DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:50 Page 1

Subsea software and

control systems

October / November 2009 Issue 21

Nanotechnology and the oil business

Balancing energy and climate change
Tracking helicopters outside radar coverage
Developments in oil and gas communications

Associate Member
™
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:50 Page 2

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DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:50 Page 1

Visualisation is the most

exciting tool for collaboration

David Bamford
Consultant Editor, Digital Energy Journal
October/November 2009 Issue 21

Digital Energy Journal

213 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9FJ, UK
Digital Energy Journal is part of Finding Petroleum
www.findingpetroleum.com
Some time ago, well actually it was many years ago, a colleague of mine was trying to
www.digitalenergyjournal.com explain to me a tricky geological idea – it was probably a combined structural/strati-
Tel +44 (0)207 510 4935 graphic trap with a couple of orthogonal fault sets and cross-cutting channels – and
Fax +44 (0)207 510 2344 was growing increasingly exasperated at my inability to see what he meant. Eventually
he said, and I guess I’m paraphrasing due to the passage of time, “the trouble with you
Editor David is that as a physicist you can’t think in three dimensions”; followed by “the rea-
Karl Jeffery
jeffery@d-e-j.com son I can is because in my 1st year lab at Edinburgh, the demonstrator smashed a trilo-
bite in front of me with a hammer and told me to put it back together again!” My
Consultant editor thought at that exact moment was “what’s a trilobite anyway?”…..but with a deeper
David Bamford perspective, of course he was quite right about my deficiency.
Technical editor Now fortunately for my employer, mapping of prospects, discoveries and fields
Keith Forward was never left to me alone or the resulting maps would have revealed the concentric
forward@d-e-j.com circular or sometimes elliptical contouring produced by geophysical contractors
in…….sorry, that’s another story! Instead, when we were at our most creative and in-
Finding Petroleum London Forums novative, and thereby successful, teams of highly skilled individuals, from different
Jan 20-21 - New places new technologies for
Finding Petroleum conference, London disciplines, with different specialisms, all looked at the same thing: and as the years
November 17th - Kurdistan / Iraq rolled by, we progressed from a stack of maps on a light-table and paper cross-sec-
www.findingpetroleum.com tions, to a shared earth model and – and especially - 3D displays in a visualization en-
vironment.
Social network Given both my unpromising starting point and my experience, for me visualiza-
network.findingpetroleum.com
tion is the most exciting tool for collaboration, giving us something we've never fully
Advertising and sponsorship achieved before - the ability to give all the people involved in an exploration or devel-
Alec Egan opment project a common mental picture of the sub-surface on which they are work-
Tel +44 (0)203 051 6548
aegan@onlymedia.co.uk ing, a rapid and common understanding of something they will never actually see. It’s
an immensely powerful stimulus for collaborative working styles, changing the bound-
Digital Energy Journal is a magazine for oil and aries of teams, and bringing together people of very different disciplines - all applying
gas company professionals, geoscientists, engi- their skills to a common objective, and as a result of the technology being able to reach
neers, procurement managers, IT professionals, decisions in a matter of days rather than weeks or months.
commercial managers and regulators, to help Actually that last sentence sounds like “management speak”! In reality, I can re-
you keep up to date with developments with call every time I’ve seen a truly integrated display; for example, a review of a regional
digital technology in the oil and gas industry. geological framework where I could simultaneously view plate tectonic reconstruc-
tions, regional potential field maps, a regional seismic data base, seismic stratigraphic
Subscriptions: Apply for your free print or elec- and facies interpretations, migration pathways (“plumbing”!), gross depositional envi-
tronic subscription to Digital Energy Journal on ronment maps etc. When you think about it, it’s good that I learned to look for this,
our website www.d-e-j.com considering where I started!
This brings me to our Finding Petroleum Conference in January*. We have lined
up some excellent presentations on Exploration “Hotspots”, for example on the West
Cover photo -
Schlumberger Africa Transform Margin, East Africa, the Falkland Isles, and the North Atlantic, and
engineers we will reflect on why leadership in the world of exploration seems to be passing from
preparing the the Majors to the likes of Petrobras, BG, Tullow Oil, Anadarko Petroleum and Cairn
SenTURIAN Energy. But I’m equally looking forward to a couple of visualization-oriented presen-
electrohydraulic
tations by ex-colleagues of mine, namely Peter Sharland who will talk about “Integrat-
operating
system for a ing and visualising global geoscience data – demo of an emerging Earth Model” and
deepwater David Roberts who will talk about “Visual Integration 2010” (for the benefit of ex-BP
completion ‘insiders’ that’s ‘DM’ not ‘Tiger’!). They will be lighting the explorers’ path into the
operation. future.
Why don’t you join me there!

