This paper details the progress made with the implementation of BP's FIELD OF THE FUTURE program over the past four years. It first describes the approach taken by BP to install real time data infrastructure in many sectors of its operations. To date this infrastructure has included the installation of 1800km of fibre optic cable, the registration of nearly two million real time data tags within a common real time data backbone, and construction of more than twenty Advanced Collaborative Environments supporting production and drilling operations. The paper then describes some of the activities underway in BP's operations, and the associated benefits, including:use of advanced well monitoring technology to manage sand production and other aspects of well performance in 20 fields (1–3% production benefit)examples of full field optimisation/visualisation and associated benefits (1–2% production benefit)the development of a new downhole flow control capability for high rate sand prone wells (resource/reserve benefit)early experience with the application of temperature profile monitoring and of life of field seismic (resource/reserve benefit) Finally, the paper describes the people, process and organisation activity undertaken in several of BP's large operating areas which have directly impacted many of the operational staff working in these areas through an extensive set of change management workshops and similar activity. The lessons learned from these activities over the past four years include the need to:define support and maintenance resources up frontidentify and standardize infrastructure requirements for new projectstake a centralized global approach to planning deployment but a local approach to implementationfully resource change management activity 1. Background to BP's FIELD OF THE FUTURE Program BP's FIELD OF THE FUTURE program (Ref 1) was established in 2003 with an initial focus on engagement and deployment, the objective being to deploy core technologies in a limited number of assets in order to build a track record, to re-affirm the prize and to build a technical and architectural foundation for subsequent 'bigger moves'. These early deployments, conducted over the period from 2003 to 2005, confirmed the potential of the program to add significant value across a broad range of asset types. Since that time the program has evolved to focus on the three areas, as described pictorially below in Figure 1. The common feature of most of the elements of the program is that they are related one way or another to real time data, and are aimed at high rate fields which form a significant part of BP's current and future portfolios. BP is also working on high well count fields onshore in North America where cost effective solutions for optimization of gas well deliquification is the focus. These and other technologies generally impact production, recovery or both. Over the next 10 years or so, it is expected that the program will contribute in excess of 1 billion barrels of recovery and 100 M/bd to BP's E&P segment.

This paper will take us through the journey of integrating BP's Gulf of Mexico Information Management and FIELD OF THE FUTURE (Reddick, 2006; Reddick, et al, 2008) Strategies to deliver a powerful, combined technological solution. Only when both of these pieces are working together, can you truly start to use IT and automation technologies to optimize the business. The paper will start with the information management story four years ago when we had four producing assets and four major projects behaving as individual businesses. It will then describe the creation of a strategy that focused on getting the information foundation right first. The paper will then describe the integration of the foundation data sources into a web portal and organized in the way that people do their job. The paper will contain examples of real time data systems that give our asset support teams and vendors access to performance data on their machines. The paper will also discuss new processes that allow the advanced collaborative environments to take advantage of the new kit. Finally, the paper will discuss the optimization efforts that are possible after a robust information foundation layer exists and is tightly integrated in the way that people do their work. The lessons learned in the Gulf of Mexico over the last four years are:○Need merging of FIELD OF THE FUTURE and Information Management strategies○Need new processes developed and support models defined for new tools○Need to use common information management architecture across entire business Benefits that we have seen for our combined strategy are that:○Faster, more coordinated responses to severe weather events○Reduced personnel on board thereby lowering HSE risk and lowering our operating expense○Increased worker productivity due to much quicker access to and visual presentation of the data○More rapid development of business tools Introduction In early 2004, BP's Gulf of Mexico assets included four producing offshore platforms. Two were implemented by Amoco and two were implemented by BP. As a consequence, different data historians, process control architectures, etc. existed. When these businesses were combined into one strategic performance unit in the Gulf of Mexico, it was difficult to benchmark the platforms against each other. Key performance indicator definitions were different and status updates were performed differently. However, leadership was committed to delivering a one team vision and created a new information management role to bring it all together.