Apache is exploring a large block offshore Australia. Part of the area is covered with good quality 3D seismic and a number of prospects have been identified from this data. Additional potential prospects were inferred from 2D seismic in the relatively under-explored deep water area of the block. With the current high cost of 3D seismic and drilling programs, it was considered very important to high-grade the prospects and to correctly assess the prospectivity of the deep water area.Initially it was thought that traditional target-oriented CSEM surveys over each prospect would provide the required information. However, after further study, it was decided to cover the entire area with electromagnetic scanning. This approach provides a coarse 3D view of the entire area providing information not just about prospects identified from seismic, but potentially also revealing new hydrocarbon leads.A highly rugose seafloor in combination with a high resistive overburden of varying thickness appeared as a major concern for the scanning survey. A wide, deep submarine canyon provided both operational challenges and data processing issues. The rugosity of the seafloor and varying overburden thickness constitute significant local as well as regional variations to the background resistivity distribution, making it difficult to extract potentially hydrocarbon related anomalies from the scanning data.A novel approach to dealing with this problem was adopted, which takes advantage of complementary information from existing well logs and the available seismic data. A number of 1D inversions constrained by resistivity logs were performed at various locations across the survey. The results of the 1D inversions were then used to build a reference resistivity model that conforms to the bathymetry and the seismically derived overburden thickness. Detailed 3D simulation of the scanning survey for this resistivity model generated synthetic reference responses, which adequately account for most of the bathymetry and overburden related variations in the scanning data. Using these synthetic reference responses to normalize the scanning data, a number of interesting anomalies became apparent, one of which coincides with a known oil reservoir. The same anomalies had been masked by regional trends in previous results obtained by conventional single-receiver referencing.The results obtained significantly increased our confidence in the interpretation of the scanning data and highlight the increased value obtained from an integrated analysis with complementary geophysical data.

Advanced Collaborative Environment (ACE) drives improvements to BP's business performance by strengthening teamwork, encouraging mentoring and personal development, and enabling rapid response to dynamic situations, all supported by collaborative technology. In the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), ACE is transforming the way teams, offshore and onshore, work together, aided by real time data monitoring and video links. This higher level of connectivity between the offshore operation and onshore office is fundamentally changing the way BP works. ACE enables a ‘one team’ approach that significantly improves the decision making process and optimization of field operations. BP has several ACEs in operation around the world, supporting application of the Field of the Future concept. Faced with a set of operating challenges particular to GoM, BP has realized significant value from ACE at Atlantis and Thunder Horse by improving the efficiency of operations. Starting up a deepwater, subsea completion, offshore production facility for the first time is a very complex process. There are complexities associated with reservoir management, in-well controls, well head controls, production processing and export. During start-up, all of these areas of field management are changing. Each of these areas needs to be managed simultaneously on a continuously changing basis. Also, during normal operations, even seemingly simple operations can be made more efficient, to better utilize our valuable resources. GoM, as one of the original BP sites to adopt ACE, has a long history of continuous improvement through ACE. As ACE becomes an embedded part of GoM's production operations, increasing numbers of anecdotes and benefits are attributable to this methodology. This paper will review how ACE in GoM, specifically Atlantis and Thunder Horse, enables both the complex operation of start-up, and the day-to-day operations, to drive improved production performance. The benefits of ACE are translating into increased production, lower costs and improved safety and operational integrity. Introduction BP's Gulf of Mexico platforms Atlantis and Thunder Horse are located over one hundred miles from land (Figure 1 - Gulf of Mexico ACE Overview) and require readily available onshore support resources. Nevertheless, because of geographic distance, accessing those resources could be slow and cumbersome. Additionally, all offshore platforms face the problem of limited Personnel On Board (POB), and these two platforms were no different. As a result, BP implemented the Advanced Collaborative Environment (ACE), a component of the Field of the Future concept, as a method of addressing the issues. Ultimately, the goals for the ACE had to be consistent with the company's goals for these two platforms, safe and efficient operation. When everything runs as it should, with no incidents and no harm to people or the environment, it's often called Silent Running. To achieve these ideals, the ACE was constructed to:Remove people from harm's way, lowering the number of people exposed to the process environment, by creating remote support centersImprove business performance through a multi-discipline, real-time interface with the production operationRemove boundaries between teams networked across long distancesImprove the quality of the decisions made by leveraging the company's experienced resources across multiple crews and multiple platformsDrive continual improvement through shared learning and training opportunitiesLower travel and housing costs

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