an
oil field. The center opened in 2011 and has already entertained all the newly hired employees.
The center was built next to the exploration and the engineering buildings, in the heart of the Aramco campus in
Dhahran. It includes a number of video equipped auditoriums with large projection facilities and a virtual reality
cave, distributed over four floors.
Workflow based training
Teachers interact with code developers to customize the application used in the context of Aramco fields. Not only
is the training based on Aramco mtier knowledge, but also on its data.
The need was recognized for scenario-based training, with non-computer-scientists teachers guiding students
through company proved workflows, established on company data.
The workflow goes through 8 steps necessary in the field development plans, starting with the first exploration
estimations.
IFDP, designed with Petrel scenarios
The standard interface of Petrel is masked to show a sequential list of tasks that the user will go through to
illustrate his courses.
The user chooses data entities from menus and checklists. This data is linked to the project used, representing a
mature field where the user will examine different development scenarios and evaluate their potential by
executing simulation runs.
The application is data-independent. It is attached to a specific dataset by editing the different chapters of the
tutorial and saving the data links with the client project.
The Ocean application allows users to get trained in a realistic environment on all aspects of field development
without being Petrel experts.

154

WHY IMPROVE? MEASURING THE VALUE THAT DATA AND DATA MANAGEMENT DELIVER
S. Hawtin (Schlumberger, United Kingdom)

There are many different ways to understand the business case for oil companies to invest in data management.
Research by Schlumberger and the UKs CDA has explored the understanding of senior oil company executives, the
value they believe data delivers to their organisations and the potential additional value that they think data
management can offer. Join us to learn the results of this recent survey.

155

FROM NICHE TO CORE; SUBSURFACE SOFTWARE IN A RAPIDLY CHANGING BUSINESS

J. Hodson & A. Alexander (Centrica, United Kingdom)

In a rapidly changing business with company acquisitions, mergers, assets sales & purchase opportunities, farm-ins
and farm-outs etc it is vital to gain control of the technology and associated databases within the organisation. This
presentation will illustrate some of Centrica Energys experiences during the acquisition of Venture Production plc
and the Trinidad & Tobago assets from Suncor. In particular, the presentation will focus on two key areas:
Simplifying the software toolkit to bring the regional teams together and allow cross-asset functionality
without impacting the productivity of the business
Creating well structured subsurface databases which support the assets and the chosen software toolkit
without affecting day to day operations
Centrica Energy are now in a better position than ever before with a standardised toolkit, subsurface software
strategy and fit for purpose databases being rolled out.

156

HYBRID COMPUTING: THE GAME CHANGER FOR UPSTREAM

M. Isernia (NVIDIA, USA)

Several domains are now joining into integrated workflows, where Processing and Simulation are happening in
parallel with Interpretation and Modeling, bringing together high performance computing and visualization.
NVIDIAs GPUs are at the core of these game changing trends, by complementing CPUs in providing orders of
magnitude acceleration to critical parts of the Oil & Gas workflow to enable this workflow integration. In Seismic
Processing, Interpretation, Modeling, Simulation, Drilling and Trading, NVIDIAs GPUs are now mainstream to the
O&G and many other industries. The business benefits of GPU computing are complemented by significantly lower
IT costs, energy consumption and physical space. We will provide an overview of NVIDIAs GPUs areas of
applicability: smartphones, tablets, laptops, PCs, workstations, servers, clusters, supercomputers, cloud.
We will also describe all areas of major impact to the upstream workflow, today and in the immediate future, with
examples from a large number of oil companies and service providers, followed by an open Q&A to address any
question related to NVIDIA, the Strategic Alliance with Schlumberger and how our Alliance will deliver tangible
value to the Oil& Gas Industry.

157

A NEW OPTION FOR MANAGING DATA INTENSIVE SEISMIC WORKFLOWS

R. Johnston (Schlumberger, USA)

WesternGeco and SIS have teamed up to offer a best in class solution to the data infrastructure complexities of
integrating seismic data with applications. This solution includes data hosting, multi-client access and application
hosting, coupled with a broad range of on-demand value-added geoscience services. In addition to conventional
processes, the services support the optimized full pre-stack interpretation and localized depth imaging solutions,
which can require from anywhere from 20TB to 100TB+ of online gathers. We will present the utility of the
WesternGeco global data centers and the seismic expertise contained within, while drawing on the information
management domain knowledge, skills sets and software from SIS. This solution supports the full E&P seismic
sequence including online data backup, selection, delivery and hosting; data and application integration, ondemand seismic data processing and imaging with Omega and interpretation with Petrel throughout the life of the
prospect.

