Collaboration

centres
What Shell, BP and Statoil
Statiol
have discovered so far
Report from Intelligent
Energy 2006
June 2006 Issue 2

BP’s Field of the

Future
Seismic, control,
optimisation, collaboration
and getting people to use it

Simulators and
real time data
What happens when the
two come together

Identifying
future leaders
The company knowledge
management system
– a good place to look?
3FHJTUFS
/PX
XXXTQFPSHBUDF

3OCIETYOF0ETROLEUM%NGINEERS
 Contents
INTELLIGENT ENERGY 2006
Comprehensive reporting from the Intelligent Energy 2006 event in Amsterdam in April
OVERVIEW 3
Senior figures from Petrobras, University of Houston, Aramco, Schlumberger, Norwegian
Petroleum Directorate and BP were invited to say what they thought were the biggest
messages they took home from the event. Also our overview of the event – speech from
June 2006 Issue 2
Dutch deputy prime minister Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, and report from SPE forum ‘making our
PUBLISHED AS ELECTRONIC EDITION ONLY mature fields smarter’

Publisher BP’s FIELD OF THE FUTURE 8

Stuart Fryer How BP sees the big picture, how BP has organised its Field of the Future project,
challenges of implementation, approaches to control systems, optimisation systems,
Digital Energy Journal seismic, collaboration environments, subsurface information, case studies from Trinidad
213 Marsh Wall, and Tobago
London, E14 9FJ, UK SHELL, ARAMCO, CHEVRON and TOTAL 14
How they are approaching the digital oilfield, including case studies from Shell’s smart
Editor
fields in Brunei, including its collaboration centres, and how Statoil is encouraging more
Karl Jeffery
collaboration.
jeffery@thedigitalship.com
Tel +44 207 510 4935 INTELLIGENT ENERGY PERSPECTIVES 20
Kristina Lauche, University of Aberdeen, on collaboration; Pat Cook, global HSE
Deputy Editor director with Halliburton on knowledge management and safety; Karim Rashid of
Keith Forward Morgan Stanley on how Wall Street encourages oil and gas industry technical
keith@doagjournal.com innovation; John Henderson, professor of management with Boston University;
Tel +44 207 510 4935 Halliburton and Knowledge Systems

Advertising and
SEISMIC / EXPLORATION
Subscription Sales
Monica Wojcik
SEISMIC / EXPLORATION NEWS 23
Includes Japan Petroleum Exploration Co, Saudi Aramco, CompuPrint, Exxon,
m.wojcik@lngjournal.com
Schlumberger, TGS, Shell / Fugro, ZEH, QinetiQ, PremierOil, Silicon Graphics
Tel +44 207 510 4936
VIBTECH 26
Production Its new wireless seismic system, with 1.2kg devices which include a seismic geophone,
Alison Balmer a memory card, GPS device, computer and radio data transmitter

Circulation
IKON SCIENCES 27
Ikon Scences explains how its RocDok software guides geoscientists through the
Katya Jeffery
application of rock physics models to integrate well, seismic and geological data
katya@doagjournal.com

Subscriptions cost GBP 195 per year for CONTROL SYSTEMS / EQUIPMENT
ten issues. Subscribe online at CONTROL SYSTEMS / EQUIPMENT MANAGEMENT NEWS 29
www.digitalenergyjournal.com. Including Kongsberg, Siemens, Invensys, ROVSING Dynamics

For our free weekly e-mail

SATCOMS
newsletter subscribe online at
www.digitalenergyjournal.com
SATCOMS NEWS 30
Including PetroCom, Schlumberger, Caprock, OilCamp

We have a free online news service see

www.digitalenergyjournal.com. SIMULATORS
SIMULATORS NEWS
Collaboration
centres
Including Roxar, Kongsberg, FMC Technologies 31
32
What Shell, BP and Statoil
Statiol
have discovered so far

June 2006 Issue 2

Report from Intelligent
Energy 2006 SIMULATORS AND REAL TIME DATA
BP’s Field of the
Future
Seismic, control,
The oil and gas industry is starting to experiment with incorporating real time data in
optimisation, collaboration
and getting people to use it
its reservoir modelling simulators, which could lead to the simulator becoming everybody’s
workflow management tool. Roxar’s Dr Steve Webb explains
Simulators and
real time data
MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
34
What happens when the
two come together

Identifying MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE NEWS

future leaders
The company knowledge
management system Including Veson, Epsis, POSC, Petris, Intervera, geoLOGIC, Siemens indX, OpenSprit
36
– a good place to look?

Cover picture: Shell HALLIBURTON BAROID

employees in a meeting We interview Hallburton Baroid’s “knowledge brokers” Kevin Paylow and Andy
at the Real Time
Operating Center (RTOC)
Hickman about how they think that company discussion boards are a good way to
which has the capacity to spot management talent
monitor real time data
from nine wells being
drilled. USA.
NURTURING YOUR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 38
Dr Alan Smith of Paras Consulting explains how oil and gas companies need to
Shell Photographic
Services/Royal Dutch Shell nurture their knowledge management systems to ensure success

June 2006 • digital energy journal 1

 foreword

Welcome to the second issue of

Digital Energy Journal!

A
t the Intelligent Energy 2006 conference in Amsterdam, where we were lucky to be able to distribute
the first issue of our magazine, there was a lot of talk along the lines of, ‘we’ve got the technology,
but how do we get people to want to use it, work with it, see the benefits, get enthusiastic about it
and invest in it.’
After putting this magazine together, I’ve got a suggestion.
Many of us assume that everyone using our software or reading the reports we write is an expert with a PhD,
20 years experience, strong business sense, a photographic memory and English as their first language,
otherwise what are they doing in our industry.
Consequently people rarely get told that their software isn’t as helpful as it could be, or their writing is difficult to
read, in case they look stupid. So nothing changes.
Good software is designed to help you do your job. This doesn’t mean presenting ever increasing data to you
in a sophisticated way. This means letting you know what you have to do today and giving you the specific
information you need to do it.
Good writing, including reports and press releases, is designed to attract your interest and make you think that
this could be an interesting article. It will quickly explain what the article is about, why you should read it, why it is
important and what it concerns. If you read on it will provide the information as promised, with minimum demands
of your brainpower and time. Not sentences which take a lot of brainpower to understand, and after expending the
brainpower you realise that they aren’t saying anything at all, just trying to look important and clever.
This industry does have plenty of experts with Phds, 20 years of experience, strong business sense, a
photographic memory and English as their first language. But guess what, I think experts also appreciate it when
you take the effort to make their software easy to use and your writing easy to follow. It doesn’t mean
compromising your technical integrity or creating writing or software which is only useful for new graduates.
OK now let me tell you what’s in this magazine.
We have comprehensive coverage of the Intelligent Energy Event in Amsterdam.
At the end of the 3 day event, senior figures from Petrobras, University of Houston, Aramco, Schlumberger,
Norwegian Petroleum Directorate and BP, among others, were invited to explain what they thought were the
biggest messages and ideas they are taking home from the conference.
BP gave comprehensive information about their Field of the Future project, including case studies from Trinidad,
how they are approaching seismic, getting data from subsurface, system optimisation and their ‘advanced
collaboration environments,’ which is all reported here.
Also in the magazine we have a vision for how simulators could act in the oil and gas industry, absorbing all
the data from the well and oilfield, crunching it to work out what is happening now, and what will happen in the
future, being a work engine for everyone from the asset manager, operations manager, production engineer,
reservoir engineer, geologist and remote experts.
We talk to ‘knowledge brokers’ from Halliburton Baroid Services about how they see their knowledge
management systems as a way to help senior management spot middle management talent.
Dr Alan Smith from Paras Consulting talks about how to nurture the corporate knowledge management systems.
Martyn Millwood Hargrave of IKON Sciences explains how software can lead geoscientists through the
application of rock physics models to integrate well, seismic and geological data.
If you read carefully, you’ll find out about another industry which takes a continuous real time feed from millions
of sensors, not all of which are on the ground surface.
The data is continually fed into a computer simulator on an enormous computer. The simulator works together
with human experts to predict what will happen in an hour, day, week, and continually updates this as new data
comes in. Ultimately this industry can provide vital information to the people who need it in a 30 second
snapsnot, and (clue) they may only be half awake at the time.
Digital Energy Journal is still only on its second issue, and if you like what you read here, you might be interested
in writing an article for the magazine, encouraging your colleagues to download the electronic magazine from our
website and sign up to our e-mail newsletter, subscribing to our print edition and maybe advertise.
We believe our magazine can contribute help the oil and gas industry solve the tough challenge meeting the
world’s energy needs by helping share information about new technology, best practise and people’s experiences,
and I hope you agree.

Karl Jeffery, editor

Digital Energy Journal, London

2 digital energy journal • June 2006

 Intelligent Energy 06

Intelligent
Energy 2006
conference
We’re getting close
to our vision of the
‘smart field,’ but big
challenges of getting
experts to co-ordinate
their decision making
workflow still remain
– our report from the
Amsterdam Intelligent
From the Intelligent Energy opening session. From left to right: Bill
Energy 2006 Stevens, MD, The Energy Consulting Group (previously senior research
director for oil and gas strategy at CERA); Fahad A Al-Moosa, drilling

conference and workover, Saudi Aramco; John Darley, director EP Technology, Shell

“W
e are in the midst
of something of a
revolution in how
the oil and gas
business is managed,” said John Darley, director
of E&P technology with Shell International at the
Intelligent Energy 2006 conference in
Amsterdam.
Shell, like most oil companies in the world, is
gradually making a transition to running its oil
fields in a whole new way, where fields are
monitored in real time, the data is fed into a
computer model which works out if the well is
operating optimally, and a mixture of geologists,
engineers and physicists work together to
decide what they can do to improve the
production rate, improve overall oil recovery
and minimise the chances of problems which
would interrupt production.
Doing this takes a mixture of a lot of
sensors in the well, oceanfloor and surface
equipment, as well as plenty of seismic and
geophysical data. It needs data
communications to get the data out, computer
processing to validate the data, computer
models to work out what is happening in the
well, and, hardest of all, first class experts
able to work together to quickly decide on the
best course of action – not work in isolation
and not take a long time to make decisions.
Most delegates at the Amsterdam Intelligent
Energy 2006 event said in an electronic vote
that they thought the concept could be
developed at scale within 5-10 years, and
the oil service industry will find an opportunity
in providing support for such systems within
0-3 years.
Most people thought the conference had
been ‘reasonably effective’ in helping build an
understanding of the business value of this.
However when asked how effective the
conference had been in helping delegates
develop their understanding of how to
implement it, the consensus was less
enthusiastic, between “not effective” and
“reasonably effective.”
This was the main point of the conference –
getting this stuff implemented is not easy.
Making an ‘intelligent energy’ concept work
needs a lot more than just clever technology – it
often means redefining people’s jobs, expecting
people to work much more collaboratively than
they are used to, changing the way they relate
to their colleagues and maybe how they derive
their sense of job security – and with any
change there will be some resistance.
Three whole new types of knowledge
management computer systems will need to be
developed.
Firstly, computer software which can present
the data from the control systems in a manner
easy to digest. There are quite a few such
systems on the market already.
Secondly, computer systems which can
enable employees to collaborate, share
knowledge and capture knowledge for future

June 2006 • digital energy journal 3

 Intelligent Energy 06
John Darley, director EP Technology, Shell
generations. Most oil service companies
already have systems like this, and there are a
few on the market.
Thirdly, computer systems to co-ordinate (even
‘orchestrate’) the expert decision making
processes (who does what when), both for
overseeing general production and in the event
of problems, for example slugging or sand.
The industry will need personnel to develop
new skills – they have to be comfortable with
technology, comfortable with working with many
different information streams, used to working
together with other people around the world
they have not necessarily met, quick to assess
the credibility of information, and comfortable
working with others and sharing their data and
knowledge with others.
It seems there are plenty of these types of
people around – they are just currently in
university, not working in the oil industry.
Most young people today are used to
working with multiple data streams (100 TV
channels, iPod, instant messenger as they do
their homework), quickly validating information
they find (websites, Wikipedia), working
together with people around the world on
knowledge management systems (blogs, MSN,
bulletin boards), quickly getting to grips with
new technology and using it to work out
creative solutions to complex challenges often in
collaboration with others (computer games), and
take it for granted that all information will be
free and open (Google philosophy).
As the oil industry frets about not being able
to recruit enough young people – we know
today’s young people want job security, to
make a meaningful contribution to the planet, a
complex challenge and something which sounds
exciting, hi-tech and modern. The oil and gas
industry can offer all this. But does it realise it?
The best ideas
At the end of the conference, a number of
senior people from all sectors of the industry
were asked to explain the biggest thoughts /
4 digital energy journal • June 2006
ideas / feelings they had as a result of the
conference.
José Formigli, E&P production engineering
executive manager for Petrobras, said he
thought that the focus should be on the
‘workflow, not the tools’.
“The value qualification may be complex, but
don’t use this as an alibi for no application of
the concept,” he said.
He also pointed out, “the intelligent energy
concept can be a very important point to attract
people to the industry.”
Mr Formigli suggested that the working
requirements of the intelligent field could be
compared to other working areas were
professionals are required to work in closely co-
ordinated ways, such as an orchestra.
Dr Michael Nikolaou, associate
professor of chemical engineering with the
University of Houston, said, “There are things
computers can do for us to improve our
workflow. Is it going to work? “A lot of
confidence has been built in the last 2 years.”
“You’re never going to get the business
process absolutely right [in workflow tools],” he
said. “Should one be deterred by this?
Absolutely not.”
“We must have a
knowledge transfer
between areas, and
make faster and better
decisions,” she said.
“We need to make the
petroleum industry
attractive to more
people.”
Turid Øygard,
Norwegian Petroleum Directorate
There are things people are unlikely to
succeed in. he said. “We’re not going to solve
a well problem remotely, no matter how
intelligent you are,” he said.
Referring to discussions about how to engage
the ‘X-box generation’ [today’s young people] in
the oil and gas industry, Prof Nikolaou noted
that “the X-box generation want instant
gratification,” which the oil and gas industry
cannot provide.
Referring to discussions about the industry not
agreeing on a name for its digital IT efforts, Prof
Nikolaou said “it doesn’t matter if you have a
good definition or not, but people are doing it.”
Universities can provide an important role in
these efforts, by most importantly training
personnel, and also being partners in
developing and validating technology, he said.
Olivier Le Peuch, president of
Schlumberger Information Solutions, said he
previously had “a lot of sceptism” in what he
would get out the event, but it may have been a
turning event for him. “I have more ambition
than frustration,” he said.
The digital oil field no longer seems to be in
the future, he said. “We had over 30 case
studies going from ‘would do’ to ‘have done’.
We have gone beyond the why to the how and
where.”
The next challenges are ensuring saleability of
technology and commercial availability, he
said, and moving the industry from isolated
pockets of success to global digital
transformation.
Technology needs to be integrated, adapted
and deployed at scale, he said. Processes need
to be modelled, transformed, modelled and
tuned. People need to be empowered, enthused
and trained.
“It is painstaking to describe the process – but
worthwhile to describe the process,” he said.
However he noted that most of the case
studies presented were about operations from
day to day, not long term reservoir management
and benefits. “We need to benefit long term as
well,” he said.
A speaker from Aramco said he thought
that “more production, higher recovery and
enhanced health, safety and environmental
performance (HSE) can be achieved.”
“There are challenges – it needs retraining of
people. Going to proactive management is a
challenge which needs to be addressed. And
we need to streamline processes,” he said.
Turid Øygard with the Norwegian
Petroleum Directorate, said that Norway
estimates it will get NOK 250bn (US$40bn)
from ‘smart fields’ type of projects “if we start
now and don’t fail.”
NPD has set up an ‘e-drift forum’ with semi-
annual meetings and steering groups to work on
introducing these systems in Norway, including
looking at if oil companies active in Norway
are using the best available technology and
looking at the consequences of it.
There have been concerns raised in Norway
that it will lead to loss of jobs, but Ms Øygard
thought it would actually create more jobs.
“We must have a knowledge transfer
between areas, and make faster and better
decisions,” she said. “We need to make the
petroleum industry attractive to more people.”
Eric Kreft from the Netherlands
Organisation for Applied Scientific Research
(TNO) said “It’s about the whole workflow -
integration and collaboration, if you have an
automated environment. This requires change
management, clear vision of the end state and
effective communication with all involved.”
Mike Utsler, BP’s technical director for the
North Sea, echoed Mr Le Peuch saying “this
conference has shown me it’s moved from
solutions to actual applications.”

