In view of the mounting attentiveness on the global warming phenomenon and the rapid evolution of the renewables and sustainables, energy transition is inevitable and oil and gas producers and companies should respond instantly to ensure business resilience. Such a transition puts the fossil fuel industry under unprecedented pressure to cope with serious environmental, technical and economical challenges. The leaders of the industry are in critical need to develop efficient protocols to produce clean energy, reduce costs and improve performance to secure the assets’ value. They also have to effectively respond to the diversified drivers of change through performing holistic and systematic analyses to cover their strategies, operating model and capabilities and collaboration with other industry stakeholders. Operational Excellence (OE) is a thorough, systematic and collaborative approach that addresses the cultural, behavioral and technical transformation within organizations to enable them to streamline operations, perform at optimum limits to achieve their strategic objectives. OE approach, in general, is to be derived from cutting-edge technical advancements needed to improve the ecosystem of the business and to be performed in alignment with a top view on the organization to accommodate the multiple upcoming waves of innovation. Evidently, there is a definite correlation between excellence, innovation and organizational success in growing organically and inorganically. This growth has played a prominent role in shifting activities more toward decentralizing decision making to enable lower-level management and frontline employees to take more ownership of the operations they are responsible for. This paper will share the key elements of an OE model and will demonstrate the impact of unleashing these elements on the performance of oil companies to embark on the journey of energy transition and stay the course.

The UAE has made significant strides in the field of artificial island construction in mega projects for a wide range of applications including real estate, tourism, airport runways and other transportation causeways. Now, artificial island technology is being extended into the oil and gas industry. Space limitation on natural islands and the urgency to develop strategic offshore oil fields within Abu Dhabi's Exclusive Economic Zone, and to upgrade or expand storage and offloading facilities spell the need to rapidly adopt and adapt the technology. With favorable water depths and environmental conditions, artificial islands at times prove to be more economical than traditional fixed steel jacket platforms. In addition to reducing both CAPEX and OPEX, greater well capacity may be made available earlier when the artificial island option is selected. Certain environmental advantages can also materialize with respect to the artificial island option in the Arabian Gulf. Most recently, ADMA-OPCO has been engaged in applying the technology to projects such as the Das Island Permanent Accommodation (DIPA) project as well as the Satah Al-Raaz Boot (SARB) field development. ZADCO has made significant progress in expanding drilling and production from the Upper Zakum field using artificial islands (UZAI). On Das Island, a major land reclamation undertaking is ear-marked for the construction of a new, state-of the art village for oil and gas industry personnel operating on the island, in compliance with the UAE 2014 Camp Regulations. The island expansion will create sufficient space for ADMA-OPCO and ADGAS to expand their industrial facilities in the center of the island; while creating a safety Buffer Zone between industrial and accommodation designated areas. Significant cost and schedule optimization will be realized with the selection of the artificial island option for the SARB and Zakum fields. The new islands will last the entire life of the developments, in contrast with the possibility of having to replace discrete well-head towers before field depletion. Additionally, the increased spread of the artificial islands and the possibility of utilizing more conventional onshore technologies will translate into ease of access and maintenance around the facilities and enhanced safety on the islands relative to those on equivalent jacket supported platforms. Introduction The practice of constructing artificial islands is relatively common, especially in the UAE. They are built for a wide range of uses, including real estate, tourism development, airport construction, and transportation links, as well as oil and gas production. The most important consideration for island design is the definition of the project operational requirements. To meet those requirements, factors to consider in design include target commissioning dates and site inputs such as bathymetry, seismic activity, metocean and geotechnical conditions. In this paper, three projects are highlighted where land reclamation and artificial island technology is utilized to meet the project requirements in the most feasible manner. These projects are yet in their early stages and follow up will be made in future publications.

