Operating Model and Implementation Plan for Deployment of a Pilot Integrated Digital Oilfield Project

Abstract

In 2009, the Kuwait Integrated Digital Field (KwIDF) project was established in the Sabriyah field in north Kuwait to boost production and reserves (Al-Jasmi et al. 2014). The goal was to help realize the vision of sustained oil production in Kuwait of four million barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/D) by 2030 . The project involved the creation of 11 integrated, automated workflows, and a real-time collaborative environment to help optimize production, reduce downtime, and improve reservoir management:• Reservoir visualization and analysis, and subsurface waterflood optimizer-helps enable the monitoring of subsurface health during the waterflooding process, and provides predictive reservoir optimization analysis and actions (Ranjan et al. 2013).By 2012, KwIDF had been deployed on 49 wells, representing a pilot that served as a proof of concept. By 2013, cumulative production gains of 756,000 barrels of oil were reported (Singh et al. 2013). While the gains were impressive, and management wanted to expand KwIDF, it was recognized that full deployment would pose significant challenges and, without a set of necessary changes, the value of KwIDF would not be realized.The key challenge facing management was to identify the appropriate operating model to deliver on the KwIDF vision and scale the program to accommodate future expansion across the rest of the organization. A transition and deployment assessment team was established by management to address this challenge.The transition and deployment assessment project produced a recommended operating model, a transition road map, change management strategy, risk and mitigation plan, and project charters to assist the program team and steering group in the deployment of KwIDF across the rest of North Kuwait.