*Click on www.findingpetroleum.com for more details.

Printed by Printo, spol. s r.o., 708 00 Ostrava-Poruba,

Czech Republic. www.printo.cz October/November 2009 - digital energy journal 1
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:51 Page 2

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Contents
Leaders
Energy security and climate change
Energy security and climate change are two of the biggest issues of our time – and it doesn’t help that they are
normally discussed separately. A brave attempt was made at Offshore Europe to bring the two subjects together
in the opening debate 4
Exploration
Paradigm’s business growth in Africa
Oil and gas software company Paradigm is very pleased with its 2009 sales to companies in Africa - with more business in the first six months of
2009 than in the whole of 2008 8
Getting technology implemented
Is the oil and gas industry slow to implement new technology? Many people think so. The issue was discussed at a special session at Offshore
Europe, with audience voting and examples covering the introduction of wireless seismic and integrated asset models 9
Nano technology and the oil business
We might never put robots in reservoirs, but nanotechnology can help out in plenty of other areas of the oil business – particularly enhanced oil
recovery, better catalysts and reservoir surveillance, says Shell’s chief scientist Sergio Kapusta 11
UK’s seismic data available via CDA
UK oil and gas data management organisation Common Data Access (CDA) is how storing public seismic data, so people who need it do not have
to go to the trouble of asking for it from the person who owns it every time they want some data 12
Production
Subsea control systems and software Shell’s HSE director talks about safety
Do well tests without a riser at up to 10,000 feet of water; model your Safety managers should be ready to challenge and should
subsea flow much more accurately than you could do before; a new be the kind of people with the “headroom” to run the
control system for a subsea landing string; and the first off the shelf business one day says Kieron McFadyen, head of global
subsea tree for up to 300 feet (90m) depth. Some of the new subsea
technologies on display at Offshore Europe 13 health and safety with Shell 21
Anadarko Petroleum – using Oracle’s Primavera for Digital Oilfield 2.0 - it’s about the business
We are now moving to phase 2.0 of the Digital Oilfield,
project planning where vendors are expected to not just provide technology,
Anardarko Petroleum uses Oracle’s Primavera software for project but also ensure that their customers achieve business
planning and co-ordination, including making sure it makes best use
of its available rigs and avoids conflicts 16 success with it, says Dutch Holland, CEO, Holland & Davis 22
UK's EIC - updates on oil and gas projects
Schlumberger launches Enterprise Planning Software The UK’s Energy Industries Council (EIC) has launched a
Schlumberger has made its Merak Enterprise Planning (MEP)
software available on commercial release – which can be used for
new service called EIC Monitor, providing an update on
energy projects 23
dynamic oil and gas corporate planning. By Saheed Kenku, global
portfolio business manager for Merak, Schlumberger 17 RFID for oilfield operations
There have been many improvements in reliability to RFID
Autodesk - 3D plant design software (radio frequency identification) tag technology for oilfield
Autodesk, a leader in 2D and 3D design software, has launched
AutoCAD Plant 3D 2010, bringing the benefits of model-based
design to mainstream plant design products 19
operations over past years, says Merrick Systems – and now
they’re tough enough to be used on drill pipe 23
ConocoPhillips – using ASCI’s inventory software
Automating Your Fields ConocoPhillips has signed a deal to use inventory
Houston company GlobaLogix helps oil and gas companies feed field management software purchased from Asset Management
data into office decision making systems, so they can run the fields
more efficiently and intelligently 19 Services (AMS), to manage its global supply chains, both
upstream and downstream 25
Communications
Tracking helicopters outside radar coverage
Oil and Gas UK has launched a system to automatically track the location of helicopters when they are outside radar coverage – collecting data
from their transponders 26
Video on demand offshore
Caprock Communications has put together a service to provide video on demand offshore via satellite – including handling all the licensing 27
Microwave communications at Apache Corporation
Apache Corporation wanted faster data communications to support its drilling operations in Texas - and faster data transmission time (latency).
So it chose a Mobile Broadband Trailer System from ERF Wireless, providing microwave data communications. By John Nagel, ERF Wireless, Inc. 28
October/November 2009- digital energy journal 3
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:51 Page 4

