Page 358 - Intelligent Digital Oil And Gas Fields

Transitioning to Effective DOF Enabled by Collaboration and Management of Change 301

“smart” analytic workflows. The asset team interacted to understand pump
performance, fluid characteristics, pressures, and PVT conditions to quickly
make the best decision on a well to increase production within safe operating
boundaries. A production engineer recommended changing electric sub-
mersible pump (ESP) frequency and tubing head pressure (THP) using
real-time data and an analytic model to obtain a substantial increase in the
production from a well. A reservoir engineer was able to validate the rec-
ommendation with respect to reservoir support pressure from nearby water
injection and a facility engineer checked the flow assurance. Al-Jasmi et al.
(2013) documented how smart workflows saved significant engineering
time for effective decisions.
Collaborative working has evolved beyond production and surveillance
processes, and now includes new mobility and visualization technologies
and supports the drive to reduce costs as described in the next section.

8.2.3 Mobility
Operations are being automated as much as possible to make changes in the
field remotely, for example, choke settings, power settings, variable speed
drives, etc. However, human intervention is required when mechanical
or electrical systems fail. Mobile devices, smart phones and tablets, enable
collaboration to go beyond the office and to accompany field personnel
wherever they may be. Operations can gain significant value by increasing
well uptime by using real-time data to direct field personnel to where they
are needed most on facilities and wells, to address downtime events (man-
agement by exception)l, and, more so in the future, to act proactively on
systems to prevent predicted events. Van den Berg et al. (2015a,b) compared
explicitly a “before” and “after” implementation of mobile devices for field
personnel. In their study, 10 tasks typically done by a field operator, which
included multiple manual actions on information, were reduced to just two
operations using mobile communications.
Figs. 8.5 and 8.6 illustrate (before and after) a similar process that was
implemented in an unconventional field by several operators in 2015 and
2016. Before management by exception and mobile devices were fully inte-
grated, a field operator (pumper, electrician, chemical specialist, workover
supervisor, etc.) had to check into a field office each morning to review a list
of wells for particular intervention that day, for example, rod pulls, ESP
restart, plunger reset. The policy was to visit all wells on a route in a day to
check on any other condition or situation (Fig. 8.5). During the day, the