158

THE NDC AS A NATIONAL SHOWCASE - IDEA TO EXECUTION

R. Johnston (Schlumberger, USA)

National Data Centers (NDCs) which began as repositories to preserve and protect the E&P assets of countries
around the world have since grown in scope to become vehicles for governments to promote oil and gas
exploration and production in their country. Several have progressed beyond that and have become
interdisciplinary centers hosting related data beyond the oil and gas industry by holding data related to
groundwater, mining, geothermal and even agriculture. As the scope has expanded, some countries are making
their NDCs national showcases that demonstrate to the O&G industry - and to other nations - their commitment to
transparency, security and information access. These showcase centers are built from the ground up, starting with
a whiteboard discussion focused on business processes, workflows and collaboration and finishing with a plan that
includes the technology and structural design for a complete, fit-for-purpose, center that supports the current and
future needs of the countrys oil and gas industry. We will follow the collaborative process that started with a
countrys raw idea and progressed to a completed design of a nations showcase oil and gas center.

159

SEISMIC DATA MANAGEMENT IN STATOIL

M. Juul (Statoil, Norway)

In an industry where highly integrated and innovative E&P workflows are needed to solve todays complex
problems there is increased focus on the utilization of all available seismic data. Geoscientists must have easy
access to all the available data and it must adhere to company quality levels. In addition, with the ever increasing
demand to include pre-stack gathers in the interpretation workflow, there has been an impact on infrastructure
capacities due to the expanded data volumes.
Since the mid 90s Statoil has stored Norwegian post stack seismic in a national repository and experienced the
benefits of such solution. In 2002 aligned with the ambition of global growth the company decided to establish a
similar solution for international seismic. Through the years the data storage solution has been developed to
capture pre stack data and support international requirements.
Today Statoil has implemented a secure, confidential and centralized solution for managing international post
stack seismic, velocity and navigation data and global pre stack data. The data store is the sole and exclusive
repository for all data sets.
Solution offers
Data QC and rectification
GIS enabled data browsing
Pre & Post Stack online storage
Data selection and export
Data Storage and DR backup
SIS and Statoil are working closely together to continue improving the solution to optimize workflows.

160

A NEW LOOK IN OPERATION SUPPORT CENTERS USING HYBRID VISUALIZATION SYSTEMS

D. Kedzierski (Barco, Belgium)

Schlumberger recently implemented hybrid systems using Barco cubes and 3D visualization in locations such as
Kuwait and Brazil. In the new OFS OSC in Macae, Brazil the latest ergonomic, operational and IT standards were
consolidated with the most recent image generation systems from Barco.
A wider range of specialists could be brought together by integrating 24/7 workstations and shared displays with
3D stereo projection and video conference in a coordinated suite of rooms. Overall status and any individual
source can be displayed on any shared screen. This allows for increased collaboration and faster decision making
around high impact activities such as well trajectory planning, geo-steering and performance assurance.
Technological challenges to be met on the visualization side included being compatible with normal working
environment lighting conditions, allowing display of scalable images, providing full 24/7 support and providing
extreme high resolution.

161

ASSESSING PETRO-TECHNICAL SOFTWARE TRAINING TO ACCELERATE THE VALUE OF

TECHNICAL TALENT
S. King & K. Safton (Talisman Energy, Canada)

Talismans Exploration Technology & Geoscience department is responsible for their North American geoscience
training program. Training is a key element in their strategy not only for recruiting, developing and retaining key
E&P technical talent but also for knowledge transfer to the new workforce. This is required to handle new asset
discoveries and developments in increasingly complex environments and to compensate for the generational gap
that the whole O&G industry is suffering. Quick adoption of software technologies combined with development of
a high level of proficiency in those technologies is a key component of the strategy.
In order to make software training more effective, Talisman engaged NExT to understand the current situation and
identify areas of improvement that must be addressed to raise the geoscience software proficiency in Talisman.
NExTs Technology Mastery site assessment methodology was used to establish the current state of software
proficiency and identify barriers to improvement.
Four key aspects were assessed: Organization, Learning & Competency, Technology Usage and Standard Practices.
The results of the assessment validated some issues and highlighted others that collectively impact the proficiency
development and productivity of Talismans geoscientists and technologists.
This presentation highlights the process used, results and lessons learned to assess the status of the software
proficiency training program as well as recommendations to address the issues identified in the study.