Leader

Energy security and climate change

Energy security and climate change are two of the biggest issues of our time – and it doesn’t help that
they are normally discussed separately. A brave attempt was made at Offshore Europe to bring the two
subjects together in the opening debate.

A discussion was held at the opening debate

to Offshore Europe in Aberdeen on Septem-
ber 9th, “Energy at a Crossroads,” about how
we can simultaneously manage climate
change and energy supply, on the basis of be-
ing dependent on fossil fuels for many more
years to come.
On the panel was UK Energy Minister,
Lord Hunt, and Connie Hedegaard, who is
not only Minister of Climate and Energy for
Denmark but also a main orchestrator of the
Copenhagen climate discussions in Decem-
ber 2009, pushing for an ambitious world
agreement to cut carbon emissions.
Oil company speakers were Thomas
Thune Anderson, who was CEO of Maersk
Oil until August 2009, and chairman of the
Offshore Europe; John Manzoni, president
and CEO of Talisman Energy; and Andrew
Gould, chairman and CEO of Schlumberger.
The discussion covered whether older
The opening debate to Offshore Europe in Aberdeen on September 9th, “Energy at a
oil wells should have to account for carbon
Crossroads”
dioxide emitted by the energy needed to pro-
duce them – if it means making them unvi-
able. Also, whether oil companies should be
getting into the renewables and carbon cap- from oil and gas, and by 2020 we don't ex- “recognising realities and dealing with
ture business. pect that to change significantly. Your sector them,” she said. But in the long run, compa-
Mr Anderson opened the conference by supports nearly half a million UK jobs and nies which reject and delay “will see rev-
saying that there had been, at the previous makes a healthy contribution to the taxpay- enues reduced and revenues strained,” she
Offshore Europe event in 2007, a scarcity of er,” he said. However, ultimately, “the tran- predicted.
oil supply, people, and maybe also a scarcity sition to a low carbon industry is inevitable.” Oil and gas executives should pay at-
of ideas. “When we look back at this period However Lord Hunt emphasised the tention to what is happening at Copenhagen,
we'll see it as a time of big change, from importance of not delaying action on climate both as private citizens interested in the fu-
technology, to how we do business, to our change. “I have not seen [UK economist] ture of the world, and also because it should
partnerships,” he said. “So we call it energy Lord Stern’s core premise undermined: that be good for business, she predicted. “I am
at a crossroads – making choices.” the longer we leave it, the more expensive it
Finding a way forward will be chal- will be,” he said.
lenging work – and hopefully also reward-
ing work. “But if I have one success after Copenhagen
this conference – it’s that people enjoy and Connie Hedegaard, Danish Minister of Cli-
love their job more than they did when they mate and Energy, emphasized that while oil
started,” he said. and gas are important, “it won’t be as impor-
UK Energy and Climate Change minis- tant in this century as in the last one.”
ter Lord Hunt said that he does not think the This fact would be true even without
oil and gas industry is in any way ‘at odds’ environmental issues. “Even if we didn't
with the UK government’s plan to transition have a climate crisis we would be forced to
to new forms of energy, because there will diversify our energy supply,” she said. “No-
still be plenty of need for oil and gas. body would dispute there is a serious supply
“Oil and gas can and must coexist with issue just around the corner. By 2030 we
low carbon sources,” he said. “We couldn't would need another 6 Saudi Arabias if we
function without them. They give us space continue business as usual.”
to develop new technology and markets.” Ms Hedegaard tried to make the case “Even if we didn't have a climate crisis we
“I believe it is in our interest to make that oil company’s best financial path laid would be forced to diversify our energy
the most of our reserves.” with them accepting climate change. They supply” - Connie Hedegaard, Danish Minister
of Climate and Energy
“Three quarters of our energy comes have options of “rejecting and delaying,” or

