Driving to Top Quartile Well, Reservoir and Facility Management Through Process Standardization and System Integration

Abstract

Integrated Production Surveillance Tools are gaining wider recognition and adoption in E&P organizations as an effective technology enabler. Key operational data is now at the finger-tips of end-users, enhancing efficient diagnosis and optimization of production issues. This paper will focus on Shell's ongoing journey from process standardization, toolkit development to early deployments and lessons learnt along the way. Best practices, our value delivery approach and usage metrics collected to date will also be shared. Shell has embarked on a journey to improve the execution of Well, Reservoir and Facility management (WRFM) in its operated assets. This multi-year programme involved standardization of best practice business processes. A comprehensive, integrated surveillance capability was identified as key to this standardization drive. In 2013, Shell started a project to develop and deploy "The WRFM Next Generation Surveillance toolkit". The project applies a broadly consistent, systematic, iterative approach to product development and deployment allowing for continuous input from the business thus helping to build ownership of the surveillance toolkit when in production. The project successfully developed the first suite of tool capabilities to support the following business processes: – Production reports and charts to quickly highlight deviations from plan for daily and monthly reviews. – Non-Compliance summary report for well and surface facilities. – Exception Based Surveillance for well and surface facilities using complex algorithms and multiple real-time data sources. – Live Operating Envelopes and multi-variable real-time trends for well and surface facilities surveillance. – Well comparison charts, Creaming curves and integrated limit diagrams for production system optimisation. Given the geographically diverse user base, high usage frequency and large data volumes, the surveillance toolkit is built using new technology that offers a cost effective solution to meet very high performance standards and visualization capabilities.