162

HOW MAERSK EMBRACED EMERGING TECHNOLOGY TRENDS FOR EFFECTIVE DATA GROWTH
MANAGEMENT OF PETROTECHNICAL WORKFLOWS
J. Knudsen (EMC, USA)

Workflow enabled Petrotechnical software needs an optimized infrastructure for both users and IT to take
advantage of the latest architectures and strategies. Furthermore, larger amounts of Petrotechnical Data must
remain readily accessible for longer periods of time and IT must be able to respond with tiered infrastructure and
data management that support optimized workflows while not bankrupting their IT budgets. This discussion with
Eric Dryden from Maersk will introduce their strategy for using the latest tiered strategies and single volume,
multi-Petabyte file systems that allow their IT department to keep data readily available by using a mix of
technologies to allow affordable tiering and performance reliability.

163

NEXT GENERATION CHANGE MANAGEMENT: BEST PRACTICES AND LESSONS LEARNED

FROM A LARGE SCALE CORPORATE DEPLOYMENT OF PETREL
A.Latham & G.Smith (Chevron, USA)

In 2007, Chevron made a strategic decision to update its earth science interpretation work platforms and initiated
a project to select a Next Generation set of tools for a community of over 1500 earth scientists to support our
Upstream business. In late 2007, Chevron concluded agreements with Schlumberger SIS to use the Petrel
interpretation and earth modeling software frameworks as a part of this solution. The Next Gen vendor
solutions, along with Chevron proprietary enhancements, are being deployed globally to all Chevron business
units. A formal Next Gen project team of Chevron technical development and support personnel have
implemented the global deployments, with the assistance of vendor support personnel. As this is a deployment of
multiple software frameworks and upgrades to existing database capabilities, it is very complex and requires
intense involvement of both management and technical staff, both centrally and within the business units.
Deployments of the new Next Gen platforms began in late 2009 with selected workflow pilots in various business
units around the globe. In late 2010, global deployment began in earnest with a team of approximately 120
technical staff coordinating and conducting readiness, migration, training, and support activities. A formal and
well organized deployment model was implemented to ensure critical personnel were in place, both centrally and
within each business unit site. Readiness planning templates provided business units with deployment roadmaps.
External reviews and Go/No-Go decision meetings provided key checkpoints to ensure business units were
sufficiently prepared to effectively deploy to their user community.
Success in a project of this scale and scope is critically impacted by the effectiveness of the organizational change
management process. Elements which have been critically important for our deployments are: 1) Strong and
visible management support at all levels, 2) Rigorous application of a global deployment model, including specific
business unit ownership of their roles and responsibilities, 3) Committed and dedicated project team members,
including vendor support personnel, 4) Effective project leadership, 5) Good decision making processes, and 6)
Effective tracking and communication processes to maintain momentum and focus. Lessons learned and best
practices from this effort are being utilized on other deployment projects of global focus.

164

ENHANCED PETREL BACKUP AND RECOVERY WITH NETAPP

B. Lauritsen (Apache, USA) & O. Qazi (NetApp, USA)

This presentation by Apache Corporation and NetApp describes a new solution for Petrel Project Backup and
Recovery. The discussion will outline enhanced data management for Petrel users with respect to managing data in
a growing environment. Specific items that will be discussed include the ability to secure the decentralized project
data and many copies of it that are usually kept on users' workstations. The presentation will also discuss how
Apache, NetApp, Schlumberger SIS, and Blueback Reservoir got together to design this feature. There will be an
overview of the NetApp components that make this solution unique. Finally, a significant portion of this
presentation will cover a case study from Apache Corporation. A demo will be available for the audiences during
the presentation and at the NetApp booth inside the Schlumberger SIS Global Forum.