4 digital energy journal - October/November 2009

DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 5

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DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 6
Leader
Leaders
convinced that those who embrace this agen-
da will prosper the most.”
There are many calls to postpone action
on climate change which need to be reject-
ed, she said. “The world has been waiting
long enough – we have been discussing long
enough. We have a window of opportunity
right now. The longer we postpone action,
the bigger insecurity for business.”
Ms Hedegaard said she was pleased
that a number of countries have now ap-
pointed administrations which are more
friendly to the idea of tackling emissions in-
cluding US, Australia, Japan, Brazil, South
Africa and South Korea.
But the formal negotiations still tricky
with many people sticking to the same ne-
gotiation positions as they have for 10 years,
he said. There are also big concerns about
how much US president Obama will be able
to do, and getting commitments from China.
“I believe the political price will be
very high for the government that decides to
go to Copenhagen and not deliver,” she said.
“If you ask me if I am 100 per cent sure
that we will manage – I can't give you that
guarantee.”
“I have absolutely no plan B. As soon
as you go for plan B people have a way out.
We have to make tough decisions.”
Schlumberger’s Andrew Gould said
that it wasn’t the Copenhagen discussions it-
self that concerned him, it is how whatever
is decided up is implemented afterwards.
“Any deal out of Copenhagen will be a com-
promise deal. It comes down to individual
states’ interpretation of how they apply
Copenhagen. That’s much more difficult,”
he said.
For example, the Lisbon treaty (EU –
2007) was “full of intentions but didn’t have
the support of member states who subscribed
to it,” he said.”
Oil companies in renewables
If an “ambitious” deal is agreed at the
Copenhagen summit, there will be a big
emerging market for offshore renewables,
predicted Denmark’s Connie Hedegaard,
which oil and gas companies should pay at-
tention to. “Your skills could be utilized to
develop offshore wind and wave.”
Andrew Gould, CEO of Schlumberger,
said, “I’m not sure appeals from politicians
for oil and gas companies to join the renew-
able industry are the right ones. John D
Rockefeller did not come from the whaling
industry. I’m not sure our skill sets are the
ones that will be required. But of course we
have a contribution to make.”
Thomas Thune Anderson acknowl-
edged that whilst skills in the oil and gas in-
dustry are not an exact fit with the renew-
6 digital energy journal - October/November 2009
Thomas Thune Anderson, CEO of Maersk Oil until August 2009, and chairman of Offshore
Europe (left); John Manzoni, president and CEO of Talisman Energy (right)
ables industry, “there are many areas where
Emissions from old wells
E&P companies have a sensible role to play. Talisman’s John Manzoni said that older
We can’t just say, we are in renewables,” he fields in the North Sea need more energy to
said. extract oil; if they have to pay carbon diox-
Lord Hunt noted that despite stating ide emission charges, it could become unvi-
that the oil and gas companies shouldn’t nec- able to continue production. This could lead
essarily get into renewables, Schlumberger’s to as much as 900 million barrels of oil left
Andrew Gould had then gone on to make a in the ground which would otherwise be pro-
persuasive case for the industry’s role in car- duced, he claimed.
bon capture and storage. “You have to bring together objectives
“That was a wonderful example of how of maximising energy supply and reconcil-
our skills are transferable,” he said. “And the ing that with climate. We have to create a
subsea skills are exactly the kind of skills we good balance between those objectives,” he
want to access.” said.
We could end up “farming out our
Smaller companies emissions to the developing world,” he
There was a discussion about whether the warned, for example if the West ends up with
North Sea is becoming dependent on small- tougher emission controls than the develop-
er oil and gas companies and if this is en- ing world does, so industrial activity simply
couraged by the UK Government. moves there.
Lord Hunt said that the UK government Schlumberger’s Andrew Gould said
did not want to dictate which companies that for older fields, it might be the right
should be active on the UK continental shelf,
but would just want to ensure that whoever
was active gets appropriate support.
Mr Anderson said that smaller compa-
nies often have a specific focus – eg they get
very good with a certain technology, or good
looking for specific geological features. But
the danger is that they don’t have the breadth
of experience to cope with whatever happens
