The upstream oil and gas industry requires a diverse set of political, personnel, mechanical, and technological capabilities as it possesses innumerable and voluminous data from seismic, drilling, completion, and production. In this competitive field, technical data mining and analysis are key to the creation of intelligent oilfields. However, there are major challenges associated with the generation and consumption of data in intelligent oil and gas fields, including the acquisition, storage, classification, transformation, visualization, and analysis of data. A service company's technical data mining application platform that has built-in analytical tools should aid field engineers in the retrieval of relevant data, as well as the analysis of data for their own requirements. Such an application, when combined with live notification capabilities, can help improve the operational productivity and lessen time lost during a job failure or any other events contributing to nonproductive time (NPT). It also would help standardize the measurement of key performance indicators across different areas or regions. Continuous surveillance and monitoring of wells, which are the basis for intelligent oilfields, help improve productivity and reduce operating costs. This paper discusses one service company's state-of-the-art application for big data archiving algorithms and practices that are distinctive for improving data mining in intelligent oilfields. This application acts as an enabler for extracting relevant information to improve predictive models, making more reliable decisions, and, ultimately, sustaining existing business and creating new business opportunities.

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With worldwide increases in the demand for hydrocarbons, finding and developing unconventional resources has become a global necessity. Outside North America, shale gas discoveries have been made in recent years; however, significant commercial production has been limited to North America. Finding and developing unconventional resources outside North America is the next big challenge for the oil and gas industry. Although the reported potential of unconventional gas resource volumes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is almost similar in size to that in the US, exploration and development of such resources is currently limited. Unconventional reservoirs have very different and distinct requirements from conventional reservoirs. The more “unconventional” a targeted resource, the more difficult it is to develop. Furthermore, for these difficult resources, highly specialized technologies have to be applied because of the unique requirements. Key challenges specific to the MENA region include the following: Limited exposure to unconventional sources leads to lack of infrastructure and high cost.Reservoir characteristics (rock and fluid properties) and geomechanics.Implementation of directional/horizontal drilling and completion technologies suited for the region. The most challenging aspect is using hydraulic fracturing (fluid availability and management, fracturing fluid and proppant selection, fracturing design, equipment) as it incurs the highest cost and deploys the maximum technological efforts. This paper highlights these associated challenges in developing unconventional resources and offers a potential approach to evaluate unconventional resources. Additionally, public data are reviewed and emerged technologies are used to unlock the potential of unconventional resources in MENA. A major service company has exhaustive and varied data from different geographies and resource types captured in its MENA state-of-the-art data center. A potential approach is included that extrapolates historically available data relevant to directional drilling, fracture treatment design and analysis, and fluid management to MENA conditions to facilitate understanding and overcome challenges associated with unconventional resources.