“There are examples we can all take back
and point to. We move from an unknown and
highly risk taking operation to a norm. There is
a tremendous thirst for data and availability of
data, and questions of how do we translate
data into knowledge.
Changing roles
There was plenty of talk about the
challenges of implementing this kind of
technology and processes, often causing a lot
of change in how people work, how fast they
are expected to make decisions, the degree of
person to person collaboration required, a
need to work closely with people in different
parts of the world, and jobs being created in
some places and taken away in others.
Making experts work together is not the
easiest thing in the world, particularly because
expert people are often used to working in
isolation providing expert advice, not working in
teams.
To make the right decision of, say, whether to
reduce the pressure in a surface separator, you
want to have access to the Phd education and
experience of the geologist, geophysicists,
reservoir engineer and drilling engineer, who
are all looking at the well in a different way
and on different time scales.
Oil companies want experts of different
disciplines to apply all of their knowledge and
come up with the best decision between them,
within the space of a few hours.
Persuading experts to collaborate closely with
experts in other fields to quickly reach the best
decision could require the development of
interpersonal skills they do not possess, not an
easy thing for someone in their fifties.
Comparisons were made with other areas
where expert people work in close
collaboration, such as an orchestra or rock
band, and how this is achieved, and whether
the oil and gas industry can learn something
from this. Maybe the work flow software would
be the equivalent of the music score.
Industry needs solid
data on benefits of
smart technology –
Bill Severns, MD, The
Energy Consulting
Group (previously
senior research
director for oil and
gas strategy at
CERA)
Statoil’s resident anthropologist, Vidar Hepsø,
suggested something slightly different – seeing
the information within a company as an
‘ecology’, where different people feed
information in and take information out, but
ultimately everybody has what they need to do
their jobs.
The concept of ‘ownership’ of information can
be a hurdle, with many in-house experts
traditionally having so many requests for help
they build walls around them and restrict who
they will give assistance to, or expect something
in return, as the only way they can get their jobs
done, or restricting access to their expertise to
ensure people respect it as a way to achieve
job security.
But the idea of controlling access to
information is a strange concept for today’s
graduates, who are used to information being
freely available.
If experts are restricting access to their
knowledge to make sure that they are valued in
the company, then the oil and gas industry
“We will look
specifically at energy,
innovation and
sustainable energy.
A turnaround and
transition is vitally
needed.”
Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, Dutch Minister of Economic
Affairs and Dutch deputy prime minister
clearly needs to take other steps to make its
experts feel valued and secure.
There was a lot of talk that the way oil
companies treat their expert personnel will need
to change. In the past the corporate emphasis
has been mainly on cutting costs, with people
treated as something like a commodity. If
companies want to get the best out of their
employees in this new environment they will
need to be more caring, create better career
development plans and do more to make them
feel secure.
As one speaker explained, his children ask
him what he does for a living, he said “I work
for Shell” and the children told him it sounded
really boring.
Karim Rashid, managing director of the
global energy group with Morgan Stanley,
explained that the pressure oil companies are
being put under by shareholders is changing.
Shareholders are encouraging oil companies to
improve production and reserves data, rather
than just cut costs as in the past. This is leading
to changing emphasis on ‘smart’ concepts at a
corporate level.
June 2006 • digital energy journal
Intelligent Energy 06
Laurens-Jan
Brinkhost,
deputy prime
minister,
Netherlands
One challenge is that there is still not a great
deal of public data about how well ‘smart’
technologies work and the benefits, enabling
people to build up a solid business case, and
the oil industry is not an industry renowned for
being keen to take technical risk.
“Right now it looks too risky for many
people,” said Bill Severns, with consultant
Energy Consulting Group. Building up some
solid business data “is an area where the
industry could probably co-operate a bit more,”
he said.
Mr Severns raised the issue that technology
could have a net negative effect, if all it does is
bring production forward which would have
happened anyway.
“If the intelligent field concept is more about
production enhancement than reserve
enhancement then an intelligent field could
accelerate the decline even more,” he said.
On the other hand, it could stop the decline
in many major fields. “Intelligent energy will
become a larger factor. It can potentially add
40 per cent to the net present value of a
project,” he said. “You could be between the
consumer and $100 per barrel of oil.”
Laurens Jan Brinkhorst
“You are representing the future of energy,
while a minister is merely there to represent the
needs of his government,” said Laurens-Jan
Brinkhorst, Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs
and Dutch deputy prime minister in his
conference keynote address. “I am very
pleased to be the first minister of intelligent
energy.”
“We will look specifically at energy,
innovation and sustainable energy,” he said. “A
turnaround and transition is vitally needed. We
need to seize these opportunities.”
“Fossil fuels will continue to play an important
5
 Intelligent Energy 06
role in energy for the time being. We have to
ensure optimal use is made of Netherlands’ oil
and gas reservoirs,” he said.
“The fields where oil and gas is already
being extracted must be emptied as efficiently
as possible. My challenge to use is to use the
technology to achieve further development of
the Dutch oil and gas fields.”
“The higher energy prices are proving helpful
for further research. More priority must be given
to research and development in smart fields,”
he said.
“Netherlands wants to be a front runner,” he
said. “We can work with new and intelligent
energy technology.”
“The ministry of economic affairs has a
mission to promote sustainable economic
growth with due consideration for nature,
environment and the social aspect, and I
believe strongly in that.”
“I think the idea of decoupling economic
growth from the environment is gaining ground,”
he said, referring to the idea of looking at
economic and environmental issues together,
rather than as one versus the other, as they have
often been looked at in the past.
“We have become sometimes in our society
a risk adverse society,” he said. “We have to
become less risk averse and more open to
innovation and change. We need to be ahead
of the development.”
Making mature fields smarter
Roger Murray, Network Leader for
Reservoir Modeling and Visualisation at BP,
presented a paper based on the Society of
Petroleum Engineers Forum called “Making our
mature fields smarter”.
The Forum was held in Dubrovnik, Croatia in
September 2005. Staff and executives from
companies including BP, Shell, Chevron, Total,
SLB, Weatherford, Baker Hughes and many
others were “In one place for a week” in order
to assess current state and take a view of the
future of intelligent oilfield technology.
[NB the views expressed were not necessarily
those of BP].
According to the group, “There has been a
smart field evolution over the past 10 years,”
he said. “We have a series of flagship fields –
where many smart technologies have been
applied.”
“The perception is that we are slow to take
up smart technologies.”
“Applying smart technologies to green fields
is easier than applying it to mature fields where
there is legacy infrastructure,” he said. “It is
harder to make the business case in mature
fields than in green fields.”
“We are going for the easiest projects first -
not necessarily the highest value ones.”
“Our industry does not have a common vision
of what a smart field looks like.”
“It is unclear what value can be assigned to
deployment of smart technologies. Hard value
figures tend not to be shared due to the
perception that being able to deploy smart field
6 digital energy journal • June 2006
technologies is a differentiator both between
the different operators and between the
different suppliers.
“It’s stunningly difficult to assign value to an
individual component of a smart field
program,” he said. “If you are an operator with
a major smart field programme like BP or Shell,
you are able to state that you will only achieve
full value by applying the full whack. If you just
deploy a single component within a single
field, it’s a lot harder.”
“We need to know when to make a step
change as opposed to continuing to deploy
incrementally - for example putting fibre optics in
the platform can provide the step change.”
“We must treat data as a valuable asset, we
have to change the way we approach data.
We need much more improved data -system
“Applying smart
technologies to green
fields is easier than
applying it to mature
fields where there is
legacy infrastructure.
It is harder to make
the business case in
mature fields than in
green fields.”
Roger Murray, Network Leader for Reservoir
Modeling and Visualisation at BP
interfaces. The interfaces we have got appear
to be stunningly convoluted. We have to be
selective about which data to bring across from
the legacy system.”
“We have very few digital standards,” he
said. “Standards are created by the industry
working together, that’s not something we’ve
very good at.”
“The success of deploying smart fields is
determined by the ability to manage change,”
he said. “We need to take high quality change
management into the smart deployment.”
“The geology of our reservoirs hasn’t
changed. You need the existing skill set to
mange your fields and we also need additional
skills, and a good example is an increasing
need for the application of control engineering,”
he said.
“We need to think about the level of
technology and how that level of technology
will interface with the people that we have got.”
“You need to clearly understand the
Roger Murray,
network leader for
reservoir
modelling and
visualisation, BP
business process and the underlying
workflows,” he said. “We apply the
technology in order to deliver workflows. If
we don’t have clarity on the business process
and workflows we should not expect our
systems won’t give us the right answers.”
One suggestion was that the complex work in
mapping out workflows could be shared
between companies, because many companies
have similar workflows. However getting oil
companies to work together is not so easy. “
“At the end of the Forum week, the
participants showed some willingness to work
together on this, but the good intentions quickly
got forgotten when people got back to work
inside the cocoon of their daily work within both
the major operators and the suppliers”, he said.
Once we have clear business processes and
workflows we can automate. “Upstream is
basically the laggard in automation,” he said.
“Other industries have embraced automation
and probably embraced it in order to survive.”
One problem with getting people to work
together is the differing timescales that people
work on. “Production engineers work on shorter
time frame than reservoir engineers,” he said. “If
you have a reservoir engineering problem but
use the production engineers’ workflows and
toolkit there will be difficulties.”
“There is a clear case for collaboration
environments which enable high quality and
rapid decision making,” he said. “Technology is
merely an enabler.”
Companies could work together in many
ways to share the effort, but the obstacle is the
idea that companies should develop things
themselves and not share them with other
companies in order to maintain commercial
advantage.
“There’s a high level of similarity in what
major operators are doing. We should be able
to work together,” he said. “We need to
publicise successes, failures and value
generated.” Q
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 Intelligent Energy 06

BP’s Field of
the Future
BP presented comprehensive information about its Field of the Future project at the Intelligent
Energy event, including its view of the 'big picture'; how it is structuring the project; how it is
implementing the program; its approaches to control systems, subsurface information
systems, reservoir optimisation, seismic and collaborative working; and case studies from
Trinidad and Tobago

MIKE UTSLER,
technical director North Sea, BP

M
ike Utsler, technical director of
BP’s North Sea exploration and
production, talked about the
challenges with smart
technology. “From an operator’s perspective –
why is it still such hard work? Why is it so
difficult to move forward?” he asked. “How do
we do it today, not in the future?”
“There are a vast number of examples where
good solutions have been developed to meet
today’s and tomorrow’s business needs. Why is it
so difficult to implement this at scale? How do we
get organized to embrace and use these tools?”
The critical success factors are having a
focused program, he said. “What is your
technical deployment strategy? Is it over the
whole lifecycle of the asset? Can you balance
short term demands in a $65 a barrel world to
improving recoveries over the future?”
“We want to understand the set of solutions BP is planning to keep its oil flowing to the pumps with best use of subsurface data, seismic technology,
versus the set of challenges,” he said. systems optimisation, control systems, and collaboration rooms, as part of its ‘Field of the Future’ project

“The fundamentals are making better

decisions faster and more effectively, and transferring information into knowledge people
can use,” he said. “People need to integrate
Mike Utsler, technical their information silos, and have much more
director of
BP’s North Sea
focussed vision / system integration and
Exploration and common architecture. How are we going to
Production sustainably integrate these assets and revise the
way we work?”
“We’ve got to understand how we prepare
organisations and people in those organisations
to grow, how we deliver in a safe effective
manner,” he said. “We have to link these
processes to the reality of the economic world.”
Many people not installing control systems
which will last as long as the well will be
produced, he said. “The lifecycle of most fields
in 70s and 80s was a twenty year life. Typical
control systems have a lifetime of ten years or
more. We are now building fields to run forty
years. We must actually understand what is the
life of these assets, how long it expected to be
live. We need to develop a robust life of asset
strategy.”
“We need to look at the need for creating a
common architecture, to improve speed of
technology adoption and reduce risk,” he said.
“We need to make bold decisions about what
architecture is going to do.”
“What are the long term processes and
people still we have to plan for it we have to
reinvent the capability of our organisation every
ten years?
“It is a very real challenge this industry faces
as it continues to age,” he said. “There will be
40 per cent less people in the next ten years to
do this.”
Mr Utsler suggested that developing
mentoring roles for older employees could be a
good way to stop the industry losing all its

8 digital energy journal • June 2006


“It’s a big prize and
its got the attention
of our senior
management” –
Chris Reddick, Field
of the Future
technology unit
leader, BP
knowledge, such as for the people who don’t
want to completely retire, just play golf one or
two days a week. “What can we do to link
these minds together, and do that across the full
lifecycle of the asset?”
“This is about understanding where every
molecule of the hydrocarbons is. It is
hydrocarbon stewardship.”
Mr Utsler said that one of the issues could be
that people who run assets think differently to
the people who did the exploration and
drilling, with asset managers much more risk
averse, he said.
BP’s Field of the
Future program
BP started its ‘Field of the Future’ project in
2003 and the business process transformation
activities were begun in 2004. The goal was
to “demonstrate measurable value delivery from
the optimisation technology and establish the
requirements for sustainability of the
technology,” the company says.
BP believes that the program can potentially
add 1 billion barrels of additional reserves on
BP’s accounts, adding about 5 per cent onto
BP’s current proved reserves figure of 20 billion
barrels. There are also non-proved reserves
accessible with this technology.
“It’s a big prize and it’s got the attention of our
senior management,” said Chris Reddick, Field
of the Future Technology Unit Leader with BP.
BP is looking at its program in three separate
groups: remote performance management,
optimisation and remote operations / control
systems. “You need all the elements,” he said.
“The whole is much bigger than the sum of the
parts.”
“The primary focus is on optimising value
from existing fields and remote performance
management of wells. We also looked at
assuring well integrity, improving operating
efficiency and moving work to the most
qualified people anywhere in the world.”
“We want exploit to the capability we have
got to move information around the company,
connecting expertise with technology, to look at
how we can improve our operations,” he said.
It should lead to a reduction in travel, he
said. “Normally if we have a problem,
somebody has to get on a train and do fact
finding. We want to eliminate the travel time.
We are going to shift to expertise being
delivered where it can give the largest impact.”
Mr Reddick says he thinks that the trade-off
(whether efforts to increase production today
could lead to a reduction in overall oil recovery
over the life of the reservoir is not adequately
addressed.
Mr Reddick stressed the value of getting
‘drive’ for the project from the people in charge
of running the different oil fields (‘business
units’), rather than from BP’s technology team.
“You need strong support from business
units,” he said. “It’s important for business units
to put forward their own business cases [for
intelligent technology]. We hope we will end
up with something business units need and not
something technologists think they need.
Business units will need to set expectations
about the application of technology through
their local leadership, and make sure the
benefits are identified.”
However this has to be balanced against the
need to make sure that they do not dilute the
plans for the intelligent system for reasons of
cost or minimising disruption. “It takes a lot of
tenacity to make sure projects end up with
design standards they are supposed to have,”
he said.
It is important to determine what the business
application was first, and building the modelling
system around this, he said.
On the topic of using IT to capture the
knowledge of staff who might retire or leave the
industry soon, Mr Reddick said it is important to
involve the oilrig staff in this as well as the shore
staff.
It is also very important to make sure any
lessons are properly learned, he said, citing a
performance review carried out by the US Army
after Hurricane Hugo which made 29
recommendations, none of which were taken.
“It takes more than a poster campaign, e-mail
drop from the president or video to change the
company structure,” he said.
Implementing Field of
the Future
David Feineman from BP America talked
about challenges BP has faced implementing
its ‘Field of the Future’ projects to date, and
what it is doing to try make things go more
smoothly.
BP is well aware that implementing a ‘Field
of the Future’ program needs a lot more than
just technology – it needs a broad business
transformation approach.
The technology can cause lots of potential
problems, such as just generating too much
information for people to manage.
“Most problems of technology adoption
June 2006 • digital energy journal
Intelligent Energy 06
need investigation of five things: strategy,
business process, culture, technology and
roles, also organisation, and workplace
configuration,” he said.
Communicating what it is doing and
educating people about the benefits is very
important, as is establishing reasonable
expectations about what can be achieved
and how long it will take.
Other challenges are working out the right
level to analyse things at, and not confusing
work processes with procedures, he said.
Greenfield start-ups have their own special
challenges.
It is hard to work out what the impact of
real time information will be on the
organisation and workload of onshore
production teams, he said. It is also very hard
to get the tools right when onshore and
offshore staff have to work together, or when
teams from different departments have to work
together.
Convincing staff of the value of the project,
and how the short term effort to change what
they are doing will lead to longer term
benefits, is not easy, he said. “It is difficult for
teams to assess the impact of real time
information and continuous optimisation.
The only way to ensure that stakeholders
are engaged is by walking them through the
proposed changes.
“People embrace change more readily
when they understand the case for change,”
he said. “Understanding the personal benefit
in realising technology value is a powerful
motivator.”
“We want to understand and mitigate
potential negative effects of change to the
team and its interfaces with outside
organizations,” he said.
BP is conducting ‘active experimentation’ on
methods for delivery of business
transformation, with internal staff, small
consultants, and large global consultancies,
he said.
BP is building up a knowledge base of how
to implement these kinds of projects, based on
the around 20 projects it has already done.
“We want to be able to reuse process and
transformation learning across our assets,” he
said. “We put the results from each asset in a
common repository / database.”
“We have transplanted the learning about
optimising base production process from a
single oil asset situation to a multiple gas field
optimisation problem.”
BP’s Field of the Future offering includes a
method and tool for understanding and
communicating business processes; a small
team which understands business processes,
organisational culture, and change
management and has tools for exploring those
aspects; consulting to state a business;
process facilitation and coaching for teams;
and developing and transferring skills, he
said.
9
 Intelligent Energy 06
Understanding work processes
The important thing is to understand and
document people’s work processes and what
they do, no matter how complex this is.
“Asset staffs are knowledge workers with a
high degree of autonomy in how they approach
their activities – the work is often unstructured,
collaborative and iterative,” he said. “As a
result, it is rarely clear what is the baseline ‘as
is’ interpretation process that will be
transformed. However, it is possible to model
future business processes without explicitly
mapping this out.
“You have an increased need for clarity about
roles, performance measures and triggering
events to ensure seamless execution of work,”
he said.
“Creating a generic set of work processes
and roles for handling an activity, such as
responding to a slugging condition in a
producing well, is quite feasible. You need to
establish a capability to understand work
activities and explain the impact of new
technology and data streams on specific
activities and roles,” he said.
Understanding the work activities the asset
must do is the logical starting point for analysis.
“We can organise roles, information and
systems by the activity that uses them,” he said.
“It needs an integrated design and change
implementation approach to business processes,
information flows, people’s roles,” he says.
“When assets do plan to implement new
technology, having clarity about the business
process allows us to pinpoint what the impacts
will be in terms of activities, roles and
performance metrics.”
“Building an integrated view of asset activities
requires people with systems thinking skills,” he
said.
“Comparatively few people have the high end
level view of operating asset integration and
information flow to facilitate the development of
a current or future work design.“
Once work processes have been fully
understood and incorporated in the system, it is
tricky trying to work out if the same work process
can be implemented in another field, or if an
alternative one needs to be developed, he said.
“Every asset where that transformed work
process will be implemented needs to create a
local instance that takes the generic model and
replaces it with references to people,
organisation, locations, information and
infrastructure that exists at the site,” he said.
“For global transformation initiatives to
succeed, they need to address the challenge of
providing tools and methods to move into the
implementation layer where everything looks
customized and retain the linkage to the more
generic common processes and roles,” he said.
BP’s control systems
BP’s Paul Hocking talked about how the
company is developing automation and
advanced control systems. BP’s Valhall field, in
the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, is
10 digital energy journal • June 2006
being designed to be “one of the first remote
controlled fields in the world,” he said.
BP plans to progressively install downhole
flow control technology, and transmit real time
information from this back to shore where it can
be shared with experts from around the
company.
“BP is gradually
bringing in wireless
instrumentation
technology but does not
believe this is as reliable
as fixed cables just yet.
I can certainly see it
would be good for
monitoring because
that’s not mission
critical.”
Graeme Verra, BP
BP has been working with increased grades
of automation “We want to get to the point
where we don’t need an operator to intervene
apart from in abnormal situations,” he said. “It
turned out to be more difficult than we thought.”
BP is developing the system together with
vendors, including Honeywell and ABB.
Control equipment on the oil rig is getting
smarter and smarter, he said, in the same way
that today’s home printers can tell you how full
the printer cartridge is and that you have the
right cartridge in the right slot, whilst a few
years ago they couldn’t even tell if you had put
paper in.
BP wants to take all the data from its wells
and plant around the world, feed it into
information hubs, and then make this available
to its experts so they can look at problems from
wherever they are in the world.
There are plenty of benefits to having more
centralised co-ordination. “For example, we
started a new well and got slugs, which made it
very hard to do metering,” he said. “We shared
the information with our multiphase flow people
in Sunbury [BP’s UK office complex].and they
came up with a solution”.
From their ‘birds eye view, the experts can
spot many things that personnel on the oil rig
will not necessarily spot, for example that they
do not have spare parts for an upcoming
compressor maintenance task, or that do not
need to take out of service some 60 per cent of
the valves being delivered to a repair centre
today which turn out to have nothing wrong
with them.
“We can get rich information up to the
control room, and have someone looking after
our valves, now, telling us which valves we
need to take out.”
“We can pick things up early,” he said. “We
can see the temperatures and pressures are
changing.” The remote staff can do remote
monitoring of equipment, and inform plaform
well personnel, “hey guys you have a pump
about to fail”.
The remote expert staff can identify problems
with data degradation, solve struggling issues,
diagnose problems and do all this much faster
than in the past, and with more effective use of
people’s time.
For example, a commissioning team having
problems with a compressor in the old days
could take would take 5 days for them to send
info to the right people and get an answer,
whilst today with access to all the data the
remotely located Sunbury team could resolve it
in 4 hours in the same way.
You can also easily bring in third party
expertise, for example from the manufacturers of
large equipment such as gas turbines.
Another area is sand management, an issue
on the Schiehallion [North Sea] and Azeri
[Azerbaijan] oil fields. BP can have remote
experts analyse the data and decide if any
course of action is necessary.
BP is gradually bringing in wireless
instrumentation technology but does not believe
this is as reliable as fixed cables just yet. “I can
certainly see it would be good for monitoring
because that’s not mission critical,” he said.
BP is heavily reliant on telecommunications to
connect its field operations to its operations
centres. “We are going to try to put fibre in
place whenever it is possible and practical,”
says BP’s Graeme Verra. “We want to try to put
fibre in place in the North Sea, deepwater, Gulf
of Mexico.”
BP’s optimisation expert Bryn Steinhouse