along the way.
“I’m always amazed by the capability
of smaller players to apply ideas – as the
original players get older and imaginations
have shrunk,” said Schlumberger’s Andrew
Gould. “Mega fields have been found by
people on acreage that was picked over by
majors for years and years.” “Oil and gas can and must coexist with low
“But the North Sea is an extremely carbon sources. We couldn't function without
them. They give us space to develop new
complex place to operate. It’s not easy for a
technology and markets.” - UK Energy
small player to adapt to that quickly.” Minister, Lord Hunt
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 7
thing to allow them to produce their last bar-
rels of oil (even it takes a lot of energy to
produce them) and give them some kind of
exemption from carbon emission rules. “It
has to be adapted to the circumstance,” he
said.
Lord Hunt said that if the agreement in
Copenhagen is “the one we want,” then car-
bon dioxide emissions can be expected to get
more costly in 2013. The cap is due to tight-
en.”
“I’m not going to forecast carbon
prices,” Lord Hunt said. “We haven’t seen it
as a role of government to establish a price.
We had a rather loose-ish first phase. But if
there is a good deal in Copenhagen – so Eu-
rope can go for harder target – that ought to
have an impact on the carbon price.”
“I don’t know the answer to the ques-
tion of older fields – its one we have to de-
bate. We need a stable regulatory regime but
with some flexibility.”
Lord Hunt emphasised that there is no
point in trying to restrict carbon emissions
and then creating get out clauses. “The me-
chanics we’re using is that carbon should
come at a price – and the incentives are
working in the right direction. Sometimes
there are tensions and if we raise the targets
by 30 per cent that has a number of conse-
quences. There are trade offs,” he said.
However “we know we will rely on oil
and gas for many years – and we have to
make sure we have the regulations and in-
centives right.”
Thomas Thune Anderson said that the
most important thing is minimise overall car-
bon dioxide emissions from the industry –
and where there are emissions look at how
“I’m always amazed by the capability of
smaller players to apply ideas – as the
original players get older and imaginations
have shrunk” - Andrew Gould, CEO,
Schlumberger
Leaders
much ‘value’ the com-
pany is getting in re-
turn for them. Maersk
Oil has held discus-
sions about this. “My
wish is that these dia-
logues will continue.
Look at where can
you make a differ-
ence,” he said.
Mr Gould was
asked how carbon
dioxide emission con-
trols could make an
impact to Schlum-
berger’s activities in
the oil and gas indus- Connie Hedegaard, Danish Minister of Climate and Energy and UK
try. “The biggest Energy Minister, Lord Hunt
emissions we have are
from hydraulic fracturing,” he said. “We in Europe wants to move it 200km – it’s OK
could make them electric but it would not be because the pipelines exist. But in the US –
profitable.” the electricity users are in the East and stor-
Malcolm Webb, chief executive of Oil age is in the Rockies. You’d have to move it
and Gas UK, noted that the oil and gas in- by train.”
dustry has calculated that there might be 900 Mr Gould says that Schlumberger is in-
million barrels of oil not produced due to volved in more conversations with utilities
carbon controls, which would otherwise (power generation companies), particularly
have been produced – however the UK gov- in the US and Australia, than oil companies
ernment had calculated a different figure. about carbon capture and storage.
Carbon dioxide is not the only emission
India and China the oil and gas industry has to deal with –
There were questions about how to get India there will also be increasing amounts of hy-
and China involved in reducing emissions, drogen sulphide, since 60 per cent of Middle
when all they get out of it is a slower path to Eastern reserves contain it, said Mr Gould.
industrialisation. Lord Hunt said that the UK wants to de-
“We’ve been very active in discussions velop four industrial scale carbon capture
with India and China. They see developing and storage projects in the ‘next few years’,
economies as responsible for greenhouse gas enabling it to have an independent evalua-
emissions,” said Lord Hunt. And “these gov- tion of the technology in 2020. This can lead
ernments also face serious environmental is- to retrofitting all existing power stations with
sues already.” carbon capture and storage, as well as requir-
“I think it is possible to reach a deal – ing all new power stations to install it.
but part of the deal is about money. A deal is The program is not necessarily going to
possible but will it be a hard deal or a lowest be limited to just coal, he said; it can also be