165

OPTIMIZED PETREL AND ECLIPSE ENVIRONMENTS AT APACHE

B. Lauritsen (Apache, USA)

Apache Corporation are key users of highly advanced Petrel and ECLIPSE workflows, with many users developing
new techniques within their own environments before releasing to the rest of the company.
The current Hewlett Packard Z800 Workstations are in heavy use within Apache, including advanced systems
containing dedicated solid state memory systems, multiple core CPUs and outputs to quad HD 56 panels.
To give their users even greater power, Apache have taken workstation technology to the absolute maximum and
designed their own Fastest Petrel Workstation in the world. By comparing hardware and developing solutions
with strategic vendors such as IBM, HP and Cisco, alongside partnerships with FusionIO and NVIDIA, Apache are
now able to deliver huge processing power and seemingly endless amounts of compute and memory to each user
assigned these machines.

166

THE NEW APPROACH OF TECHNICAL DATA ADMINISTRATION IN PEMEX

L. Mateos (PEMEX, Mexico)

ProSource* & Seabed* are the platform to integrate different repositories ProSource* & Seabed provide the
mechanism to incorporate and integrate different kind of petrotechnical data, such as logs, rock sample, fluid
analysis, interpretation results etc.
Challenge
To have a unique repository with the same business rules, the same catalogues, and the same mechanism to offer
the petrotechnical data to the final users. Direct mechanism to transfer data to the specialized applications, such
as OFM, Petrel & Techlog*.
Solution
To complete a migration roadmap based on ProSource & Seabed. First, to migrate well data from Finder* to
Seabed. Second, migrate well log data from LogDB* to Seabed. Implement data administration processes using
ProSource Enterprise and ProSource Logs. Finally, integrate the final official interpretation results into Seabed
using ProSource Projects.
In the top of Seabed, ProSource Front Office integrated with the Pemex technical Sharepoint portal
Results
A single repository, integrating and providing different kind of petrotechnical data, allowed to decrease by 20% the
time spent looking for petrotechnical data and to minimize manual data transfers to specialized applications.

167

FIVE STEPS TO ASSURING SUCCESS IN PETREL DEPLOYMENTS - WORKSHOP

E. Osjord (Schlumberger, Norway)

A Petrel deployment meets its true outcome through its lasting impact on the target user community. Change
management aspects - both hard and soft - can be daunting and present a major challenge. What is the prize? How
is success defined, caused and measured? What are the key opportunities and risks? During this interactive
session, audience members are invited to share their insights and experience. We will then rank recommendations
from the group and create a definitive top-10 list to help assure success in Petrel deployments.

168

TRANSMISSIBILITY UPSCALING: A NEW INDUSTRIAL IMPLEMENTATION

P. Panfili, M. Botta, A. Cominelli (ENI, Italy)

In reservoir study complex geological models consisting of 107108 grid cells are routinely built to capture flowrelevant geological features. These grids are then populated using geostatistical methods. Computational
efficiency motivates the use of much coarser grid in reservoir simulation; an upscaling process is then required to
populate coarse grid cells starting from the properties distributed in the geological scale. Upscaling is particularly
challenging for permeability, because fluid flow through porous media is mainly driven by permeability contrasts.
In commercial softwares effective coarse permeability (K*) are computed using a range of methods, from simple
average to flux based methods. The approach is rather consolidated but sometimes K*-based coarse grid
predictions do not capture the impact of the fine scale heterogeneity on the depletion process. This inadequacy
was documented for a real-field study in the Eni Paper SPE146508, where a vertical-only upscaling was
considered.
To overcome the problem, an innovative software named Dyrect (Dynamic reservoir effective coarse
transmissibility) was developed by Eni to implement the transmissibility upscaling methodology. The tool was built
using the Schlumberger platform known as Ocean to optimise the proper hook-up with Petrel.
In Dyrect, the solution of local flow problems around coarse cell interfaces is used to compute effective coarse grid
transmissibility (T*). For vertical-only upscaling the process can be greatly simplified and essentially can be seen as
a manipulation of fine grid transmissibility. T* populated coarse grids could replicate fine scale simulation results,
and this upscaling solution became part of the modelling work-flow for the considered project.
Dyrect is part of the Eni upscaling toolbox. To avoid sampling, the implementation is based on the assumption that
fine scale cells are approximately a refinement of some coarse cell, then making proportional-type gridding the
target. At this point Dyrect is implemented for vertical-upscaling, but future developments are scheduled to
account also for lateral upscaling. The implementation took also care of practical issues related to the presence of
faults, pinched or non-pay cells. Thanks to Dyrect, T* upscaling was used for many reservoir studies with
remarkable enhancement in terms of accuracy. Furthermore, the increased confidence and reliability in the use of
coarse models lead to a noticeable reduction of the simulation time.