BP’s automation and advanced control expert Paul Hocking presents live data from the North Sea
BP’s optimisation
BP has used modelling software for all of its
reservoirs for many years, but it wants to bring
the reservoir fully into the optimisation loop,
and get to a point where modelling is
continually updated, so it can offer best
information for short term versus long term
decisions.
The challenge is getting the models online, so
that they can provide advice about the best
options in real time and link in with the business
processes.
It wants to optimise plant (e.g. oil gas
separators) hour by hour, optimise the
production over days and weeks, and optimise
how the reservoir is managed over the long
term on a weeks to months timescale.
The company has a “fair track record” in
using real time computer modelling in its
refining, and wants to apply this to production,
and it believes it can lead to a 1 to 2 per cent
increase in production, according to BP’s Bryn
Stenhouse.
The computer modelling can help operators
answer critical questions such as which wells to
gas lift and which ones to choke, or how much
gas to export vs. how much to inject, and the
best composition of the injection gas.
Ideally, it can also help make critical
decisions about how to balance maximising
production today vs. maximising reserve
recovery over the long term. “Model based
technology can help with complex issues,” Dr
Stenhouse said.
The reservoir does not necessarily have to be
looked at as one integrated system to work out
things which can be optimised. “There is a
classical view – that you have to model the
whole system – but that’s often quite difficult to
do,” he said. “You can sometimes de-couple
Intelligent Energy 06
mapping it,” he said.
BP uses production modelling software by the
company Petroleum Experts in Edinburgh (see
www.petex.com), in particular the GAP
(General Allocation and Production Network
Modeling) tool.
It is probably furthest ahead with model
based optimisation technology in its Valhall field
(Norwegian sector of North Sea),
In Valhall, BP has had an online ‘advisory
optimiser’ since 2002 to optimise the gas and
oil processing plant hour by hour, with the
model continually optimised against the well test
data.
The things which can be optimised include
the separator set point pressures, compression
interstage pressures, operation of stabiliser
column. The optimiser can take into account the
changing product values of oil, gas and natural
gas liquid, the transport costs and the costs of
carbon dioxide emissions (tax).
The carbon dioxide tax burden in Norway
makes a difference if there is a higher natural
gas liquid content in lean and rich fuel gas,
which is used for power generation and process
heating onboard the rig.
BP is still questioning if the asset is complex
enough to justify using the optimiser. “ A
correctly configured multi-variable control would
“The ACE is the be able to capture most of the value on offer”
Dr Stenhouse said. [But] “When the scope of
engine room of the optimisation includes well optimisation, and in
particular gas lift optimisation, there is certainly
Field of the Future. We sufficient complexity.
Another issue raised was the fact that there is
want to bring together a lot of slugging in the oil production system,
which means that the plant is not steady state
the right information, to for much of the time; the optimiser models things
the right people at the as though they are steady state.
Even so, BP estimates the financial value of
right time and create the optimiser at today’s oil prices at $10,000 to
$20,000 per day.
real time and Life of Field Seismic
multidiscipline decision Giles Watts from BP Exploration talked about
the company’s ‘Life of Field Seismic’ program,
environments supporting where cables with geophone sensors every 50
metres are permanently left at the bottom of the
drilling and production ocean, 300m apart.
Whenever a seismic survey is needed, a
operations.” supply boat creates sound waves from the
ocean surface, which go through the ocean and
Tony Edwards, Advanced Collaborative Environment seabed, bounce back and are picked up by the
programme manager, BP
geophones.
The data quality is about 2 to 3 times better
than with the traditional system where the vessel
part of the system, such as water injection.” has hydrophones in cables towed behind it,
For example, a system can be developed to floating just beneath the water surface.
work out the optimum amount of water to be By taking seismic surveys every few months,
injected, from knowledge about the value BP can monitor how a reservoir is being
injection in terms of barrels of oil per barrel of drained, what the pressure in it is, and how any
water in different areas of the reservoir. injected water is pushing through the
Optimising the assets needs expertise from reservoir,.(questionable –removed)
lots of different disciplines, and so that means You can also get information about pressure,
there needs to be some kind of workflow to saturation, also temperature, stress, porosity,
figure out who does what and when. “We’re sometimes mineralogy.
interested in understanding the workflow and The first installation in the world was made in
June 2006 • digital energy journal 11
 Intelligent Energy 06

2003 in the Valhall field (Norwegian sector of
the North sea), as an industry test case, where
there are 120km cables buried 1m below the
seabed, 300 metres apart. There are 10,000
geophone sensors altogether, every 50m on the
cables, and the cable array covers 45km2
altogether.
The cables cover 70 per cent of the field and
the system cost $45m to install. By the end of
2005, 6 surveys had been acquired, on
average every 5 months.
The ‘shooting’ (creation of seismic waves) is
carried out on a specially converted supply
vessel.
The data is sent via a fibre optic cable, to the
system manufacturer for quality control, onto
PGS to process the data and onto BP’s offices in
Stavanger and Houston at the same time.
With the surveys repeated every 5 months,
BP can see the impact of water injection and
how the water flood front is going through the
reservoir.
BP believes the technology is particularly
applicable to an oilfield with water flood
injection, because it can help manage the flood
much better, including working out which wells
would be best as injectors and which ones best
as producers.
BP is still feeling its way as to the optimum
frequency between seismic surveys, said Mr
Watts. “The Valhall experience suggests we
should be acquiring data at least twice a year.”
It installed a small array in the Shetland Clair
field this year and will install it on the Azeri field
(Azerbaijan) this year (2006), and in the In
Salah field (Algeria) in 2007.
Another option is to put the geophones (which
receive the seismic signals) actually inside the
well bore.
On the Azeri field, BP expects to see ‘real
value’ in 2008, 2009 and 2010, as the
company finds out how stable the oil field is,
says BP’s Pete Watson. “We’ll be redefining our
depletion strategy,” he says.
Advanced Collaborative
Environments
Tony Edwards, Advanced Collaborative
Environment programme manager with BP,
talked about BP’s developments of ‘Advanced
Collaborative Environments - ACEs,’ where staff
from different disciplines but involved in the
same oil field can work together, and onshore
engineers can collaborate with offshore
operations staff.
“The ACE is the engine room of the Field of
the Future,” he said. “We want to bring together
the right information, to the right people at the
right time and create real time and
multidiscipline decision environments supporting
drilling and production operations. People can
work collaboratively regardless of distance,
making better decisions faster”.
Remote engineers can often do more with the
data than people on the oilrig, because they
can look at it more objectively and focus more
on the data. They are often better at picking up
trends.
The world’s first Advanced Collaborative
Environment (ACE), for the Valhall field
(Norwegian part of the North Sea) has been
online since 2003. BP saw the opportunity to
set the centre up after it installed a fibre optic
communications link from the shore to the
platform.
This meant that the office team could be
integrated with the offshore operation with real
time data, television camera pictures and
connections with other centres.
From the Valhall ACE, staff can perform
remote diagnostics, manage geosteering during
drilling, and manage stimulation jobs. The
world’s first offshore controlled cement job was
managed from here.
$3m was invested in the centre, and BP
estimates the value gained at $5m to $6m a
year. In particular there has been a 20 per cent
reduction in offshore manning.
An ‘Onshore Operations Support Centre’ for
the Na Kika field in Deep Water Gulf of
Continued on page 13

CASE STUDY BP – Trinidad and Tobago

BP’s Kamal Samsumdar presented a case study about BP’s use of
Kamal Samsumdar, BP
intelligent technology at 2.6 trillion cubic feet Mahogany gas field 60 Trinidad and Tobago
miles South East of Trinidad (paper code SPE 99408).
The well was first drilled in 1999, to supply the Atlantic LNG plant. It
was drilled with permanent downhole gauges, acoustic sand detectors,
fibre optic downhole flowmeters and distributed temperature monitoring.
The field is very complex, with many layers of gas. Simulation models
were developed which were used to get a better understanding of the
fluid distribution in the reservoir. “We have to understand the pressure in
the individual blocks,” he said.
BP determined that the faults were sealing (there was no gas flow
across them) so it had to work out a plan to get the gas out of all the
pockets separately.
The acoustic sand detectors proved very helpful in optimising gas
production rates, he said, with sand a major issue in the field.
By watching the sand detector, BP worked out it could increase the
choke on the well, leading to production increase of 20 per cent,
without sand entering the well. If sand did start entering the well it
could be quickly choked back before any harm was caused, which
would reduce the production rate but not interrupt production. value came in analysing the flow from the well. The downhole gauges
“There was resistance to periodically shutting the wells to run wireline have paid for themselves time and time again.”
tools, because this would incur production losses, so wanted to use Answering a question from an ExxonMobil delegate about system
permanent downhole gauges,” he said. “This was the first field to use reliability, Mr Samsumdar said “we had quite a lot of failures initially –
downhole production gauges. We installed a new control system – it we learned that the gauges had to be custom built for the environment.
could view pressure data that was recorded every five seconds. However the distributed temperature system performed for three years
“All the pressure gauges used prematurely failed, in some cases before the well died.”
within months after installation. An in-depth analysis was conducted and A Petrobras delegate asked about how reliable using the flowrate
then the service provider was changed.” measurement to validate the temperature measurement proved to be.
The fibre optic distributed temperature sensors provided a lot of “We worked out it works best within a specific range of gas /oil ratio,”
information about the flow, both gas and liquid, he said. “The real he said. “For our situation it works pretty well.” Q

12 digital energy journal • June 2006


‘Offshore engineers can reach all the experts wherever they might be’ – John Foot, Integrated Subsurface
Information System expert, BP
Continued from page 12
Mexico has been operational since early 2004
to support start up and ongoing operation.
An ‘Integrated Operations Environment’ for
the Ula field has been operational in BP’s
Stavanger office since 2004. This includes a
collaborative room for the first line support staff,
a production optimisation room and
videoconferencing equipment.
The centre cost $1m, which BP expects to get
back within 2.4 years. BP estimates that it has
produced an additional 1% increase in oil
productivity as a result of the real time
management of slugging in the system. It has
also been able to optimise its work planning,
completing 82 per cent of its planned
workovers, compared to 70 per cent before.
The second full blown Advanced
Collaborative Environment for the Andrew field
off Aberdeen, has been online since 2005.
In late 2005, BP set up the Azeri Operations
Support Centre, which supports production
operations on central / West Azeri platforms in
Caspian Sea and Sangachal Oil receiving
terminal South of Baku.
The Na Kika and Andrew collaboration
centres won BP’s E&P DCT Helios Awards,
which BP gives out each year to “BP teams who
demonstrate its brand attributes whilst delivering
value to its business and surrounding
communities.”
The Multi-Assets Gulf of Mexico Advanced
Collaborative Environment has been online
since early 2006, with a 2 floor centre. BP is
planning 3 new ACE implementations in 2007,
in Aberdeen, Baku and Luanda (Angola), and
looking into building one in Trinidad. BP is
already working on the buildings design and
has built an architectural model of what they will
look like.
The centres will have an operators support
room and a production optimisation room.
There will be a real time team, monitoring
operations minute by minute, and a ‘near real
time team,” monitoring operations on a longer
field of view.
By the end of 2008, BP will have centres
covering the entire Gulf of Mexico, Angola,
Azerbaijan and North Sea business units.
“It is an evolving, changing environment,”
Dr Edwards says. “We don’t believe you can
define all your roles and responsibilities on day
1. 2/3 years ago we thought you can fix all
that, but our experience tells us you can’t.”
The five key elements of the Advanced
Collaborative Environment, Mr Edwards says,
are “People, process, technology, organisation
and physical environment.”
BP has set up a ‘community of interest’ of BP
staff interested in the project, with 150 people
in it. The programme office is organised around
their geographic location, their jobs (e.g.
drilling), and their specialism on the five
elements above.
The team includes experts on process change
and people change (the people change expert
is a psychologist).
BP is developing systems where people
experiencing certain problems on the oil rig can
be connected to someone else in the company
who has had the same problem and resolved it,
rather than a subject expert.
Integrated Subsurface
Information System
BP has developed a system called ‘Integrated
Subsurface Information System’ (ISIS), which
provides information about what is happening
underground over the company intranet, and
June 2006 • digital energy journal
Intelligent Energy 06
helps manage all the data generated from the
sensors and control equipment in the well and
on the rig, so BP staff around the world can
access and interpret it.
The system was deployed in 7 fields by the
end of 2005, with 20 further fields by the end
of 2006, and additional installations planned
for 2007, including the North Sea, Gulf of
Mexico and Angola. The system can work with
data from both green (new) and brown (old)
fields.
The first implementation is in the Schiehallion
field west of Shetland. It is possible for BP staff
anywhere to see which wells are injecting and
which ones are producing, and what the oil,
gas and water rates are.
BP estimates that the information is worth up
to 3,000 extra barrels of oil per day. It has
enabled engineers based offshore responsible
for gathering and transmitting daily production
data to be reassigned.
Particularly useful applications of the system
are detecting well instability and slugs, and
enabling action to be made early about sand to
prevent the need for shutdown.
“The interface allowed Schiehallion to
increase production and avoid losses through
more efficient start-ups, more effective control of
unstable wells and better communications with
the offshore team,” says John Foot, manager of
the ISIS project.
“Coupled together with sand detection
technology, it led to improved operation of sand
prone wells. During 2005 there were no
outages due to sanding problems, compared to
3 outages per year on average before that.
“In Schiehallion – offshore engineers
generally trust onshore engineers to react,” says
Mr Foot. “Offshore engineers can reach all the
experts wherever they might be.”
The data can be presented in many different
ways, including time series graphs, cross plots,
tables and diagrams.
BP is now working on systems to ensure that
the data transmitted from the field is quality
assured, with automatic data cleaning and
conditioning.
Remote engineers can be automatically
alerted if there are any problems, or changes in
the well or production system. “If the system was
taken to the extreme, engineers would only
need to look at the data when the system
informed them that there was something to be
investigated,” says Mr Foot.
One particular challenge with the system
was that different engineering groups within BP
had responsibility for the different data
streams, and they had to co-ordinate
everything. BP developed an ‘information
pipeline’ showing how the data would flow
through the company and who would do what
to it where.
The system uses standard data standards
such as WITSML (Wellsite Information Transfer
Standard Markup Language), so that data
streams from equipment produced by different
vendors can integrate. Q
13
 Intelligent Energy 06

Shell, Aramco,
Chevron and
Total
REPORT FROM INTELLIGENT ENERGY 2006 CONFERENCE IN AMSTERDAM
SHELL
Brunei Shell

E
ric van der Steen, project leader
champion with West Brunei Shell
Petroleum, talked about how Shell
has developed its smart fields in
Brunei.
Brunei is in South East Asia, just off Borneo,
he said; there is a tropical environment (2
monsoons per year) and a very small production
platform. It was discovered in 1975 but not
developed until 1995.
The field, Champion West, has a long thin
shape (12km x 3km) and a very complicated
hydrocarbon distribution, with lots of gas caps,
and faults at a steep angle – not the easiest
field to extract oil from efficiently.
Shell decided to drill a ‘snake’ well, which
snakes in and out of the reservoir several times,
which can drain the field much faster than the
standard vertical well. “We want to go for long
snakes where one well gives the equivalent of 5
traditional wells,” he said.
Shell drilled horizontal wells up to 3km long,
Eric van der Steen talked about smart wells in West Brunei
which snaked in and out through two or three
zones. “We got 50 per cent more oil with the protection. We needed things like air completion in a day,” he said.
snakes than the vertical wells,” he said. “We’re conditioned control rooms.” Shell anticipates 3 per cent more uptime in
very pleased with the results. “We had to do wireline in deviated wells the smart field, less risk and better data, and
Shell put together what it called a ‘hybrid’ and that was a disaster,” he said. “It indicated it ultimately more oil.
smart well, which went through 5 oil zones, but had to be smart all the way.” For the control systems, it uses OPC (Object
with only smart technology in the top zone. “To get ownership of problems was hard,” he Linking and Embedding [OLE] for Process
The ‘smartness’ was implemented in phases, said. “If a signal doesn’t come from a well, who Control] compliant hardware, which makes it
starting in 1999-2000, with some upgrades in is responsible. About 30 people are responsible “easier to switch vendors,” he said.
2002/2003, and a number of smart field for keeping smart infrastructure up and running.” All the data comes into a data acquisition
installations in 2005-06, including remote testing, Powering the smart equipment was not easy. system and is fed through to the office, where
remote restart tools and multiphase flowmeters. “We tried at first with batteries that runs out of there is software to monitor and optimize
Shell put together a plan about how much steam. Solar doesn’t meet your power production.
smartness it wanted in the different wells, and a requirements,” he said. “You need software to convert the data to
smartness ‘staircase’ for how things could be The well has a distributed temperature system. useful information,” said Shai Khan Alkhadhuri
made progressively more smart over time. “We had quite a bit of cynicism in deploying it, from Brunei Shell Petroleum. “We want to
“Every asset should define the level of smartness but it gave quite a lot of benefit,” he said. embed the smart field into the organisation.”
they have,” said Shai Khan Alkhadhuri from “At a flick of a switch close to the lubricator “All these things had their problems but we
Brunei Shell Petroleum. valve you knew were the leaks were – a failed pushed on it and got there,” he said. “We said
“We learned that equipment reliability was gas lift valve. It could have taken 10 wireline ‘lets do it, let’s go ahead’. It is important to
pretty good,” said Mr van der Steen. “The jobs to do this.” engage the front line [drilling and production
surface equipment needed environmental “Smartness gives you the flexibility to change crew], tell them things – it has got to do with the

