Page 28 - Intelligent Digital Oil And Gas Fields

10 Intelligent Digital Oil and Gas Fields

Saudi Aramco’s first use of an intelligent field program (I-Field), started
in 2006 with its Haradh III Increment project, which included multilateral
wells equipped with smart completions and real-time data (Al-Hutheli et al.,
2012). The program objectives include the following:
• enhancing recoverable HC through in-time intervention and real-time
full-field optimization,
• enhancing HSE through remote monitoring and intervention, and
• reducing operation costs by minimizing manual supervision and
intervention.
As of 2010 (Abdul-Karim et al., 2010) Saudi Aramco had 19 intelligent fields
in operation, with a goal to implement the intelligent field concept in all of
its upstream operations by 2017, so it can better understand reservoirs and
improve.

1.4 DOF OPERATIONAL LEVELS AND LAYERS

We categorize DOF implementations using the following criteria:
• Are oil wells and related facilities installed with sensors and telemetry?
• What is the level and sophistication of process automation?
• What main type(s) of engineering activity is requested (monitoring,
diagnostic, and optimization)?
• What type of working environment is required?
Fig. 1.5 shows how the operational levels of an oil and gas (O&G) business
unit impact the major goals of O&G operations.
The pyramid has four layers, with the lowest level of manual processes,
increasing to automation, real-time operation center (RTOC), and ultima-
tely DOF. The pyramid also has three vertical axes that represent the key
performance indicators (KPIs) as automation increases toward a true DOF
implementation; these KPIs are improvements in production uptime, and
team and process efficiencies. The efficiency is a value relative to the manual
process. Note that other factors are hiding as human intervention and col-
laboration, where we assume that manual processes are executed completely
by human action (i.e., little to no automation) and collaboration is minimal.
In practice, any given O&G operation may operate at several of these
levels simultaneously, depending on factors such as the age and size of an
operation or asset. For example, older land-based operations may be
completely or mostly manual. Newer operations may have more automa-
tion, perhaps some SCADA or partially automated with some sensors and
other newer or offshore facilities (where risks and costs are inherently