Capitalizing on the UAE's wide experience in the field of land reclamation and artificial island technology, the Abu Dhabi oil and gas industry, represented by ADNOC group of companies, is currently deploying an array of islands across Abu Dhabi's Exclusive Economic Zone in the Arabian Gulf for applications such as new field development and the upgrade or expansion of storage and offloading facilities. With favorable water depths and environmental conditions, land reclamation is often a more economical option for the accommodation of offshore facilities than the construction of fixed steel jacket platforms. ADMA-OPCO is currently engaged in applying the technology to projects such as the Satah Al-Raaz Boot (SARB) field development, a 105,000-bpd development comprising 86 wells on two artificial islands. Simultaneously, ZADCO is making progress on expanding drilling from the Upper Zakum field by constructing four artificial islands (UZAI) to increase field production to 750,000 bpd by 2015. While cost and schedule optimization will be realized with the selection of the artificial island option for these mega projects, designers and contractors are facing the challenge of securing or fabricating building materials in huge amounts for the construction of both the land masses and shore protection structures. Creative solutions to procuring these materials are tabled and investigated. Innovative engineering designs are tried and tested both numerically and using physical model tests. The presence of a soft soil layer within the foundation strata of one of the Upper Zakum islands required special treatment to satisfy island performance criteria. Schedule constraints of construction and fulfilling ADNOC's strategic production objectives continue to be the driving forces behind the resolution of all challenges.

In conventional seismic data processing Scholte and Guided Wave data are commonly considered as noise and therefore, are removed at an early stage of any seismic data processing sequence. This paper describes an innovative approach in characterizing near sea bed via surface wave inversion using Scholte wave data. 2-D & 3-D OBC seismic data sets were selected and reprocessed as a test focusing on shallow near surface data. The ultimate objective of this work was to attempt to locate the closest area to borrow the necessary volume of sediments / sand for the construction of artificial Islands (2) which are required for the development of an offshore oil field. In addition to the primary geotechnical objective, the test aimed to validate the potential of surface wave inversion using OBC data in shallow water. The near surface characterization revealed a complex geology with velocity inversions and the results were incorporated to optimize the geothechnical survey program since it was able to differentiate a relatively low velocity anomaly area which could be related to soft sediments from hard rocky surface having a higher shear velocity.The work was carried out in three Phases in a collaborative approach between all involved parties. Phase-1 consisted of the extraction of the dispersion curves of the Scholte wave fundamental mode along one 2D OBC (Ocean Bottom Cable) seismic test line using both hydrophone and geophone shot records Figures-1 to 3. These dispersion curves were inverted to Vs section and then a Vp section was produced as depicted on Figures-4 & 5 respectively. The main observations made at the completion of this Phase-1 are:• The sea bottom does not appear to be characterized by a very slow velocity.• There is no evidence of marine unlithified sediments which are in general characterized by very low Vs. • Local calibration with other data sets (borehole cores, geotechnical & geophysical surveys) can assist to validate the results of the Scholte wave data study.Phase-2 consisted of the processing of an area of 120 km 2 of 3D OBC seismic data (Figure-1) using the same approach applied in Phase-1. Vs cube was produced (Figure-6) and it is showing very encouraging results.

Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company (ADMA-OPCO) is developing the Satah Al Razboot (SARB) Oil Field, located in the Arabian Gulf in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Two new artificial islands have been constructed for oil extraction, while the processing, storage and offloading facilities for SARB are located on Zirku Island. Construction of the Zirku Island facilities was conceived and planned for implementation on a modularized basis because of the relatively remote offshore location, which required the incorporation of a permanent jetty and harbor for the transportation of these modules. The Zirku Island topography consists of mountainous terrain composed of a special set of geological conditions characteristic of salt domes. A major requirement of the project was the design and construction of cut and fill slopes as high as 75 meters. The site works have required substantial excavation and backfilling work to create level platforms for the proposed facilities. Surplus excavated material has been used onshore and nearshore to create new land. A robust material management plan was devised to efficiently move the huge excavated material volumes to the designated fill areas and stockpile locations directly due to space constraints. Close collaboration between the project teams and contractors of the different packages of the SARB Project has resulted in the successful delivery of the Site Preparation Project's goals. The main challenges and lessons learned are shared as part of the paper.