14 digital energy journal • June 2006


country, the well is going like a snake, it inspires
them,” he said. “People are the real enablers.”
“People find their responsibilities may not
change, but their sense of responsibilities
change –if you give them sophisticated
equipment,” said Mr van der Steen. “You have
to back things up from flagging the problem to
solving the problem.”
“I might consider myself a believer in smart
fields. But if you’re cynical you can make it very
hard for the believers. Without believers it is
mission impossible.”
Collaboration centre
Ronald Knoppe from Brunei Shell, talked
about Shell’s first ever production optimisation
collaboration centre (POCC) in Brunei.
The benefits of better collaboration, he said,
were reducing unscheduled deferments
(interruptions to production) from 8 to 4 per
cent, increasing production from 3 to 7 per cent
and 5 per cent gain in recovery. The centre
was established to try to obtain these gains.
There are benefits due to better working
environment, and people becoming more
comfortable to make jokes and enjoy working
together. “Morale is very much improved,” he
said. “On a good video link you can tell if a
Dutchman is making a joke or not.”
There are also challenges, in particular
making sure that quieter members of staff don’t
get drowned out by the louder ones.
More collaborative working facilitated
through IT can lead to the demise of non IT
collaboration, such as the morning meeting.
“Why do you need the morning meeting at all,”
he said. “People say, the compressor tripped
yesterday- so what – we fixed it already.”
Planning a collaboration centre is not easy,
he said. “You have to decide what kind of
surveillance you need in your particular case,
what kinds of decisions you want to take to start
managing your asset, and what kind of data
you need.”
“In the assessment phase, we try to define our
scope of work which is achievable,” he said.
Pick an area where you think you can make an
impact. You cannot solve everything in one go.”
“You have a lot of people you have to
convince to do it – you need shared objectives,”
he said. “If everybody has his own objectives
you can never do something. It is important that
everybody has clear roles and responsibilities,
what he is going to do,” he said.
Shell did not want everybody in the
collaboration centre to report directly to the
collaboration head, because this would in effect
not be collaboration at all, just create yet
another isolated silo of information within Shell.
Instead, staff still report to the head of their
discipline (e.g. geology). There is a leader of
the collaborative centre who makes sure that
everybody contributes, and he reports directly to
the asset manager, and can complain to him if
any staff are not contributing properly.
To illustrate how difficult the decision making
Ronald Knoppe from Brunei Shell talked about Shell’s
production optimisation collaboration centre in Brunei
is, Mr Knoppe said that sometimes Shell
manages to increase production from one well,
only to find that production from another well
decreases by more than the increase in the first
well. “We get 200 barrels from one well and
lose 300 on another,” he said.
Aramco
Fahad Al-Moosa, VP drilling and workover,
Saudi Aramco said the company is promising
output capacity of 12m bpd by 2012,
compared to around 8 mbpd now. It will
achieve this, he said, using geosteering for
drilling, smart wells and intelligent fields.
“We will use smart technology to reduce
water encroachment and prolong well life, with
real time monitoring and reacting to change,”
he said. “We see this as strategic for the future
direction of our industry.”
Aramco has implemented this type of
technology in the Haradh III field, part of the
giant Ghawar field, he said. “We started
working on this a few years ago.”
“In the beginning, there were some problems,
but we were able to get this moving very well.”
“We are building experience. It is very
reliable real time data. We are moving
strategically in this direction,” he said.
Water advance through the reservoir, as a
result of water injection, is a particular concern
and something Aramco is monitoring carefully,
he said.
“We are looking at mature areas where
water is already advancing – real time
monitoring helps control the advancement of
water,” he said. “We want to make sure we are
maximising the ultimate recovery.”
“Service operators and others really need to
get together,” he said. “We need to identify
solutions, how to develop and encourage it.
And no-one will develop something if there isn’t
a market for it.
June 2006 • digital energy journal
Intelligent Energy 06
Vidar Hepsø, Statoil
Dr Vidar Hepsø from Statoil Research
Centre in Norway said that oil and gas
companies should look at collaboration and
developing a robust organisation as a ‘primary
goal’, not a ‘residual factor’ or something
which happens or doesn’t happen as a result
of other primary goals.
To work out how people can collaborate
better and share information better, we need a
new way of looking at how information is
shared around a company, he said, and
suggested that we use the term ‘information
ecology,’ defined by two US anthropologists, as
“using information technology with a heart.”
Oil companies share information in a very
complex way, with information moving around
both local and global networks, and continual
evolution in the type of information and the way
it is shared, and bits of information having
different roles and functions, or operating in
different niches, he said. There are many
different reasons for information to be added to
the system, or information to be retrieved from
the system.
For example, production engineers have one
niche in the ecology, producing well tests, and
feeding their output into the system.
People also need to put in their core skills into
the ecology. For example, production engineers
are good at evaluating information credibility,”
he said.
The ecology has both social and
technological elements which co-evolve together
– always attempting but never achieving the
perfect fit, where everyone has the best possible
information all the time.
“There has to be some dynamism and friction
between these two,” he said. “Work is
developing in a dynamic manner, we have to
struggle with that.”
Looking at information flow in an oil company as an
‘information ecology’ is a good way to understand it,
said Statoil’s Dr Vidar Hepsø
15
 Intelligent Energy 06

Collaboration between different disciplines is creating barriers to adoption of technology,

needs much more than a shared database,
because the information must be presented in
ways that people from different disciplines can
use it.
For example, charts can be drawn which
combine a seismic map for a geologist and a
plot for a production engineer. “These people
must be able to work together,” he said.
Mr Hepsø was critical of the efforts being
made to create decision making data directly
out of the information from sensors, because it
skips the critical step of data validation, which
engineers commonly do manually by putting the
data into their own spreadsheets. “Excel is the
tool of tools,” he said.
“When linking control systems to management
systems with middle ware, we lose the
validation stage.”
Trust is a very important mechanism in
information ecologies, but very poorly
understood, he said. “That is a major
mechanism we can use to reduce transaction
costs in a large organisation.”
Statoil has set up a program for ‘collaborative
training,’ where engineers can learn how to
collaborate, share information and receive
information from their colleagues.
The collaboration project has a lot of support
from senior management at Statoil, he said.
he said. “There are a lot of IP barriers starting to
raise their heads. If only one of us figures this
out, the industry doesn’t win.”
“The competitive advantage is, how do we
make this work in our company’s culture, not in
a standalone way. We want to build our own
internal competencies within our company, but
we have an opportunity to build out within our
industry.”
“We need to build a long term strategy and
establish a change state of operating in a
different world.”
Pascal Dauboin, Total
Pascal Dauboin, deputy vice president
Mike Hauser, Chevron research and development and digital
technology program manager with Total, said
that Total wants to improve its integration of
Mike Hauser, Chevron surface and subsurface modelling.
“People and process is more complex “The difficulties are: poor / lack of data
than technology,” said Mike Hauser, i-field standards,” she said. “We have a lot of half –
program manager for ChevronTexaco cooked standards, we would like to see more
Upstream. “Technology is not the key. You need progress. We have a lack of application
to pull together technology, competences and interoperability.”
new workflows.” Total does not see ownership of technology as
The role of a service company, he said, is to a source of competitive advantage, but it does
fill the gaps. believe that the way it integrates the technology
One issue is intellectual property rights, which together is a competitive advantage. Q

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 Intelligent Energy 06

Challenges of
collaborating
K
ristina Lauche from the
University of Aberdeen gave a
talk at the Intelligent Energy 2006
event on the challenges of
collaboration centres.
There is an inherent ‘irony’ in any automation,
she said, in that systems are designed by clever
people, so they can be operated as simply as
possible. But if the systems go wrong, then the
operators, only skilled in operating ‘simple’
systems, are suddenly expected to be clever
enough to fix them, cleverer than the clever
people who designed the system.
Ms Lauche talked about a pilot project with
BP’s Andrew rig in the North Sea, trying to see
if it was possible to have 2-5 people working
on shore rather than on the rig using remote
communication tools, including a video link.
BP’s management “generally takes the positive
view -they think this is the way to the future,” she
said. “They it as an opportunity to be closer to
what’s happening offshore, with opportunities to
remedy problems and be closer involved.”
The onshore staff were “enthusiastic and Taking people off the rig doesn’t make it safer – Kristina Lauche from the University of Aberdeen
positive and said they would do it again,” she
said. One member of the onshore team thought “People said, they miss out on a lot of Messenger” generation are very comfortable
it was a “great opportunity to learn”. informal communication they have on the rig,” communicating with people around the world
The offshore staff had some concerns about she said. who they may not have even met.
the lack of immediacy, how fast someone on On the lifestyle issues, some staff actually
shore could step in to fix a problem and if they said they preferred being on the rig, and found Dr Paul Williams
could get the same level of information about it. their work-life balance easier to achieve that Dr Paul Williams, with Williams Consulting
There will always be a need for expert staff way – two weeks work, two weeks of life. Group, talked about how collaborative
onboard the rig who know how to use the “Fathers would say, that instead of having 2 environments influence culture and behaviour, in
equipment, she said. weeks on the rig and 2 weeks with their kids, particular the threat of having shore staff
The offshore staff were not concerned about they would end up having no time with their interfere with the work on oil rigs.
the potential increased risks due to support from kids, working night shifts in the onshore “There can be a real resistance offshore to
people many miles away, such as getting too operations centre,” she said. working together with onshore people,” he said.
dependent on the communications link which However an onshore operations centre in “If you trivialise that, it will go subsurface until it
suddenly fails. Norway had staff working 8 hour days, rather explodes. You have to involve the offshore
Ms Lauche noted that having less people on than the 12 hour rig shifts. “They said it felt people,” he said. “Engaging people is the most
the rig does not necessarily make it safer. “If more like a normal life,” she said. important part of the collaborative process. If
something big goes wrong people might find it This technology could potentially replace the you say to someone ‘change’ the first reaction
harder to do anything,” she said. common requirements the oil industry has to move will be negative. You need to make people feel
Some people working onshore said there families to places like Aberdeen and Stavanger. non victimised.”
were advantages to being on the rig. The A delegate from Halliburton asked if it would Videoconferencing is a very important aspect,
onshore staff could have a good sense of being be feasible to have onshore operations centres he said. “You need to see the person. 80 per
on the rig, but they cannot hear the noises of in different time zones around the world so no- cent of communication is non verbal.” However
the rig or check things, she said. one would have to work a night shift. Ms some people do not like the idea of being
“The mud logger spends a lot of time Lauche was not so sure about this. “That could watched by cameras while they work. “You’re
monitoring and there is a lot of communication. be an answer – but you have to make sure the creating one large visual team, like a large
They are the eyes and the ears of the process. It remote people are linked to the project – that’s open plan office,” he said. “People find that
is difficult to maintain that kind of involvement not easy,” she said. intrusive. Western Europe they don’t like it.
on a very remote site,” she said. However she noted that today’s “Microsoft Some Asian companies like it.” Q

18 digital energy journal • June 2006


Pat Cook, global director of health, safety and environment (HSE) at Halliburton talked about how
information systems can help improve safety and environmental performance in the oil industry
Halliburton’s HSE
and knowledge
management
A
ccording to Pat Cook global
director of health, safety and
environment (HSE) with Halliburton,
in the future, oil companies will be
forced to include all the environmental costs,
such as waste costs, in their day to day
operating costs, as ‘externality costs,’ rather
than leaving them to be paid by host
governments later.
“Local cultures will no longer be willing to
bear the cost of the environmental externalities
associated with the extraction of oil and gas,”
he said. “National and international oil
companies will have no choice but to satisfy
these expectations, and will be looking to us
to develop organisational and technical
solutions to meet them.
“We have to manage our environmental
impacts real time. Their cost must be included
in the actual cost of well construction, and not
be deferred to years later.
Environmental management will move from
the current ‘precautionary principle’ [you can
only do this if you can ‘prove’ you won’t harm
the environment] to ongoing monitoring of the
impacts of activities on the environment to
check they are within acceptable levels and
to repair any damage.
“This shift will take place mainly as a result
of host countries not having the time or money
to develop the large bureaucracies associated
with the application of precautionary theory
based environmental management,” he said.
“Host countries, will call on the industry to
provide the science required to manage the
various waste associated with extraction, and
then locally develop the competencies
required for there application.”
Environmental organisations will change their
working practices from putting pressure on
businesses to come back and clean up their
environmental impacts, as they do today, to
help monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of
the environment management efforts, he said.
“In doing so they will be more effective in
protecting society and preventing incidents that
negatively impact the environment,” he said.
This approach to environment management
will also lead to employees being viewed less
as a commodity and more as a long term
resource, he said.
“To satisfy these needs, the industry will adopt
an integrated approach to employee health
education and maintenance. There will be
industry wide education centers that not only
provide health related information to employees
of the industry, but to their families as well.”
Companies will make more effort to use
technology to automate heavy lifting tasks often
done manually today, such as moving 200 pound
downhole tools in and out of vehicles, he said.
The increased pressure to achieve reduced
accidents, and the increased dynamism
(constant changing) of the industry will lead to a
different approach to safety, from a rigid
standards / procedures / compliance system to
a more dynamic system.
The standards / procedures / compliance
system “works well for establishing consistency
in performance when all things are equal,
[but] in a constantly changing work
environment like ours it falls short of ensuring
zero incidents,” he said.
When asked by an Aramco delegate for
further clarification about what he meant by a
compliance based mentality, Mr. Cook said he
was talking about “a drive to standardise
everything we do, a check box mentality, to
where we ask our people not to think.”
“In future, if we’re going to manage risk in real
time, we’ve got to get them to spend their lives
Pat Cook
June 2006 • digital energy journal
Intelligent Energy 06
thinking about exactly what they’re doing. Instead
of disengaging the employee we have to
reengage the employee.”
“In general terms, a concept called the
complexity theory, states that the more complex a
task is the greater the likelihood is that a systems
approach to managing of that task will fail,” he
said. “Our business is becoming about as
complex as it can get, and the speed at which
the work environment changes is constantly
getting faster and faster.”
“If we are to achieve an incident free work
environment, it will require us to change from a
compliance based risk management approach to
a more behavior based risk management
approach.
“We must continue to augment our systems to
accommodate the more agile behavior based risk
management approach,” he said, where “we
educate our employees on how to identify risk on
the fly and to spontaneously react to manage it.”
“A behavior based approach empowers our
employees to constantly be thinking about what
they are doing and how to do it safer and
better,” he said, rather than expect people to
follow instructions.
“To have employees that are able to identify
risk on the fly and then have a group of
employees spontaneously evolve into a team
that manages this risk successfully, and then
have the team dissolve, is what we must strive
to achieve.”
“We must begin today to view our employees
as long term assets and help them obtain a well
balanced and healthy life,” he said. “We must
begin to empower our employees to think and
trust them to help create a safer and more
efficient work environment.”
When asked by the Aramco delegate on his
views about how the oil industry should look at
greenhouse gas issues, Mr. Cook said, “I see it
as an issue that we have to address, but
governments, companies and NGOs have to
work together. I think greenhouse gas goes
beyond oil and gas industry. It is naive to think
that just because we harvest oil and gas we are
responsible.” Q
19
 Intelligent Energy 06
Intelligent Energy
Perspectives
Delegates to Intelligent Energy 2006 were treated to
perspectives from Morgan Stanley, Halliburton and
Knowledge Systems, also comparisons between the oil
industry and space + automotive industries, and suggestions
for how the industry can do more to engage young people
Financial – Morgan Stanley
K
arim Rashid, managing director
of the global energy group with
Morgan Stanley, gave an
interesting perspective on the
financial motivations for the oil and gas and
technology industries, and how this leads (or
doesn’t lead) to encouraging new technology.
The oil industry has been focussing on
reducing costs and improving returns for many
years, rather than implementing technology –
this was the driver for the mergers of 14/15 oil
companies down to 7 in recent years, he said.
“Wall St loved it, these people became
heroes.”
“Now, the challenge is not only getting
your money back but continuing to grow that
business. That’s where companies struggle,”
he said.
There is no doubt that technology has
created value – for example, the percentage
of successful oil wells drilled rose from 50 per
cent in 1992 to 88 per cent in 2002.
What is less clear is who benefited from
this value.
The market capitalisation of seismic
companies with available data went from
$10bn in 1991 to $17bn today. However oil
companies managed to persuade some of the
seismic companies to take on speculative work
(take on some of the risk), and this led to some
bankruptcies.
A capital intensive industry like oil and gas
generates value by successfully risking capital –
so for technology to add value it has to be
coupled with capital risk, and the company with
the value is the company which can use the
technology to reduce its risk, not the company
selling the technology.
Mr Rashid noted the company Input Output
(I/O), whose share price went up by 20 per
cent after a press release that BP was using its
wireless seismic technology. “We didn’t know
20 digital energy journal • June 2006
much about it – we said, if it’s good enough for
BP, its good enough for 100 companies,” he
said.
One delegate from Schlumberger asked if,
the reward goes to the organisation which risks
the capital, whether this spells disaster for oil
services companies. “Why can’t the technology
company get the reward?” he asked.
“This is something I spend a lot of time talking
about in boardrooms,” Mr Rashid said. “The
world needs more oil – either profitably or at a
loss. At $60 a barrel we still see tight supplies.
You should see technology flowing in.”
The problem is that service companies do
not have expertise in making capital
investments. “It would be easier for GE to get
into the E&P business than a service company,”
“The world needs
more oil – either
profitably or at a loss.
At $60 a barrel we
still see tight
supplies. You
should see technology
flowing in”
Karim Rashid, managing director of the global
energy group with Morgan Stanley
he said. “GE knows how to put $12bn over 5
years and get the money back. The financial
skill set is not yet where it needs to be in the
service sector.”
Mr Rashid raised the scenario that a country
with capital / oil (such as Iran), working
Karim Rashid, managing director of the global
energy group with Morgan Stanley
together with a service company such as
Schlumberger, could be a substitute for an oil
company, which can provide expertise in both
capital management and technology.
“Show clients how it makes money and they’ll
pay for it,” he said. “And if the market won’t
take the capital risk you have to take it yourself.
Someone has to take the capital risk to show it
makes money.”
Engaging the X Box generation
An interesting conference session was held
on the subject ‘engaging the X-box generation,”
working out how today’s young people can be
enticed to work in the oil and gas industry.
The oil industry needs engineers who can talk
and work together with people around the
world they have not necessarily met, handle
multiple streams of information, pick out the
information they want, and quickly learn how to
use new technology without fear.
How does the oil and gas industry need to
adapt to create a working environment these
people are happy in?
John Henderson, professor of management
with Boston University and a member of BP’s
 Intelligent Energy 06