169

NEXT GENERATION SERVERS AND WORKSTATIONS

S. Pinn (Intel, USA) & R. Bland (HP, USA)

Technology advancement continue to maximize performance that todays Intel XEON processors and HP Servers
and workstations. A new generations of XEON processors has JUST been introduced bringing new levels of
performance to Oil and Gas applications. But processors are nothing without a supporting system and architecture.
Please join HP and Intel as they introduce the new HP Gen 8 Servers using next generation Intel XEON processors
as they set new levels of geoscience processing.

170

KNOWLEDGE BASED APPROACH FOR ELECTRICAL LOGS MANAGEMENT IN PEMEX DRILLING

DEPARTMENT
S.T. Subiaur (PEMEX, Mexico)

Improved corporate electrical logs database and management processes for Pemex drilling department using
ProSource technology.
It has been determined that the Oil and Gas industry loses 3% of the investment in the protection of the
geophysical logs annually. Also it is estimated that the Pemex Drilling Department (Unidad de Negocios de
Perforacin, UPMP) has invested more than $5 billion USD in geophysical logs acquisition so far. The reasons of
these losses are generally focused on information technology, processes and human resources. Each of these areas
needs to be updated periodically according to global best practices and personal experiences
Challenge
High availability services with superior quality allowing each asset engineer to use the information in their daily
workflows. This is main reason for which the Pemex Drilling Department (Unidad de Negocios de Perforacin,
UPMP) took the decision to invest in an innovative electrical logs management process for the renewal of
methodologies and procedures for loading and quality assurance, together with a state-of-the-art technology
support and training to the management team responsible of this area.
Solution
Migration from LogDB to ProSource Logs
Integration with ProSource Enterprise
Implementation of ProSource Front Office as the visualization and logs transfer web tool
Standardization of the entire process of logs management within the organization
Customization of ProSource Logs & ProSource Front Office
Results
An integrated database to manage well log data to support PEMEX operations.
Decreasing in a 30% the time spent looking for well log data and to minimize manual data transfers to
specialized applications.

171

A PILOT STUDY: STUDIO KNOWLEDGE DEPLOYMENT IN TURKISH PETROLEUM CORPORATION

N. Temizhan, B. N. Tademir & T. Tan (TPAO, Turkey)

In 2011, upon demonstration of Studio* features by SIS personnel, it has been decided by TPAO Exploration
Department to deploy a Petrel Pilot Project to test capabilities of the Petrel Studio Knowledge system. Decision
was taken basically to address following issues: improve the productivity by integrating data from different
disciplines, reducing data exchange time between departments and shorten the adaptation time of the new staff.
In this scope, one of the basins complete G&G data was transferred from OpenWorks database to Studio
Knowledge database. Data size allocated for testing was around 80 GB which includes nearly 1,000 2D seismic
lines, 25 3D seismic cubes, 1,000 wells, logs, interpretation and related information. For testing purposes, seismic
bulk files stored on a NTFS file system over Win 7 64-bit OS and all the data connected to the users over 1 GB
network speed and access speed, especially to 3D seismic data, was satisfactory on users computers.
Furthermore, a project was created containing 2D&3D seismic, well, log and associated data to test other features
of the Studio. Among them, search feature enabled users to find and visualize related information from database
and across other projects in a very short time and favorites menu simplified accessing the necessary process and
data. Map Service feature enabled us to integrate TPAOs GIS data base with Petrel. Visualizing and analyzing most
of the data in 3D canvas was another feature increased productivity and provided better understanding of the
data.
Upon finishing the pilot project successfully, TPAO decided to increase its Petrel licenses and to deploy studio
across the department.

172

DIGITAL OILFIELD - WORKSHOP: FROM MEASUREMENTS TO DECISIONS AND CORRECTIVE

ACTION
I. Traboulay (Schlumberger, USA)

The business change management required to ensure success represents a huge challenge for many organizations.
The impact on existing business processes, peoples roles, and the existing technical environment must always be
taken into account when deploying either a targeted production solution or a digital oilfield system. During this
interactive session audience members are invited to share their insights and experience. We will then rank
recommendations from the group to create a definitive top 10 list to assure business value realization when
deploying these systems.

173

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