Page 26 - Intelligent Digital Oil And Gas Fields

8 Intelligent Digital Oil and Gas Fields

1.3 THE EVOLUTION OF DOF

Beginning in the mid-1990s a series of key projects defines the
evolution of DOF systems. This section introduces these projects and their
respective highlights with regard to the oil and gas operations that DOF
technologies have been applied to. Tables 1.1–1.9 in Section 1.8 summarize
each of these projects including the value reported by the operator (which is
discussed in this section).
In 1996, Statoil and the Norway Scientific Council (Norwegian Oil
Industry Association, 2006) developed a program called integrated opera-
tions (IO) to exploit deeper subsea fields under a new information and
communication technology program with goals to
• achieve zero environmental accidents,
• minimize human intervention and exposure to high-risk and remote
areas, and
• maximize monetary value for the company.
In 1998, Shell and WellDynamics (Ballengooijen, 2007) introduced the
concept of smart wells by installing a series of remote-controlled downhole
control valve (choke) devices and monitoring production in real time. Later,
the project was expanded, including production operation from multiple
reservoir and operational complex activities, which are referred to as Smart
Fields.
In 2000, BP (Reddick et al., 2008) made a significant advancement in
DOF for production optimization when the company invested heavily in
fiber communications and established advanced collaborative environments,
with monitoring centers based onshore that enabled experts to work directly
with offshore operations personnel using real-time information in a program
called Field of the Future.
From 2006 to 2011, Conoco Phillips initiated its IO (integrated opera-
tions) program in the North Sea and Norwegian continental shelf (Digital
Energy Journal, 2006). The program focused on operations, an engineering
toolkit, and data management. For selected assets the operations staff put
all artificial-lift wells on SCADA, constructed an integrated operations cen-
ter (IOC), and instituted workflows for alarm management, tank manage-
ment, visualization, and cost optimization. Data management consisted of
ensuring a wellhead record and transition from distributed data systems to
a single “source of truth” system. The IO program introduced management
by exception and tracking of well performance against a plan, which was