digital advisory group, said that the oil industry Peter Kapteijn, smart fields program manager “The obligation to get access to new oil
needs to develop a peer to peer network with Shell, said that in his view, the oil industry and gas reserves is the pressing factor of [oil
model, rather than a command and control firm- can offer young people a meaningful life, and gas] research and development
centric approach. something everybody wants. “We have to find spending,” he said.
“We have a technological and culture in our ways of communicating that,” he said. On the issue of the aging employees in the oil
organisation inconsistent with the technical and gas industry, Mr Carlier said that the space
culture of the organisation coming in,” he said. industry also complains about it, but he didn’t
Making business work in this new network- Armand Carlier, consultant think it was a major issue. “The real concern is
centric era requires new ways of business Consultant Armand Carlier talked about about recruiting new engineers,” he said.
thinking. “You have to differentiate yourself in how the oil and gas industry’s attitude The average age of oil and gas employees is
how you leverage your peer to peer network, technology and how it compares with the 50, compared to 45 in automotive, 50 in
learn more quickly than your competitor learns,” satellite industry and car manufacturing. space and 35 in IT, he said.
he said. Mr Carlier is an ex-Schlumberger employee On industry image, Mr Carlier scored the oil
“And if you want to get the X-box to work for who went on to be CEO of European space and gas industry at minus 3, compared to plus 1
you, you have to create a very different type of companies Matra-Marconi-Space, EADS Astrium, in automotive, plus 2 in space and plus 3 in IT.
organisation. The X-box generation works at the and then car manufacturer Matra-Automobile. On management of research and
company that offers them a challenge and is Mr Carlier discussed whether the industries development careers, Mr Carlier scored the oil
exciting and offers good opportunities.” were addicted or adverse to technical and gas industry minus one, the automotive
The most important factors for attracting the X- innovation, and how they manage research and industry minus one, the space industry plus one
box generation are the company’s “image, [job] development with their subcontractors. and the IT industry plus 2.
stability and culture,” he said. Both the oil and gas industry and the space Mr Carlier talked about the way risk and
“There’s a lot of effort to change the image of industry operate under very high risk, although reward is shared between the big companies
the oil industry – with high oil prices it is very “the automotive industry has no intrinsic risk, and subcontractors, and how well
hard to do.” apart from the marketing risk.” subcontractors are motivated to develop
The oil industry could help people a lot by There is a difference between the industry in technology.
offering them more secure jobs. “The workforce how the end user / client demands for In the oil and gas industry, oil companies
coming in right now sees a huge amount of technology. “In automotive, you send a car with take the risk, he said, and service suppliers may
uncertainty in their career. The answer being all sorts of gadgets. In space satellite clients not be as motivated as they could be.
given to them is ‘that’s your problem I can only want every day more channels and power. In In car manufacturing, the manufacturers
give you a fairly short term financial oil and gas, the car driver doesn’t care how the motivate the suppliers to innovate and get
commitment,’” he said. oil was produced,” he said. rewarded. An example is the head up displays
“People are like a deer in the headlights, they The space industry has a high acceptance of on BMW cars, where the part manufacturer
freeze. They are confused about what they are technical risk compared to the oil and gas was helped by BMW to develop it, and as
going to do. They face a lot of uncertainty. industry, which has a comparatively low risk reward got an exclusive contract to supply the
“The industry could be more proactive in tolerance, but this is helped by the fact that displays for 2 years.
helping people start their career – the first job is space research is paid for by taxpayers, not “In car manufacturing, the major innovations
very hard to get, unless you’re highly specialist.” the industry. were made by equipment suppliers in the last
Trying to put processes into workflow
software would be “expensive and unlikely to
work,” he said.
Bill Bartling, adjunct professor of geology,
San Diego State University and senior director
of market strategy for SGI, a US company
offering services in high performance
computing, storage and data visualisation tools,
explained how US universities already have
sophisticated systems to bring together different
data streams and let people work together, and
students are not used to being without them.
“Knowledge has been freed,” he said. “There
are no restrictions on getting knowledge any
more. People expect collaboration wherever you
are and wherever you want it,” he said.
One questioner from Petrobras noted “We
have recruited thousands of engineers.
Technically IT wise they are very savvy. But they
all want to be president and make big
decisions tomorrow. We are all trying to
balance this.”
This point was echoed by John Darley,
director of E&P Technology with Shell E&P. “we
like people with ambition and drive, but
everybody can’t be senior managers. How do
we address that?” he said.
One audience member suggested “we should
commission an X-box game so people can learn Need to identify constraints and tackle them – Laurence Reed, senior manager technology and development
about the industry.” with Halliburton

June 2006 • digital energy journal 21

 Intelligent Energy 06
decade,” he said. “In space, innovation is
coming from both parties.”
“A critical issue for better management of
innovation is the contractual relationship with
contractors. Oil companies cannot request a
contractor takes the same risk,” he said.
On the other hand, there is no capping on
how much service companies are paid – even if
unexpected things start happening, the service
company can proceed charging the same
hourly rates. So perversely, the service
companies can be motivated not to develop
time saving technology.
The oil and gas long sequential bidding
processes are not particularly efficient in
working out who has the best technology, he
says. “This expensive marching army of people
process can be so improved.”
“In the automotive and space industries, you
have one brief ‘beauty contest’, then you put
everyone in the same room, sub and main
contractors, mix everyone together and let them
define specs together,” he said.
In conclusion, he said, the oil and gas
industry needs to “improve relationships with
contractors and attract young talents.”
Halliburton – challenges of
integrating
Laurence Reed, senior manager technology
and development, and Doug Johnson, senior
product manager, with Halliburton, presented
their views about the challenges of getting
people to change and adopt new ways of
working.
Halliburton’s view was that the best way to
develop smart oil fields was to identify the
constraints and tackle them. “The barriers to
adoption can be systematically dismantled,”
he said. “The case for the digital oilfield can
be made.”
“You need to identify constraints and
enablers of integration production operation.
“The challenges really are technical operation
and organisation constraints,” he said.
“Management of change is one of the main
adoption barriers.”
Mr Reed mentioned ‘soft’ change factors –
expert help, education on change, support for
the process, supporting change until successfully
achieved. The ‘hard’ change factors are
integrity, commitment and effort, he said.
“There appears to be a log jam [on
implementation of technology],” said Mr Reed.
“The industry cannot afford the luxury of
tradition.”
Halliburton groups the available
technologies into collaborative environment,
model based optimisation, predictive
diagnostics, model based simulation, model
and control, he said.
“One problem is the discontinuities and
delays from fragmented workflows. We need
to establish an integration platform,” he said.
“You need to address change management,
get an execution strategy, then automate
workflows and improve data infrastructure.”
22 digital energy journal • June 2006
Structure data so it is useful in the future – James
Webster, COO of Knowledge Systems
Knowledge systems
James Webster, chief operating officer from
US company Knowledge Systems talked about
how the industry spends $8bn every year –
41 per cent of total non productive time –
mitigating problems associated with well bore
stability and pore pressure, including all the non
productive time associated with these problems,
“Databases must
be more than data
dump store houses.
They will not add
value in 10 years time.
Analysts can spend
60 per cent of their
time finding and
quantifying data
they need to do
their work”
James Webster, chief operating officer from US
company Knowledge Systems
such as stuck pipe and kicks (when the gas
comes up the wellbore and the pressure needs
to be bleeded off) and wellbore instability.
Oil and gas companies are not giving a high
enough focus to spending the money on experts
and computer systems to manage, store and
share expert knowledge, which could lead to
these problems being avoided, he said.
“Most of oil companies have fewer than 5
people considered true experts in well bore
stability,” he said. “They have built the “guru
garrison,” these people build their own
workflows to get their work done. The system is
very guarded.”
“The data is sitting on their C drive. There is
no real way for all this invaluable data to be
stored and utilised in the future,” he said. “The
organisation must be willing to learn and
knowledge must be recoverable.”
“There’s not a lot of incentive for an
individual [to share information],” he said. “We
had one guy had 15 CDs of pore pressure
data in his office. We said, what happens if
you get hit by a bus tomorrow? He said, that’s
not my problem is it.”
The problem will be even worse when these
experts retire, because then the company loses
their knowledge for good “The experts are
walking out of the door in droves right now, if
the industry does not do something to mitigate
the industry, it will be too late,” he said.
“We are losing the men and women who
created the modern E&P industry. We can
mitigate the exodus with a proactive and strategic
plan and leave a legacy of knowledge.”
“We’re in our second round of loss,” he says.
“We lost the people who started the industry,
and now we’re losing the first round of digital
E&P experts.”
Mr Webster made comparisons with how the
E&P industry might lose its experts, with how the
US has lost its expertise on lunar travel. “NASA
had 400,000 people working on getting us to
the moon and spent $24bn on it,” he said.
“Now, there’s no-one left who knows how to
build the rocket. People have said it will cost
just as much and take just as long to return to
the moon as it did when we did our first trips.”
Critically, oil and gas companies are not
harnessing the knowledge these experts have so
future generations of employees can use it.
Mr Webster suggested that oil and gas
companies structure their data more effectively so
it will be more useful in future. “Databases must
be more than data dump store houses,” he said.
“They will not add value in 10 years time.”
“Analysts can spend 60 per cent of their time
finding and quantifying data they need to do
their work.”
“A lot of true expert communities have
amazing tools to analyse and see data but
these tools are not actually given to the
decision makers.”
Knowledge Systems believes it has a solution
to enabling oil and gas companies store their
data about pore pressure, including geological,
geophysical and petrophysical data, so that
future employees can use it.
“Our database stores the work that they’ve
done and makes it accessible and shareable,”
he said. Q

Shell commissions largest ocean currents study in Brazil
Shell has awarded Fugro
Geosolutions (Brazil) has
what is believed to be the
largest contract for a
‘metocean’ (ocean weather)
study ever commissioned by
the oil and gas industry, for
a water area around Brazil.
Fugro will take measurements and
analyse data around blocks BC-
10 and BS-4 offshore of Brazil,
to characterise the behaviour and
variability of the Brasil Current
and underlying water mass
(including meanders and eddies),
and the surface properties of wind
and waves.
The information will help Shell in
the design and operation of floating
production systems and other
offshore developments.
“We predicted hydrocarbons” – CompuPrint
US company CompuPrint,
which looks for oil using
data from satellites
combined with traditional
techniques, reports that its
first US exploration effort,
in LaSalle County, Texas,
was successful.
Based on the open hole logging
results and analysis by
Schlumberger, it has decided to set
casing and prepare for well
completion.
The company says it could
identify the best drilling point and
predict the depth and thickness of
the oil zones with ‘significant’
Schlumberger Saudi research centre
Schlumberger has opened
an oilfield research centre in
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia,
which will be known as the
Schlumberger Dhahran
Center for Carbonate
Research (SDCR).
It will house a team of international
scientists working on oil and gas
industry research projects, in
collaboration with other research
institutes.
The purpose of the centre is to
The contract was specifically
awarded to Fugro Geosolutions
(Brasil) Serviços De Levantamento,
part of the recently formed Fugro
Oceansatpeg Joint Venture in Brazil.
Fugro will put up two moorings
on each block for two years. On
each mooring, there will be a
deepwater current meter, which uses
acoustic Doppler current profilers
and recording current meters.
There will also be a Fugro
Oceanor Wavescan buoy
mooring, measuring directional
wave data, meteorological data
and seawater parameters. This
buoy will report data regularly by
satellite, so monthly reports can be
published.
The water depths are
approximately 1,750m in Block BC-
10 and 1,550m in Block BS-4.
accuracy, in formations which were
not previously known to be
producers.
CompuPrint uses technology
developed by the Russians over 30
years during the cold war, which
managed to monitor natural seismo-
acoustic waves from the earth by
satellite / aerial photographs, and
could see how hydrocarbon
deposits would affect it.
CompuPrint uses the satellite data
together with traditional exploration
techniques (eg seismic) to get a
much higher hit rate.
The technology, called ‘Sub
Terrain Prospecting’, has already
been used in Africa, the Middle
promote interaction between
Schlumberger, the King Fahd
University of Petroleum and Minerals
(KFUPM), Saudi Aramco, and King
Abdul Aziz City for Science and
Technology (KACST), other oil
companies and institutions.
As an indication of how much
important the centre is to Saudi
Arabia, present at the opening
ceremony were Schlumberger
chairman and CEO Andrew Gould,
King Fahd of Saudi Arabia,
Seismic / exploration data
Taking directional wave data, meteorological data and seawater parameters:
Fugro’s Wavescan buoy at work off Brazil
Fugro believes that the program
is unique because it has both
deepwater current meter moorings
and buoy moorings taking wave /
weather data.
The moorings will be visited by
East, the Far East, South America
and Russia. The company claims an
exploration success factor of 75 per
cent, compared to 35 per cent
average for the oil and gas industry.
Other oil companies using the
technology include Petrobras (Brazil)
and LukOil (Russia).
The technology has been tested
at over 60 fields since 1997, often
reducing exploration costs by 500
per cent, the company claims. The
technology can also be used for
finding gold, diamonds and other
natural resources.
CompuPrint is putting its money
where its mouth is. It has bought
leases for 14,000 acres of oil and
University of Petroleum and Minerals
director Dr. Khalid Al-Sultan and
president and CEO of Saudi
Aramco Abdallah Jum’ah.
There were also over 300 oil and
gas representatives at the opening,
with presentations of projects from
the research centre and current
Schlumberger technologies. It was
followed by a one day conference
on reservoir optimisation with joint
Schlumberger and Aramco
workshops.
June 2006 • digital energy journal
a vessel every 6 months. During
the site visits, Fugro will also do
Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler
(ADCP) surveys from the vessel
along 1,300km of survey lines. Q
www.geos.com
gas parcels in Nevada to test out
its technology.
The leases were purchased by
Tierra Nevada Exploration partners,
which is owned by Terra Resources,
which is 100 per cent owned by
Terra Insight Corporation, the
current business name for
CompuPrint.
The technology was sold by the
Russians to the Institute of
Geoinformational Analysis of the
Earth Establishment, a company
based in Liechtenstein which is
owned by the chairman and
majority shareholder of Terra
Insight. Q
www.terrainsight.com
We believe the combination of
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s
leading human and natural resources
and our own technical and scientific
expertise will allow this new centre
to develop ground-breaking
technologies that will maximize both
oil and gas resources in the region
and the contribution the exploration
and production industry makes to the
global economy,” said
Schlumberger. Q
www.schlumberger.com
23
 Seismic / exploration data
Japex sends $15m seismic
equipment to Iraq
Japan Petroleum
Exploration Co (Japex) has
agreed to send $15m to
$20m of seismic survey
equipment to Iraq,
according to a report on
Dow Jones Newswire from
Baghdad.
The agreement, originally signed
in March 2005, includes
analysing the data gathered in
Exxon fights New Zealand
over seismic data
Exxon Mobil has taken
legal action against the
New Zealand
government over its
demands that Exxon
share seismic data of the
waters around New
Zealand’s Southern
Island, according to the
New Zealand Sunday
Star-Times.
The survey was originally made
by a Norwegian company for a
consortium headed by Bounty Oil
of Perth, Australia, which held a
permit to explore the area; but
the consortium never paid for the
survey after a dispute, so the
survey company sold part of it to
Exxon Mobil for $3.2m.
The Bounty Oil consortium’s
permit was subsequently revoked
by the government because it did
not start drilling within the agreed
Schlumberger acquires Ødegaard
Schlumberger has acquired
advanced seismic company
Ødegaard, which makes
special seismic data
applications to determine
rock parameters.
Ødegaard will become part of
WesternGeco, a seismic company
24 digital energy journal • June 2006
surveys in tapped and untapped
Iraqi fields in North East Iraq and
around Basra in the South.
An Iraqi official said that the
latest seismic surveys Iraq has of
these fields are from the 1970s
and 1980s.
So far Japex has trained around
100 Iraqi engineers and
technicians in Japan. Q
www.djnewswires.com
three years. Many observers
believe that the government was
keen to kick out Bounty Oil to
make room for bigger oil
companies. Bounty is fighting its
permit revocation in the New
Zealand High Court.
New Zealand requires oil
companies with exploration
permits to give the government
copies of any seismic data,
which then becomes publicly
available when the permit expires
or is revoked. But Exxon said that
it never had any permit and so
the rule does not apply.
There is a lot of interest in the
waters around the Southern
Island because it is thought that a
major discovery there could solve
New Zealand’s energy problems
for 30 years. It is not particularly
easy, with water depths of
1000m, waves of 10-12m and
no onshore infrastructure. Q
owned 70 percent by
Schlumberger and 30 per cent by
Baker Hughes.
The ambition is to gain value by
being able to combine Ødegaard’s
technical expertise with
WesternGeco’s ‘Q’ seismic data
analysis system. Q
www.slb.com
Approximate Boundary for 2006 Program Area
2D Data Available From TGS
Russia
Japan
The area covered by the TGS Nopec Survey
TGS seismic for Sakhalin
Seismic company TGS- 15,000 square kilometres.
NOPEC Geophysical The data acquisition will start in
Company (TGS) is early July this yea, with 2 vessels.
embarking on a multi-client Data will be processed at
two dimensional seismic Dalmorneftegeofizika’s data
study of the Sea of processing centre in Yutzhno, with
Okhotsk, near Sakhalin final data available in the first
Island, in Russian waters quarter of 2007.
just North of Japan. TGS has arranged a charter with
Shanghai Offshore Petroleum
The survey is being made in Geophysical Corporation (SOPGC)
partnership with Russian oil to use its Discoverer 2 2D seismic
partnership with Russian oil company research vessel for 12 months. Q
Dalmorneftegeofizika and covers www.tgsnopec.no
Silicon Graphics – store
240 TB in one unit
High performance computing company Silicon
Graphics has launched a new data storage system
which fits 240 terabytes (240,000 gigabytes) on a
one rack unit, taking up five square feet of floor
space, with a further 480 terabytes stored behind
two controllers.
Read / write speed is over 2.5 gigabytes per
second.
“Users in today’s data-intensive environments face
three challenges: time, space and cost,” say Silicon
Graphics. “We believe that users will find that the
SGI InfiniteStorage 10000 uniquely addresses all
three of these problems at the same time. Q 240 terabytes in one
rack unit – from Silicon
www.silicongraphics.com Graphics

