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The Wall Street Journal ran an article by James Boxell titled "Digital dawn for Black-Gold Diggers" describing Shell's smart field efforts centered on the NaKika field in the Gulf of Mexico. Nakika is a TLP with tiebacks to over a half a dozen oil and gas fields in the eastern part of the central Gulf of Mexico region. At the time of its start-up, its deepwater fields were in the deepest water yet, so a great deal of thought went into avoding rig based well interventions by remotely managing the wells via smart well technology, consisting of a real time downhole sensor array, and intelligent completions. Uniquely, for an installation of this size at that time, the operations center was placed onshore. Mr. Severns talked extensively with both the project developer (Shell), and the installation operator (BP) to understand the challenges of designing and operating such an installation.
Below are key exerpts from that article:
NaKika Development
Article: Digital dawn for Black-Gold Diggers
Below are key excerpts
"The use of digital oilfields is sporadic but
growing fast. According to Bill Severns, Managing
Director of the Energy Consulting Group and the senior director at
Cambridge Energy Research Associates (Cera), overseeing the Digital
Oil Field effort, it has huge and largely untapped potential.
"Companies could take 100 per cent of their fields, bring all that
data back to one operation centre and bring in their best 300
technical people to run them." Virtual reality may be a familiar
technology in other industries, but in the conservative oil
industry it represents a breakthrough."
"Shell's need is greater than most given its reserves overbooking
scandal last year. It claims that smart fields are helping. At the
Iron-Duke field in Brunei, the technology has helped lift the
amount of oil it expects to retrieve by 16 per cent. At Na Kika
expected retrieval is up by one-quarter and daily production has
risen 17 per cent.
According to Cera, average recovery from oil wells can be improved
from 35 per cent to as much as 40 per cent through digital
oilfields. Mr
Severns says: "This may sound low, but in terms of global
reserves it is a very big number."
"Halliburton manages its drilling of 12 North Sea wells from its Stavanger real-time centre and has halved its number of offshore staff. Such moves can lead to "some astonishing cost savings", says Mr Severns. Advanced modelling techniques also increase the industry's attractiveness to graduates, says Hans Potters, head of Shell's reservoir surveillance team."
Note: As the founder of CERA's Digital Oil Field of the Future (DOFF), Mr. Severns worked closely with a wide range of firms in helping conceptuallize their Intelligent Oil Field initiatives, both in terms of strategy and implementation.
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