Saudi Aramco commits to technology
At a Washington energy
technology conference
sponsored by the Center
for Strategic and
International Studies in
early May, Muhammad M.
Al-Saggaf, chief
geophysicist of Aramco,
said that Aramco would
quadruple its investment in
oil exploration over the
next five years, according
to reports on US wire
service Greenwire.
Some in-house software
developments include fractal
deconvolution, a new algorithm
which enables Saudi Aramco to
improve resolution of seismic
pictures, he was reported to
have said.
It has also developed software
called DETECT to map out
ZEH marketing agreement with SeisInfo
ZEH Software of Houston
has signed an agreement
to provide worldwide
sales, marketing, support
and implementation
services for Accu-Audit’s
SeisInfo seismic data
management software.
ZEH makes tools to plot seismic
data into images.
SeisInfo is a tool for managing
seismic data, so it can be
searched and retrieved easily, and
the user knows what he has.
You can use the tool to do
quality control of seismic data.
“Many oil companies we
interviewed over the past year
have expressed significant
problems in the area of seismic
data management,” says ZEH.
ZEH quotes one of its customers,
who said after using the software
for a year, “The functionality of
SeisInfo is not available in any
other product we have looked at
for managing seismic data.
Anybody can use it for a month
and be very proficient.
“We can quickly tell the
geoscientists if they have data in
an area and what they have.
“The geoscientists like it because
subsurface channels and see the
thinnest and thickest parts of
reservoirs.
Ali Al-Naimi, oil minister of
Saudi Arabia, said at the same
conference that he thought
technological improvements would
allow oil output to continue
expanding and proponents of the
‘peak oil’ theory were not
accounting for them.
At the conference, Stephan
Cassiani, president of ExxonMobil’s
upstream research company, spoke
about development in 3D seismic
technology, which he said would
be a “major component to
successful exploration in years to
come,” although he said Exxon
would need to be able to acquire
seismic data in “substantially higher
resolution.”
The technology will also be able
to capture many more types of
Using SeisInfo to get spatial knowledge from your seismic data
they can also spot a well location
in a matter of seconds based on
the seismic or any geographical
coordinates.
“There are companies out there
with systems that can catalogue
Seismic / exploration data
data than currently, he said. At the
moment Exxon only uses wave
pressure data in many cases.
Mr Cassiani also said he
expected to see technology
developing to enable companies to
drill deeper and longer, drill more
complex wells and reach more
high temperature reservoirs.
Meanwhile Kevin Kimber of
Chevron talked about heating
underground oil with steam so it
flows out, which could increase
reserves by a factor of between
two and ten times, he said,
although at a major cost.
Meanwhile Rex Tillerson, CEO
of Exxon Mobil, speaking at the
same event, said that the oil
industry needed strong earnings in
order to develop new technologies
and make investment risk. Q
www.greenwire.com
your physical items, but very few
offer an easy to use solution for
managing your seismic information
in a spatially aware relational
database. Q
www.zeh.com
June 2006 • digital energy journal
Premier
Oil uses
KingdomWeb
Exprodat consulting has
announced that oil
company Premier Oil
will be licensing its
KingdomWeb browser,
to enable it to access
seismic / geological
data interpreted using
Kingdom PC software,
without having to use
or understand Kingdom
software.
Premier Oil says it will use the
tool to summarise available
data from Kingdom computer
systems and highlight data
irregularities.
KingdomWeb provides fast
access to data stored within
Kingdom projects, without
having to understand or
initiate the Kingdom
application.
KingdomWeb also provides
a number of data quality
control and cross-project
search and comparison tools,
allowing the user to quickly
identify possible errors in data,
or inconsistencies between
overlapping data sets.
KingdomWeb “simplifies the
job of finding and quality
controlling data in Kingdom
databases, and needs virtually
no training to use effectively,”
says Exprodat. It was
developed to provide quick
data browsing and web
access to important data.
Exprodat Consulting is
based in Surrey, UK, with a
sister company Exprodat Inc in
Colorado, USA.
Premier Oil plc is a leading
independent oil and gas
company with producing
interests in the North Sea,
Indonesia, Mauritania and
Pakistan.
KingdomWeb was
originally sponsored by Kerr-
McGee to use with North Sea
(UK) data. Q
www.exprodat.com
25
 Seismic / exploration data
QinetiQ seismic monitoring
subsidiary
UK research organisation
QinetiQ, previously part of
the UK government as DERA
(Defence Evaluation and
Research Agency), has
launched a company called
Stingray Geophysical, to
develop a fibre optic seismic
monitoring system for
offshore oil fields. It aims to
deploy a commercial system
within two years.
The system is designed to be
deployed permanently on the
seabed, taking seismic readings
continuously (4D seismic).
The company has £6.6m venture
capital from a consortium led by
Energy Ventures, also including
Hydro Technology Ventures and
Vibtech launches wireless seismic data
UK company Vibtech has
launched a new wireless
seismic data acquisition
system called ‘Unite.”
The company claims it is the world’s
lightest, most flexible and reliable
seismic acquisition system,” with
devices measuring 19cm x 14.5cm
X 14.5 cm, which weigh 1.2kg,
which include a seismic geophone,
a memory card, a GPS device, a
computer and a radio data
transmitter.
It consists of light weight seismic
wireless receivers, each operating
independently from the others, which
can be scattered around in the area
being surveyed, around 220 feet
apart.
The ground is vibrated using a
seismic gun; the sound waves go
into the earth, come back up again
are picked up by a geophone on
the unit, which records data about
the sound wave for later analysis.
Each unit has a GPS receiver, so it
knows where it is (essential for
seismic work), and a lithium battery
which can record ‘days’ of
acquisition, the company says.
The seismic waves are picked up
on geophones on the devices.
In areas with good radio
connectivity all of the seismic data
26 digital energy journal • June 2006
Chevron Technology Ventures.
QinetiQ has a 19.9 per cent stake.
The management team of Stingray
has both company building
experience and oil and gas
knowledge. It has a license to use
QinetiQ’s OptaSeis fibre optic
technology.
QinetiQ believes that the
technology can help oil companies
increase the percentage of oil
reserves they can recover from 35
per cent of total available oil in a
reservoir to 50 per cent.
Many similar systems on the
market, the company believes, are
‘expensive and can be reliable’
because of the ‘problems associated
with installing electrical components
in the sea.’ The OptaSeis system is
smaller, less expensive and more
The Vibtech wireless seismic geophone
/ GPS / memory stick / data
transmitter
can be transmitted between seismic
shots.
In areas with poorer connectivity,
they can choose to transmit a
sample of it for quality control
purposes, or only transmit the data
when the seismic data falls outside a
pre-determined tolerance. All of the
data is stored on the unit for
downloading later.
It is possible to add a larger
battery pack, enhanced memory,
have an optional fibre optic cable
between units (to receive all their
data all the time).
A 4D sensor package
based on QinetiQ’s OptaSeis
fibre optic technology
reliable, the company believes,
requiring no underwater electronics.
QinetiQ has been developing
fibre optic marine sensors for over
25 years for defence customers and
developing the technology for
specific needs of oil and gas
companies since 2002.
It was sponsored by BP,
ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips,
Vibtech is holding initial field trials
with undisclosed ‘major industry
players’ in the second quarter of
2006, with a full scale field trial in
later 2006.
“We truly believe that Unite is the
answer to the explorationist’s
prayers, which have gone un-
answered for too long,” says Doug
Gibson of Vibtech.
“This is the biggest step in seismic
in 20 years,” he says.
Benefits
The unit has more data
communications, data storage
capability, smaller size and lower
price than any other wireless
seismic unit, the company
believes.
“It is the combination of all of
these features that make the system
highly flexible and appealing to a
whole range of geophysical
practitioners. It is possible to carry
out real time data transmission,
stored data or a mixture of both.
The key is the complete freedom
from cables whilst still having real
time data telemetry, if required,”
says Vibtech’s commercial director
John Flavell Smith.
Vibtech estimates that the system
could be half the price of cable
systems.
and Shell to set up a ‘Stingray Joint
Industry Programme’ (JIP) to design
and deploy a demonstration fibre
optic seismic system.
This program will continue, as a
tool for QinetiQ to gather feedback
from oil company end-users about
how well the system is working. Q
www.qinetiq.com
It is also 80 per cent lighter than
cable systems, leading to less
manpower being required. It can be
used in any environment (eg dense
jungles and hills).
When doing seismic surveys in
dangerous areas of the world,
installing a wireless system attracts
much less attention than a cable
system.
The systems are much easier to
transport.
Vibtech
Vibtech was founded in 1996 by
two seismic industry veterans John
Flavell Smith and Bill Park.
The company now has over
$20m venture capital and over 30
personnel, with offices in Scotland,
London and Houston.
The first system, launched in
October 2002, was called the
“Infinite Telemetry System” or IT
system, transmitting data in the 2.4
GHz band. However there was a
need to run cables from the
geophones to the data acquisition
units.
Customers include China Coal,
and BGP and world’s largest
seismic contractor, and BHP
Billiton. Q
www.vibtech.co.uk
 Seismic / exploration data

Rock physics
and seismic
interpretation
Martyn Millwood Hargrave of
UK / US geophysics
company Ikon Science
explains how software can
apply new rock-physics led
quantitative seismic
interpretation to improve
geological understanding

T
o unlock subtle accumulations and
increase recoverable reserves
requires the use of software
packages that can provide a link
between the latest thinking in rock physics,
seismic data and well-based measurements.
Quantitative interpretation is fast becoming a
new industry standard and uses rock physics to
predict reservoir parameters, such as lithologies
and pore fluids, from seismically derived
attributes.
A multidisciplinary combination of rock
physics models with seismic data,
sedimentological information, and stochastic
(probability) techniques can lead to more
powerful results than can be obtained from a
single technique.
Until recently using the most advanced
geoscientific theories and principles, particularly
to combine rock physics principles with seismic
and well data, was the province of a handful of
experts.
Companies like Shell, BP, BG and Exxon
have adopted such an approach to provide
greater geological insight and to de-risk seismic
interpretation ahead of exploration drilling and
as part of field appraisal and production
monitoring.
The data integrated by the latest applications
generate predictive models for interpreters,
geologists and geoscientists enabling them to
Rock physics predicts where seismic data predicts an oil effect. Here the two maps show near stack seismic
showing lithology and faulting. The far stack seismic shows hydrocarbons (circled) which are not visible from
the near stack seismic.
model the seismic response in terms of
hydrocarbon types and volumes, reservoir
quality, how reservoirs are likely to develop over
time and to understand hidden stratigraphic
trapping conditions.
It is hard to escape the fact that the easy oil
has already been found.
As this decade moves into the next, oil and
gas explorers are likely to increasingly focus on
working closely with a committed and vibrant
services sector each using new, highly technical
applications that can integrate well data,
seismic data, geology and rock physics to de-
risk prospects and make the most of the
remaining oil and gas reserves.
Software challenges
Using rock physics models with seismic data,
sedimentological information, and stochastic
(probability) techniques requires access to
multidisciplinary tools, sometimes up to seven
different software packages are needed to
undertake a successful quantative interpretation
workflow.
The requirement for multiple packages restricted
the take up of this approach to a limited number
of power users and those who were happy to put
up with the tedious and time consuming practice
of importing and exporting data between a
plethora of different applications.
Bringing all these tools into a single package
opens the Quantitative Interpretation workflow to
all interpreters.
Now, new software packages are making
leading edge techniques more accessible to the
industry.
IKON’s RocDoc
The inclusion of workflow-driven software
applications like the Ikon Science rock physics
driven software package, RocDok, which
guides geoscientists through the application of
rock physics models in order to integrate well,
seismic and geological data, have gone on to
receive wide recognition and uptake by the
industry.

June 2006 • digital energy journal 27

 Seismic / exploration data

Heavy weight programs traditionally resided
only on Unix platform. However Ikon Science
recognised making advanced geophysics and
rock physics more accessible through software
such as RokDoc, would take place hand in
hand with the uptake of Linux and PC platforms.
For Ikon Science, making its software
accessible from multiple platforms was
analogous with the emerging application of
technology, cutting edge science and speed.
OilExco
Canadian oil and gas explorer OilExco
attributes much of its success in the North Sea
Brenda field to the latest techniques and
software that enable the application of rock
physics and seismic modelling.
Software that applies inversion techniques
driven by rock physics helped the company
transform Brenda from an overlooked stranded
discovery to an active company-making project.
The company acquired a 1993-vintage
seismic survey over Block 15/25b, which it
had reprocessed by GX Technology who
worked with software creator Ikon Science to
apply the latest rock physics techniques to the
data through the software package RokDoc.
The work highlighted an ‘oil effect’ anomaly
in a Paleocene deepwater sand channel in
Block 15/25b, suggesting the presence of
hydrocarbons.
The channel sands had little structural closure
suggesting stratigraphic trapping conditions.
The upper Paleocene sand had originally been
tested by a major oil company in 1990 whose
well, 15/25b-3, penetrated 22 feet of porous,
permeable, oil-stained sand, which tested at a
stable rate of 2,690 b/d of 39º API oil.
The initial OilExco 15/25-6 well was 150
meters west from the 1990 well to test the
stratigraphic interpretation of the sand fairway.
It encountered a thicker sandstone section
compared to the earlier well.
Oil-stained sand lenses in the base of the
OilExco well were lower than an interpreted
oil/ water contact in the 1990 well.
A drill-stem test of the new ‘Brenda’ well
yielded oil at an average of 2,980b/d. No
formation water was produced from the test
although the base of the perforation was over
40 feet lower than the previously interpreted
oil/ water contact, confirming the interpretation
of Brenda as a stratigraphic trap.
Using technology through RokDoc, OilExco
was able to examine sharp images of the
stratigraphy and reservoir properties and used
these as the basis for the well planning and
development.
The 15/25b-8 well, targeted on seismically-
derived hydrocarbon indicators, successfully tested
oil. The appraisal well 15/25-9 intersected a
Paleocene sandstone oil accumulation in the
western area of Block 15/25b.
The company started the second phase of its
Brenda drilling program with the 15/25b-10
well, following up with clusters of wells at
15/25b-11 and 15/25b-12, the latter
concluding the appraisal of the stratigraphically-
trapped, subtle Brenda field.
Now development drilling on Brenda is in
progress with the D1 through D4 production
wells. OilExco is awarding drilling and
engineering contracts for the £80m sub sea
development program with first oil expected in
the third quarter of 2006. Q

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28 digital energy journal • June 2006

 control systems/equipment management

ROVSing Dynamics Frost and

Sullivan Award
Danish Oil and gas condition
monitoring company ROVSING
Dynamics has won a Frost and
Sullivan “Entrepreneurial
Company of the Year Award
2006” for its OPENPredictor
condition monitoring tool.
The award is given to a company
Siemens is to supply automation for Sevan Drilling’s new rig, which has a unique / revolutionary
designed to operate in rough climates and extreme depths product with significant market
potential.
Siemens automation for The tool can be used for continuous
monitoring of the condition,
performance and reliability of rotating
and reciprocating machinery.
Frost and Sullivan noted that whilst
most condition monitoring systems only
identify defects, the OPENpredictor tool
provides advice and forecasts on the
machine status.
It predicts the feasible time a machine
will be able to operate with a defect
before maintenance is required, and
offers fault diagnosis and different
warning systems.
It can be integrated into existing
control systems. Q
www.rovsing-dynamics.com

Sevan Drilling
Siemens has signed a Eur 39m deal to deliver
electrical, automation, telecom and control systems,
as well as dynamic positioning systems, to a new
drilling rig being built by Sevan Drilling of
Singapore.
The rig is equipped to operate in rough climates and at extreme
depths. It should be ready for delivery in the first half of 2009.
Sevan Drilling’s parent company is Norwegian Sevan Marine,
which specialises in drilling, floating production and storage of oil
and gas.
It has developed a new cylindrical platform, called the “Sevan
Stabilized Platform” (SSP), which combines excellent sea-going
properties with reasonable building costs, the company says.
“Sevan Marine’s concept is innovative and technically cutting
edge. Total responsibility for system integration in a project of this
nature represents an important challenge for us,” says Siemens.
Siemens has delivered similar equipment to Sevan Marine’s
production vessels, which will be operating at the Piranema Field
in Brazil for Petrobras and at the Chestnut Field in the British sector
of the North Sea. Q

Ole Døssing, technical director (left) and Thea Larsen, CEO (right) of Rovsing Dynamics

Kongsberg control systems with their Frost and Sullivan award for a unique / revolutionary product with significant
market potential

for BP production vessels

Kongsberg Maritime has won a contract to
supply an integrated control system for safety Invensys emergency shutdown
and automation for a floating production vessel
being used on BP Norge’s Skarv and Idun
fields, Norway, which are scheduled to come
system in Algeria
online in 2010. Bechtel has chosen the Invensys extensive diagnostics, integrated into one
The technology used will make it possible to monitor and emergency shutdown system system. It uses ‘two out of three voting’ (ie
control large parts of the offshore operations from offshore. for its El Gassi, Zotti, Al Agreb it does what two out of the three control
The contract follows a FEED (Front End Engineering and Design) and Al Agreb West gas systems are telling it to do). This ensures
study conducted jointly by BP Norge and Aker Kværner, the compression and re-injection lift that the control operations are
shipbuilder. Kongsberg will be responsible for the safety and facilities at the SonaHess Gassi uninterrupted and error free.
automation systems. El Agreb (GEA) redevelopment The control systems can be monitored
Kongsberg will apply Foundation Fieldbus technology, making project in Algeria. remotely; they calibrate themselves, can
the process control more accessible and providing faster Invensys will supply Triconex triple modular work out where faults are. Q
communications between the control and maintenance systems. Q redundant (TMR) technology, which has
www.kongsberg.com three isolated parallel control systems and www.invensys.com

June 2006 • digital energy journal 29

 Satcoms news
Caprock 93 per cent ROI
Oil and gas satellite
communications company
CapRock has announced a
$200m recapitalisation in
private equity through
Boston private equity firm
ABRY partners, after the
company generated a 93
per cent return on
investment and cash on
cash return of 13.4
multiples over 4 years for
its previous owners,
Genesis Park and The
Riverside Company.
Caprock has recently expanded
operations in Brazil, Indonesia,
Mexico and West Africa.
“We are very proud of our
involvement with CapRock. In less
than four years, we were able to
dramatically expand CapRock’s
global presence,” says The
Riverside Company.
Caprock has also appointed
Tore Hilde vice president of
Schlumberger and BT oil and gas
comms alliance
Schlumberger has formed
an alliance with ex-UK state
telecom company BT to
provide communications
services for upstream oil
and gas industry.
At the same time, BT has signed a
$47m five year contract to provide
Schlumberger with global network
services.
BT will take responsibility for
management and delivery of
Schlumberger’s Multiprotocol Label
Switching (MPLS) network, which
PetroCom VSAT for Helix Energy
Gulf of Mexico communications company PetroCom has
signed a two year contract with offshore vessel operator
Helix Energy Solutions Group (previously Cal Dive
International) to supply VSAT communications.
Helix operates 28 vessels in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, and
PetroCom will commission and manage VSAT communications on all of
the vessels. Q
www.petrocom.com
30 digital energy journal • June 2006
$200m recapitalisation for oil and gas
satcoms company Caprock
European operations.
Mr Hilde was previously CEO of
Telenor Satellite Services.
Mr Hilde will also to head
Caprock’s new maritime division,
aiming to build business in
Caprock’s deep sea maritime /
cruise businesses. Q
www.caprock.com
will be moved onto BT’s MPLS
infrastructure.
BT and Schlumberger will work
together on new network solutions
for the upstream oil and gas
industry.
“This agreement will expand our
capability to provide end-to-end
connectivity solutions and is a
logical next step towards the
introduction of innovative services
that support interactive operations
including real-time production and
drilling,” says Schlumberger. Q
www.slb.com
OilCamp develops North Sea
videoconference service
North Sea communications satellite communications network
company OilCamp has SOIL, which is as secure as a
developed a tool called SOIL company internal network but able
Meeting which should to carry high speed satellite
massively improve the communications.
quality of videoconferencing It replaces ISDN connections
for companies in the which were used for
North Sea. videoconferencing in the past,
Companies using the system which OilCamp describes as
include StatOil, Hydro, ‘expensive and poor quality’.
ConocoPhillips, Baker Hughes, OilCamp has developed
AkerKvaerner and Dolphin. software tools to go with it,
The system was developed including company shared address
together with Statoil and Hydro, as books and common dialling plans.
part of efforts to try to reduce the “Videoconferencing has always
manpower necessary onboard the been perceived by the Oil and
rig, by enabling operations to be Gas Industry as a good idea in
managed onshore. theory, but because it lacked the
Only oil and gas companies can required infrastructure and
use the system. It is available in networking capabilities it was never
both the UK and Norway, through able to achieve its full potential,”
hubs in Aberdeen and Stavanger. says OilCamp. Q
It runs over OilCamp’s North Sea www.oilcamp.com
OilCamp management buyout
North Sea satellite
communications service
in the North Sea. It has 13
employees in Stavanger and
provider OilCamp,
originally founded by
Aberdeen and had 2005
revenues of NOK 27m ($4.48m).
Norwegian state oil Petroleum Networks Holding is
company Telenor, has been owned by private equity fund
acquired by its Energivekst, which also owns US
management team, CEO rig communications company
Bjørn Munthe and sales RigNet Inc. RigNet and OilCamp
and marketing director are now expected to develop a
Tom Rune Espedal, ‘close working relationship.;
supported by Petroleum Energivkst is managed by
Networks Holding. HitecVision Private Equity, which
OilCamp operates the “SOIL” specialises in oil and gas
communications network, used by investments. Q
170 oil and oil supply companies www.oilcamp.com
PetroCom optimises rig mobiles
PetroCom, which provides mobile phone and VSAT
satellite communications offshore in the US Gulf of
Mexico, has deployed the Venturi Wireless optimisation
system in its rig GPRS mobile phone network, to ensure
reliable and fast communications.
The Venturi system makes the mobile phone transfer of TCP data packets
more efficient, with fewer dropped sessions and interruptions.
“PetroCom conducted a comprehensive evaluation of data optimization
providers and only Venturi Wireless with Adaptive Airlink Optimization
proved to deliver consistently faster data speeds and higher reliability under
challenging network and environmental conditions,” says Petrocom. Q
www.petrocom.com

Ormen Lange flow assurance
system
FMC
Technologies
has signed a
contract with
Norwegian oil company
Hydro to supply a real time
flow assurance software
for the Ormen Lange gas
development in the
Norwegian sea.
The software analyses control
system data to work out what is
happening with the gas flow and
troubleshoot any problems.
For example, problems like
hydrate build-up, paraffin build up,
slugging, sand, pipe corrosion,
scale, and water production can
be detected and hopefully
Statoil buys Kongsberg’s subsea
separation simulator
Kongsberg Maritime has
won a contract to supply
an ASSET reservoir
modelling simulator to be
used on Tordis, a Subsea
tie-in to the Gullfaks C rig
off the coast of Norway,
operated by Statoil.
It can be used by Statoil to assess
different operation modes, and it
can also be used for training. The
simulator works together with the
OLGA flow simulation software suite.
At Tordis, water and sand are
separated from the well stream and
injected back underground, and a
multiphase pump drives the oil and
gas to the Gullfaks C rig.
Kongsberg simulator models the subsea separation and boosting station above
the TORDIS field
Simulators
FMC software analyses control system
data to work out what is flowing
through the pipe
resolved before the problem
escalates too far.
ONLINE
The system can also be used to
evaluate system designs to see
how well they are likely to work, See our website
before ordering the main system
equipment and control systems. www.digitalenergyjournal.com
The system is used on over 20
fields and 400 wells around the
world. Q
Sign up for our free newsletter, for
www.fmctechnologies.com/ latest news, features, events and
OrmenLangeFAS
downloads for the electronic magazine
“Correct operation of the Tordis
separation station is important and
the use of the dynamic simulator is
vital to rule out any operational
problems,” says Kongsberg.
“Statoil’s intentions with the TORDIS
IOR dynamic simulator are to make
the organization prepared for
operation of this integrated system
and to verify and tune the automatic
control systems,” says Statoil.
“A high focus is put upon the
operation of the whole production
system. Subsea wells, subsea
process equipment, production
pipelines and topside processing
systems are tightly integrated.” Q
www.kongsberg.com
Kongsberg Tordis
June 2006 • digital energy journal 31
 Simulators
Reservoir simulator company Roxar has a project to put real time data from the field into the
reservoir model so it is always up to date. We talked to Roxar’s Dr Steve Webb about the
project and how simulators might be used in future
The future of
simulators
R
oxar, probably the world’s leading
company in geological reservoir
modelling, and a leader in
multiphase meters and downhole
gauges, is combining its two fields of expertise
together, to develop software that can absorb all
the new data from the well as fast as it comes in.
It has embarked on a project funded by
Norwegian Research Council, codenamed
FieldWatch, that is aimed at rapidly assimilating
production data into the geological modelling
process. Statoil and the Norwegian computing
centre are also involved.
“We have the hardware that can capture the
real time information that is being used,” says Dr
Steve Webb, principal advisor for Integrated
Reservoir and Production Management (iRPm) at
Roxar. “We have also got the modelling and
simulation components on the other side.”
“The work we’re doing is on tying those
together, using the information to rapidly
condition the reservoir models. It’s a vision we
call IRPM – Integrated Reservoir Production
Management.”
“The real challenge is keeping the model
evergreen, doing the rapid updating of the
model,” he says. “We’re not there yet.”
“That means continuously assimilating
production data and other geophysical and
geological data such as time lapse seismic
surveys. All of those are challenges for model
updating.”
“As you go ahead and develop the field –
you’re always comparing the actual performance
with the performance from the model and adjust
the data,” he says. “Your goal is to have that
model as up to date as possible.”
Speed up adoption
Roxar does strongly believe that the oil and gas
industry should be adopting technology faster.
“The take-up in the oil industry – appears to be
quite slow,” he says.
There are some exceptions. “It’s been used in
Norway for some time now,” he says.
Statoil has had a remote operated field since
2001, the Huldra field. It is fitted with Roxar
multiphase flowmeters on the platform, and
pressure / temperature gauges on the wells. The
chokes and settings can be remote controlled
32 digital energy journal • June 2006
Dr Steve Webb, principal advisor for Integrated
Reservoir and Production Management, Roxar
from the nearby Veslefrikk field and the field
performance monitored from Bergen.
Norway manages to recover 45-50 per cent
of all the oil in the reservoirs it drills, and wants to
get this to 55 to 65 per cent. This compares to a
worldwide average recovery factor of 30 per
cent he said. What if the whole world uses the
same technology that Norway uses.
Simulators today
The potential for how simulators can be used in
the oil and gas industry is a long way away from
how they are currently used.
Most oil companies use reservoir models, to try
to work out what they think the reservoir is like,
and what will happen if they drill a well in a
certain place.
Simulators have been used for many years for
surface equipment, to monitor how the fluid flows
through pipelines, separators and other
equipment.
Simulators have been used since computers
were first developed, as forecasting tools, taking
monthly data to update the model in the history
matching process.
It was not unusual for people to spend months
or often longer working on a simulator modelling
a field, and then receive a new seismic survey,
which would completely change the source data,
so everything would need to start again.
The challenge comes as the timescales
collapse, with simulators expected to process a
continuous feed of data. Tough, but not
impossible with today’s computers.
Managing data
When simulators are developed that can process
all the data as it comes in, they will prove very
useful for the people who actually operating the
field, because they can find out anything about
the field’s current operations that they want and
how to improve its performance, without being
besieged by tons of data.
The simulator can join the dots and model the
information that doesn’t come directly from the
gauges.
The simulator would become a real time
reservoir management tool.
For oil field personnel, managing to do
anything with the enormous amounts of data
constantly being generated from the well has
been compared to “drinking from a fire hose,”
says Dr Webb.
“You have all this data gushing out. The
production engineer is saying, I don’t want a
gallon, I want a cupful. The challenge is to
extract from that flow – the pieces that you need.”
“Different people need different pieces of
information on different timescales. The operators
need access to instantaneous information, at the
second or minute level, to monitor operations and
ensure safe, efficient operations. The production
engineers need another piece of it and on a
longer timescale – they don’t want to know the
production rate every second – but they do need
to know the average production rate over the last
day or week – that’s crucial information for them.
For reservoir engineers planning new well
locations and needing to update simulation
models, average rates and pressures over the last
week or month is their crucial information.”
Having all the data available to and rapidly
incorporated a simulator would kill two birds
with one stone – have a better computer model
with which to forecast performance, and provide
a consistent basis for all personnel associated
with the operation of the field to predict and
optimize future performance whether on a short
or long timescale.
These models could be used in a ‘what if’
mode where the operator could investigate the
effect of adjusting a choke, or the engineer with
effect of drilling a new well, or the models could
be asked for their recommendations for

optimizing the daily production given the fields
operating constraints.
Moreover, information could be ‘pushed’ onto
someone when something goes wrong, or
something changes, or they have asked to be
alerted if something happens.
The rest of the time, all the information is only
available for people when they need it.
The process control industry has used process
simulators in this way for 20-30 years now, with
computer models that know how to adjust valves
and operating conditions to keep things
performing optimally, with staff standing by in
case things go wrong. This is known as ‘closed
loop’ control.
The challenges for the exploration and
production industry are much more complex
because it is much more difficult to monitor a
reservoir than a refinery – we are not ready for
the refinery’s ‘closed loop control’ yet.
Separate simulators
For the moment, no-one has made a single
simulator which can simulate everything, so we
are currently using separate simulators for different
processes.
“From the reservoir engineer’s standpoint – you
want a fluid flow simulator – that helps him forecast
the field’s performance,” says Dr Webb.
“A production engineer is more focused on the
wells’ performance and surface network linking
the wells – it may be a network simulator –
sometimes coupled with a fluid flow simulator.”
“For the operator – the focus is much more on
a well level.”
“Right now, it would be overkill for some sectors
to use the same simulator. But in the future, where
computing power is unlimited, maybe it is possible.
Even today we are routinely linking reservoir
simulators and surface network simulators.”
Future vision
But would it be possible to do what the process
industry has done and run fields like refineries?
Would it be possible to use simulators with
modelling going on all the time, taking data from
the sensors, gauges and meters, working out
what is happening now and what is likely to
happen in future, and continually updating the
model as the information comes in?
It is easy to imagine how a single simulator,
continually crunching away on a grid computer,
and accessible over the corporate intranet, could
be the engine for everybody’s work process.
It could absorb all the production data coming
from the field, as well as the periodic seismic, well
log and geological data updates, to tell you
everything you could possibly want to know about
what is happening right now, as well as help infer
the things that no sensor could tell you (like what is
happening in the reservoir between the wells),
modeled by computer from the real time data.
The operations engineer can have all the
information they could possibly want about what
is happening right now, and get alerts if
something out wrong is happening, or something
changes, or something is likely to happen.
SIMULATOR MODELS – what if a simulator could model the reservoir using real time data?
In the event of any emergency or critical
situation (such as sand or slugs), he can see what
would happen if he turned a valve, before he
actually turns the valve.
The production engineer can see what the
production is likely to be this week and month,
and try out ideas of adjustments that could be
made, to see what would happen. What can I
do to maximise production this week? What if I
choke this well back? What if I remove this
separator and redirect the well stream to another
one?
It could predict what will happen if adjustments
are made, over the next few seconds, over the
next hour, day, week, month or year.
The reservoir engineer could see what the
forecast performance of the reservoir is over the
next month, and try out ideas for things which
might make the outcome different, or try different
locations for the next well, or try out different
possibilities for water injection and how the flood
front will sweep if water is injected in different
ways. Is my recovery at the optimum level?
The asset manager can look at what tasks are
likely to be needed to be done on the rig over
the next day, week, month, and see what staff he
is likely to need, what equipment, and what staff
/ equipment he will need for possible
occurrences, the likelihood of them happening
and assess the risk of each new proposed
development.
Patterns
The simulator could even help predict things like
sand production, by analysing the data leading
up to sand production in the past. If sand
production happens, could it work out what it
thinks is the optimum way to resolve it, before
any human beings are aware of the problem?
“The industry is looking at how to use
something like neural net software or intelligent
agents that look at signatures in these signals that
may help you forecast an event” says Dr Webb.
“Can you predict a heart attack by looking at
cardiac signals ahead of time – are there signals
that are a precursor? Similarly – is there a
signature that would forecast for instance a
sanding event?”
“It would be really good to know ahead of
time if your well was going to start sanding up so
June 2006 • digital energy journal
Simulators
you can proactively take some action – rather
than clean things up afterwards.”
In each of these scenarios, the simulator can
itself test out a large number of different options,
run a multitude of scenarios, and present the best
option to the people who have to make the
decision plus quantify the uncertainty around that
option and thereby help assess the risk. If the
decision-maker and the simulator disagree, then
while the person will be in charge, it will be
possible to find out afterwards who was right,
and the computer model refined or even the
person will upgrade their expertise.
Weather
This is not completely futuristic – the weather is
already modeled in a similar way.
Endless streams of data generated by weather
satellites and ground equipment, and not much of
it is managed using spreadsheets.
It is processed by the computer and human
weather experts, and as a result can provide, on
demand, a 30 second overview of weather for
the entire North America or Europe, and more
specific information for those who need to know
the weather now, and in the future and on
different timescales.
The weather model automatically incorporates
new pieces of information as they come in.
The resolution of weather predictions has
increased enormously in recent years – current
forecasts of conditions five days in advance are
as accurate as 2-3 day forecasts twenty five
years ago.
There have been lots of technology advances in
weather. Digital radar tools have been developed
which can monitor the movement of weather fronts,
in the same way that 4D seismic models the
movement of flood fronts in a reservoir.
The big difference is that it isn’t generally
possible to do anything to change the weather,
whilst the oil and gas production you can.
Imagine knowing how much oil a well would
produce before you drilled it, knowing the risk
envelope of that well’s production, knowing how
different set-ups would change production and
recovery, and in an emergency knowing what
would happen when you turned a valve before
you turned it. This is what the oil and gas industry
is heading towards. Q
33
 management software and data

Epsis develops scheduling tools

for Chevron
Epsis, a Norwegian
company which offers web
tools to gather together oil
and gas information, is
working with Chevron
North America to create a
prototype data visualisation
system for managing crew
schedules.
It will be used by Chevron to help
with planning daily operations for
the onshore San Ardo field din the
San Joaquin Valley, to help the
operational team manage
increasing activity with an
increasing number of crews, and
increased maintenance and
operational tasks.
There is an interactive 3D map of
the valley where the field is located,
showing all the wells and facilities.
Different crews on the field are
shown as icons, with different
colour and shape icons for different
crew types.
You can scroll through time and
see the position of crews at any time.
The details about that crew’s
activity is shown on another screen.
The software will display any
conflicts, eg about safety or
resources, on the schedule.
They will be highlighted on the
3D map and crew activity screen.
All of the staff working tomorrow
can meet online, see everything and
discuss how to resolve conflicts.
ERA
The software builds on Epsis’ ERA
(Epsis Real Time Assistant) tool
which can take production data
from the well and transforms it into
reservoir and well performance
information.
It can get data from different
database sources (SQL Server,
Oracle, Excel) and put it all together
in an organised hierarchical system.
It can combine data from different
sources onto a single graph, and
enable it to be shared with others. It
is easy to set up alarms of certain
conditions are reached, which are
sent by e-mail or instant messages.
The information can be structured
to that decisions can be made
about how to manage the reservoir.
It can be presented as a web page,
customised to the needs of
individuals.
There is an online ‘filtering’ system
which can get rid of faulty data.
There are advanced engineering
calculation modules. For example,
users can access cumulative
production history, field rates, well
decline analysis tools, well test
analysis tools over the web.
Epsis was founded in 2003, and
its clients include oil companies
Chevron, Hydro, Shell, NFR, Statoil
and ABB. It is a small company,
employing 17 engineers.
Epsis recently announced a NOK
20m (US$3.31m) equity issue and
plans to double its number of
employees by the end of this year.
The company says it doubled its
revenue every year over the past 3
years.
Epsis develops and tests its work
processes at its own Epsis
Operation Centre in Kokstad,
Norway. Q
www.epsis.no
“Intelligent Wells” conference
in Kuala Lumpur
IQPC is organising a two day conference on
“Intelligent Wells” in Kuala Lumpur on August 29-30.
Confirmed speakers include Petronas Carigali, Kuwait Oil
Company, Quantx, CNOOC SES Ltd, Rashpetco and ONGC.
Topics are expected to include: how intelligent wells can affect
company bottom line and justifying the investment; getting your
organisation ready; reducing project risk; what to expect from
technology partners; creating realistic time frames; low cost intelligent
wells; intelligent subsea completions; multiple zone completions;
sand control; horizontal and multilateral intelligent wells;
Discussion between operators and vendors on obstacles to
technology take-up.
Using neural networks in wells; using fibre optics; using computer
diagnostics; ensuring data integrity; condition monitoring; data
management; data infrastructure;
Using data in day to day decision making; connecting
departments that use data in different ways; staff training; building
multi-disciplinary teams; addressing the staff shortage; retaining
company knowledge;
Delegate tickets cost USD 1499, with workshop places an
additional $599 per workshop. Q
www.oilandgasiq.com.sg/as-3364
Intervera updates data cleansing
Intervera Data Solutions of data quality systems in the
Calgary has launched its upstream oil and gas industry.
DataVera Clean software Data management company
data cleansing tool, Volant Solutions of Houston is
intended to make the data going to incorporate real time data
cleaning process checking capabilities from Intervera
repeatable and verifiable. Data Solutions.
Intervera believes that 90 per cent DataVera has a repository of
of data issues can be thousands of checks which can be
automatically corrected using the made on data quality, to identify
tool, leading to significant cost and clean up suspect data, for
savings. different exploration and
Intervera believes it has the most production applications. Q
‘complete library’ of automated www.intervera.com

Veson and SolArc in vessel OpenSpirit appoints Alliance as

management tie-up Indonesian rep
Veson Nautical, which produces vessel chartering OpenSpirit has appointed OpenSpirit to share geoscience
software, has announced a tie up with commodity Alliance Geotechnical data within their companies and
trading workflow software company SolArc RightAngle, Services as its with other partners / clients.
to develop a tool for oil and gas companies to manage representative in Indonesia. “The need for an integrated data
their vessel positions and vessel movement costs. management approach has never
Indonesia is expected to get its oil been greater, and we are pleased
SolArc makes software for commodity trading, risk and logistics exploration and production to have Alliance Geotechnical
management, used by energy companies. SolArc RightAngle can be business going shortly and Services as our agent as we
used for deal capture, scheduling, inventory management, pricing, redevelop its marginalised fields, become a part of this exciting new
credit, accounting, position reporting and risk analysis. Q the company says. market,” OpenSpirit says.
www.veson.com Oil companies will be able to use www.openspirit.com

34 digital energy journal • June 2006


Siemens oil field performance management
POSC appoints
software
Jerry Hubbard
EVP
The Petrotechnical Open
Standards Consortium
(POSC) has appointed
Jerry Hubbard as
executive vice president
of business
development.
His responsibilities will include
driving adoption of POSC
standards in industry,
increasing POSC membership
and building the POSC
community.
Mr Hubbard spent 15 years
in pipeline construction and
project management
assignments in Alaska, and 15
years doing business
development in e-commerce.
His most recent position was
sales and marketing director of
SparesFinder of London, which
provides data management
software and services to
companies including Shell,
ConocoPhillips and BP.
He has also served as
director of the Petroleum
Industry Data Exchange (PIDX)
Standards & Guidelines
Committee of the American
Petroleum Institute, a founding
member of the PIDX Europe
Executive Committee and as a
Steering Committee member of
the United Nations Standard
Products and Services Code
(UNSPSC).
“Jerry’s oil and gas industry
experience and his global
view of business process
standards brings a great
opportunity for POSC to
enhance our visibility and
business value across the
industry,” says POSC.
“His knowledge of the
standards development and
adoption process will be an
important element for the
growth and influence of both
the POSC portfolio of
standards and its
membership.” Q
www.posc.org
IndX Software, part of
Siemens, has launched a
role-based upstream
operations performance
management system,
which delivers specific
information tailored to the
needs of specific
individuals so they can
make the decisions they
have to make quickly.
The software is designed to notify
production supervisors and
managers about emerging and
current problems so they can make
better decisions and respond
immediately.
There are software tools for
energy consumption management,
sand management, corrosion
monitoring, well-shut-in history, inner
casing pressure monitoring, water
management and pump
monitoring.
Siemens says the software
incorporates best practises and
operating procedures of oil field
management engineers and
operators at ‘pacesetting’ oil fields
around the world.
The software extensions were
developed by petroleum engineers,
not IT professionals.
For each well, overall (‘asset’)
and specific equipment operating
envelopes are established, so alerts
can be issued if some readings go
outside the acceptable envelope.
Petris new borehole processing software
US oil and gas software
company Petris has
launched PetrisWINDS
Recall 5.1, a new version
of its borehole database
and processing software
suite.
Petris makes software systems
using its expertise in geospatial
information systems (GIS),
bringing data together from
different sources so it can be
used in decision making.
The software has a new
adaptor enabling it to work with
management software and data
IndX Software – presenting the data which specific individuals need about the
oilfield on one screen
Any change in the field, planned
or unplanned, can be monitored.
Operators and field engineers
receive automatic e-mail
notifications with links in them,
which take them to detailed views
of the data. The system can be
accessed by authorised personnel
from any web-enabled PC.
Engineers and technicians can
design their own displays for the
information they want, including
data from multi-phase flow meters,
well tests, work orders and field
production maps.
The software takes data in real
other corporate data stores.
It has a new front end for
displaying geospatial data, and a
powerful search engine.
There is a ‘file loader wizard’
which makes it easier to load up
data files from other software.
There is a ‘structured curves’
data storage mechanism which
enables groups of related data
curves to be stored with a
common depth reference, so they
can be accessed more efficiently.
Developments have also been
made to LOGSCAPE software for
analysing geospatial data, the
June 2006 • digital energy journal
time from the well control systems,
including production wells,
metering stations, water / gas /
steam injection systems,
environmental monitoring stations
and gas oil separation plants.
The goal is to enable personnel
to spot trends and patterns in
performance easily, so they can
make changes to maintain optimal
production levels, increase
recoverable reserves and reduce
well down time. Q
www.industry.siemens.com/
indx/en/
IMAGE borehole imaging tool,
and the geomechanical analysis
tools.
The software is also available
over the web as ‘PetrisWINDS
Now!’ for users who only want it
for a short time, or for some
reason prefer monthly payments to
license fees upfront.
Data can be stored on the
user’s desktop or in a private
storage space on Petris’ server.
It works on Windows, Linux
and Solaris. Q
www.petris.com
35
 management software and data
Knowledge
transfer at Baroid
Fluid Services
Halliburton Baroid Fluid
Services is using Knowledge
Management tools in an
innovative way – to help
management identify
employees for potential job
promotion. We talked to
Baroid’s knowledge brokers
Kevin Paylow and Andrew
Hickman.
K
evin Paylow, knowledge broker
with Halliburton Baroid Fluid
Services, believes that many of
the traits the company looks for in
potential senior managers can be identified by
review of postings on the collaborative
discussion tool, the Knowledge Management
(KM) system.
The online system helps senior managers get
a much deeper view of how employees work.
“We’re missing a lot of people with really good
leadership potential because we really don’t
know who they are. We need to identify more
candidates,” he says.
Senior managers can go into the system and
see what employees are talking about, what
challenges they have, who is asking the
questions and who is giving the answers.
They can see what’s important to employees
in the company as they work on customer
issues. The insight into employee abilities and
behaviours provided by this approach can be
used to supplement traditional means of
identifying candidates for promotion.
In organisations with centrally located
management groups, this method can help the
company avoid succession planning challenges
such as several managers identifying the same
rising star in the organisation simply because
that employee is more visible to management.
“No matter how good this employee is,
there’s no way he or she can fill all the roles
36 digital energy journal • June 2006
“The ability to work together and
communicate is sometimes more
important than technical skills” –
Halliburton Baroid knowledge broker
Kevin Paylow
they may have been slotted for. One employee
cannot fill five roles,” Mr Paylow says.
Managers may have a tendency to choose
potential successors that are just like themselves in
terms of experience, background and education.
Or they may pick someone with whom they
have worked because they have a relatively
limited social network in the company.
While not necessarily leading to a poor choice
of successor, it fosters an ‘it’s who you know’
promotion approach rather than shifting to a
‘who have we missed?’ approach.
“Don’t just think of knowledge management as
a tool to solve technical problems or improve
knowledge transfer, see it also as a tool to
identify emerging leaders,” Mr Hickman says.
When giving a training session in Kazakhstan,
Mr Hickman came across new field engineers
who had completed training in Houston and
wanted to know how they could possibly remain
visible to management in Houston from such a
remote location.
Mr Hickman points out that participation on
the discussion board is a “good way for people
to get visibility in the company. Your career
exists as much in the online world as the real
world,” he says.
When asked if users feel as if “Big Brother” is
watching, Mr Paylow stressed that there is still a
difference between people’s peer to peer
communications and what they put on the
brokered discussion board.
“It’s not like we’re crawling through their e-mails
or looking at their hard drive,” he says. “They are
aware their comments can be seen by the entire
community.”
Knowledge management system
Halliburton’s knowledge management
system has been running for nearly 5 years and
has 22 communities of practise.
Each of these communities is aligned with a
particular product line or support group and uses
common knowledge management tools.
However, the communities are designed such
that they can evolve to meet the needs of each
product line and so each has its own unique
characteristics.
The Baroid Fluid Services community has a
support team that has pioneered additional ways
for knowledge management to provide value to
the organisation. They feel that the identification
of potential future leaders is one such way that
this can be achieved.
The system includes validated documents,
manuals, standard operating procedures and
presentations as well as the facilitated
collaboration tool.
It’s a way for Baroid’s employees around the
globe and their colleagues in other Halliburton
product service lines to virtually instantaneously
share information and learn from one another,
post questions and get the answers they need to
address operators’ challenges more effectively.
“Employees are empowered to transcend
hierarchical and geographical boundaries to
spontaneously collaborate with other employees
in the same product line or employees from other
product lines,” says Halliburton. “This is an
enormous shift in how we have previously
behaved as an organization.”
Knowledge brokers
Baroid has two dedicated employees as
‘knowledge brokers’, Kevin Paylow and Andrew
Hickman, who encourage, motivate and
streamline the information exchange.
When someone posts a question and there are
few or partial answers, the knowledge brokers
find someone who knows the answer and
persuade them to provide it.
The knowledge brokers read every single

posting in every discussion item, so they can see
what’s going on in the organization and facilitate
discussion as needed. They write reports,
presentations and summaries to push captured
knowledge to the rest of the organisation.
“Some people perceive knowledge
management as just a way to manage content
and data,” Mr Paylow says.
“To us it’s a systematic approach to getting the
right information to the right person at the right
time. We try to be more inclusive with our
definition by constantly questioning ‘what is the
right information?’ and ‘who are right people?”.
There is a human component to effective
knowledge management administration that can
never be replaced by an automated application.
Over time, a knowledge base is built up where
people can search by keyword, for example
about a new drilling fluid, to get the information
they need to do their jobs.
Reporting to top management about how
different employees are collaborating also is part
of the knowledge broker’s role.
“We can report to management who the top
collaborators are, who posts the most documents,
who asks the most questions and who replies the
most often,” says Mr Paylow.
“We try to provide recognition for people who
do a lot of communicating because we want to
find people who want to engage the
organization,” he says.
We are reading what people are saying and
the way they are saying it. There are a few
people out there who don’t participate as often,
but when they do, they provide a great deal of
value to the community,” Mr Paylow says. “We
want to reward people for participating.”
Don’t just show up
Mr Hickman stresses that he is not advocating
simply rewarding people for participating.
“The way they collaborate is important, and
specific traits are more important for certain jobs
when a broader selection of potential succession
candidates needs to be identified,” he says.
“For a technical or research role, you want
someone that exhibits technical thought leadership
and the willingness to ask questions. In a sales or
management role, the ability to communicate and
be persuasive may be more important.”
“However, because we want to drive a culture
change in the organization, managers are
encouraged to set minimum levels of participation
on the communities with the most relevance to
their employees,” he says.
“We have several managers who have said
they want to see their people collaborate at a
certain rate and access the tool at a certain
frequency.”
Not everyone can communicate frequently.
“We have people who work in locations
with very poor communication connectivity. It
can be more difficult for them to collaborate
because their bandwidth is so low,” Mr
Hickman says.
“Others are in positions that simply don’t
allow the time to participate, which is
management software and data
“See knowledge management as a
tool to identify emerging leaders”
Halliburton Baroid knowledge
broker Andy Hickman
understandable given the pace of operations in
the industry right now.”
When asked if some users participate
frequently just to raise their standing, Mr Paylow
replied, “People who post tend to only post things
that are relevant to the discussion largely because
other participants tend to not support boasting or
other types of impertinent chatter.
“By being able to view the way in which an
employee collaborates and communicates,
management can look past any posturing and
better gauge employee abilities.”
The ability to work together, and the ability to
communicate, is sometimes more important than
technical skills, Mr Paylow says, because the
knowledge brokers want to encourage the
transfer of knowledge between employees not
knowledge hording.
One example of good collaboration, Mr
Paylow recalls, was an employee who had a
problem with a particular formation sticking to the
drill bit.
“This employee wanted to better understand
the interaction between the formation, the drill bit
and the drilling fluid system,” he says.
“The engineer involved used the collaborative
tool to talk directly to the bit designers. He knew
Baroid Fluid Services approach to the challenge,
but specifically wanted to view the challenge
from the bit community’s perspective. The
knowledge brokers then shared the bit
community’s feedback with the rest of Baroid.”
As mentioned, one of the key advantages of
the Halliburton knowledge management system is
that any discussion item can be shared
transparently between any or all of the
communities of practice. This allows an additional
perspective in developing solutions and
transferring knowledge where synergies exist
between service lines.
“This stood out to us as a great example of
thought leadership,” Mr Paylow says. “We don’t
want Baroid folks just talking to other Baroid folks;
he looked at the challenge from another’s
perspective.”
Another example was an employee who
questioned the standard method to measure
emulsion stability by measuring the voltage
breakdown of the fluid.
“The employee asked ‘what are we actually
measuring and is this relevant?’ He was
June 2006 • digital energy journal
questioning the assumptions of the entire industry.”
“We think it’s another great example,” Mr
Hickman says. “Many employees don’t think to
question company and industry assumptions.”
Some companies do a full circle or white
paper approach where every question has to
have a validated answer. It then goes to a
repository people can access, but that assumes
that a challenge has only one solution.
“It can take a long time to develop a
‘validated best solution’ to every problem,” Mr
Hickman says. “Ultimately this may not be
practical because it cannot take into account
every circumstance and potentially closes the
door to applying future or alternate technologies,
processes or understanding.
Ways to use the tool
Employees using online knowledge
management tools “start developing larger
personal networks – they start building
relationships with other employees outside of their
immediate geographic area,” says Mr Hickman.
”We have seen employees find their own
mentors,” he says. “People connect who never
would have connected before. The theory is that
employees with larger social networks inherently
provide greater value to the company for all the
reasons we discussed earlier.”
Users located far away from Baroid’s head
office in Houston particularly benefit from access
to the system, Mr Hickman says.
“We might have a drilling challenge in
Argentina, and there could be different solutions
in Sakhalin or Canada that have never been
used in Argentina. Before this system was
available this knowledge would have ultimately
been transferred, but the employees would have
been unable to share their experiences and ideas
as efficiently or as directly.”
30-45 age group
“From the papers and presentations we have
seen, a lot of people in the industry are
concerned about new employees coming in and
developing operational competence in time to
replace those that are leaving. But we don’t see
that as the only issue,” says Mr Paylow.
The critical employees to identify and develop
as leaders, Mr Paylow believes, are in the 30-45
age group. People in this group were hired in
low numbers during and after the employee culls
in the mid 80s when the industry crashed.
Older employees that survived the culls have
largely held the critical leadership and
management roles within the industry, and as a
result few positions have been available to
younger employees until recently. But this will
change very soon as the 45-60 age group gets
close to retirement.
“The challenge is to find the people who are
30-45 now with the right potential,” he says.
“By enabling management to see how
employees are collaborating – and what
behaviours they exhibit while collaborating – we
can help identify and develop emerging leaders
in the organization.” Q
37
 management software and data
Nurturing your
knowledge
management
Knowledge management systems need to be nurtured over long periods of time to be
successful, says By Dr Alan H Smith, Managing Consultant with Paras Consulting, London
I
n recent years, while large numbers of
people have attempted to “sort out the
data management mess” in the E&P
industry, few have succeeded.
Examination of the successes and failures
from the last ten years shows a number of traits,
any of which can affect the outcome of projects
or service delivery.
The choice of technology can help, and
definition of the processes involved is a
significant influence on a positive outcome.
Additionally, the maturity of an organisation,
as measured using a modified IT maturity scale,
as well as the structure of the organisation and
the management style, all play a very significant
part.
For projects this translates into the quality of
the project team and how they work together as
a team.
One of the recent management trends is for
Knowledge Management; there are successes
and failures in implementation.
The main failure points relate to a similar
maturity scale (see “Learning to Fly” by Collison
and Parcell; Capstone, 2004) and this in turn
relates to the attitudes and actions of
management.
Good knowledge management only works if
managers are willing to accept that mistakes
are made and that the organisation can learn
from these.
If managers continually look for scapegoats
when things go wrong, you can forget about
knowledge management – it will not work!
Organisational
Generally, the majority of failed projects or
poor service can be tracked back to “people”
issues, with a minority based around process
and very few technology issues.
38 digital energy journal • June 2006
Your knowledge management system will get better
over time – Dr Alan Smith, managing consultant,
Paras Consulting
We observe that there have been attempts to
fix the data management issue in isolation,
without regard for more fundamental changes in
organisational structure or style.
Organisations that have made the best use of
IT have embarked on fundamental
organisational and process changes.
The oil and gas industry is still very traditional
in its use of technology and its impact on
people.
We are good at taking on the massive
engineering challenges associated with
deepwater E&P, but are less good at pushing
through the fundamental behavioural changes
required to “do things faster, better and
cheaper”.
It is time to start concentrating our efforts on
people if we are to succeed in knowledge,
information and data management.
Many companies have tried to sort out their
E&P data management problems through the
maturing years. Very few companies have
succeeded in resolving the issues. There are
examples of gain, but these tend to be limited
to particular areas or particular data types.
Why haven’t these efforts really worked?
Examination of the way data management is
run in companies suggests a combination of
factors is at work – if these are not addressed
during any project then failure is likely to follow.
People, process and technology
Companies are always talking about the
need to manage the three components of
People, Process and Technology.
Generally it is easy to handle Technology -
there are many vendors out there willing to sell
“solutions”. It is also easy to get managers to
buy in to the software purchases; after all there
is something tangible at the end.
Getting attention for process is becoming
easier – management are at last realising that
we actually need to get information into these
expensive software purchases they make!
When it comes to people we have a different
position – managers often fail to realise that
they need to get their staff to change the way
they work before new solutions become
effective.
Spending money in this area is considered
“soft” and the return on investment seen as
difficult to measure. However we are
beginning to see clear evidence that even this is

changing – perhaps there is hope for us yet.
Very few vendors provide support with the
people aspect – only expensive management
consultants. It involves changing attitudes and
changing the way people work. The more
successful companies are busy with it now.
Children
Success in bringing up your Knowledge,
Information and Data Management (KIDs) is
akin to seeing children come to maturity
through the difficult teenage years.
The main issues discussed for any data,
information or knowledge management
project are people, process and technology.
For Technology read education, for People
read families/friends/”relationships” and for
Process read finding your way through the
inherent problems of maturing teens.
Without dwelling too closely on the
comparison between a family and a
company, we (Paras Consulting) have found
that the way a company is organised has a
big influence on likely success.
In addition, the chance of success for a
knowledge management project depends
greatly on the attitude of managers. We also
believe that change management is an
essential component of any successful project
– and that applies to teenagers too!
Choosing the right technology is “easy”.
There are many suitable solutions available,
but getting processes right is more difficult.
However, it is possible, although it must be
remembered that changing the way people
work is a long term commitment and requires
active management backing.
Success or failure in the knowledge
information and data management (KID)
project environment can normally be traced
back to a failure in people management.
This can often take the form of
management doing a “do as I say not as I
do routine” – i.e. failing to lead by example.
Sound familiar?!
Think again of a KID project in terms of
bringing up children – it is impossible to go
from being a baby to a fully grown and
economically viable adult in an instant – this
process usually takes 20 years or more and
involves much suffering by parents along the
way, especially during the teenage years!
It may take us that long to get the KID to
maturity, but be reassured by the knowledge
that we are over 10 years down the track –
ABOUT PARAS CONSULTING
Paras Consulting is a Management Consultancy to the upstream
Oil and Gas industry, one of the market leaders on subsurface process
and technology, and exploration strategy. Their main areas of expertise
are in program and project management in E&P technical and
commercial IT/IS systems, as well as capital allocation and budgeting
processes. In addition to standard Project Management offerings they
management software and data
we are in the teenage years now so expect KID management tends to come under a single
the fireworks before peace and success structure, and roles and responsibilities are
arrive! better understood. It is also interesting to note
that these organisations tend to come under the
Maturity of knowledge IT function rather than exploration or
management development.
There are many scales to describe the It is important to note that the data
maturity of IT organisations (Gartner, COBIT, management group is responsible for keeping
ITIL to name but a few). information safe, while the business or function
There are also developments of similar is responsible for the quality of the data,
information and knowledge.
‘As organisations Change Management
Change Management is often missed from
move up the maturity the agenda when KID projects are undertaken,
yet changing the way people work is often the
scale, KID main point of the project!
Recent papers (eg Erik van Kuijk, Augie Diz
management tends to at IQPC London, Nov 2005) have emphasised
the people issues.
come under a single Mr Van Kuijk estimates that 40% of the effort
and cost required in any KID project is
structure, and roles “absorbed” by trying to get people to change
the way they work.
and responsibilities About 10% goes on Technology, 20% on
data and 30% on process design.
are better understood. It is therefore important to factor in a change
management programme to any KID project if
It is also interesting to you want to succeed.
Change management can be approached in
note that these a number of ways but must include the four
elements of sponsor engagement, change agent
organisations tend to networks / communication, training and
development, and organisational development.
come under the IT Miss out any of these aspects at your peril
and remember that there are no overnight fixes -
function rather than it all takes time.
exploration or The other aspect we tend to forget is that we
are on a journey and none of our data
development.’ management projects is a destination. We must
always remember that when our project is
finished it must become an ongoing service. If
this is forgotten then we will end up doing yet
maturity scales for KID management. They are another project to clean up the mess in a couple
all basically similar. of years (or even sooner).
In general terms the companies at the lowest You need a planned approach to building
maturity levels have staff responsible for data commitment over time, with the attitudes
management and applications scattered around gradually changing from “I know we plan to
the organisation. There is no coherent change the way we operate the business to find
management structure around data and better performance,” up to “I understand how
information and certainly no single point of the new model will improve our business
accountability for any data types. Roles and performance,” through “I realise how this new
responsibilities are not defined and standards model will help us operate more successfully,”
do not exist. through to “This is really working, I will make
As organisations move up the maturity scale, sure everyone I connect with is onboard.” Q
also provide new practices in Strategy and Change Management
packages. Paras Consulting believes it is the only independent
company, dedicated to the Upstream Oil and Gas sector, offering these
services. Their consultants are technical specialists, with wide-ranging
in-depth experience in the industry. As an independent company, they
are also able to act as an impartial advisor to any solution provider. Q
June 2006 • digital energy journal 39