common denominator deal.” used on gas power stations. “We think it’s
vitally important. Many people in this room
Carbon capture will be thinking about CCS,” he said.
One of the areas Schlumberger anticipates Talisman’s John Manzoni said that in
making a big contribution to reducing emis- Canada, where he lives, “they definitely
sions is in helping with carbon dioxide stor- need CCS to bury carbon from the upgrad-
age. ing process – but it needs technology devel-
Issues which still need to be resolved opment. The result will be that prices go up.
with carbon capture include figuring out a But I think it’s absolutely imperative.
regulatory framework, working out who will Thomas Thune Andersen said that he
take responsibility for storage sites and ac- did think carbon capture and storage would
cept the long term liability, as well as creat- happen. He said his biggest fear is that the
ing the financial incentive to do it. pressure which certain environmental groups
But “we remain optimistic carbon cap- are putting on government not to encourage
ture and storage will succeed,” Andrew carbon capture, saying it is an excuse not to
Gould said. do other things, is successful.
The carbon capture and storage tech- The contribution of the oil and gas in-
nology is “understood,” he said. “But there’s dustry should be its ability to handle the car-
a huge issue of transportation. One project bon dioxide, he said.
October/November 2009- digital energy journal 7
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 8
Exploration
Paradigm's business growth in Africa
Oil and gas software company Paradigm is very pleased with its 2009 sales to companies in Africa - with
more business in the first six months of 2009 than in the whole of 2008.
Oil and gas exploration software company
Paradigm is very pleased with its 2009
sales in Africa, reporting more business in
the first six months of 2009 than to the
whole of 2008. The company attributes this
growth to its focus on Africa, the match be-
tween Africa's complex geology and its
technology, and the fact that many of its
clients in Africa are leading the industry in
their use of technology.
"We see Africa as somewhat of a jew-
el in our crown right now," says Richard
Jefferies, Paradigm executive VP for Eu-
rope, Africa and the CIS. "We will contin-
ue to make steady investment in this vast,
challenging, yet rewarding continent. I ful-
ly expect to see African organisations ap-
pearing in our top 10 customers in the not
too distant future. The key will be not to
get impatient and overstep the investment
curve."
“In early 2008, Paradigm put together
a strategy specific to Africa. It created a
dedicated Africa sales team, re-balanced its
Nigeria operations to focus on our major
clients, and initiated a program for Angola
which brought on board our first Angola-
based employee in 2008. “With over 50
countries and 2000 languages, you can't
treat Africa as one market.
“For example, Nigeria and Angola are
major OPEC producers, focusing on the
highly prospective and productive Gulf of
Guinea, Niger Delta and West-Central
Coast. Nigeria and Angola are very differ-
ent, with their own unique characteristics;
both countries are at the core of our African
business, but in very different ways.
“Moving away from West Africa, we
are focusing our business development ac-
tivities on Algeria, dominated by the na-
tional oil company (NOC), Sonatrach, and
then in the discrete opportunistic markets
of Southern Africa, Madagascar and the
Rift Valley,” he says. “We have a plan of
development and execution for each seg-
ment of our African territory.
“Local content is extremely impor-
tant. Our team in Nigeria is 100 percent
Nigerian, and our business development
manager in Angola is Angolan. Not only
does this make sense from a language and
cultural point of view, it also demonstrates
commitment to the local economy.”
8 digital energy journal - October/November 2009
Geology and technology
There is a good match between Paradigm’s
technology and the geological diversity of
the region, Mr Jeffries says.
“In looking at a cross-section through
the Gulf of Guinea, moving towards the off-
shore, the geology transitions through four
principal zones, dominated by shale diapirs,
compressive folding, thrusting and anticli-
nal deformation.
“All four geological settings are
prospective and require different interpre-
tive approaches from a broadly disciplined
team of explorationists,” he says.
Moving east from the heartland of
Africa’s oil economies, the East African
Rift Valley is “becoming more and more
prospective; it is hard to think of a more
structurally complex, and indeed tectonical-
ly active, setting for exploration,” he says.
“The need for accurate, fault-sealed
models is paramount to understanding the
geological reservoir uncertainties and to the
creation of development plans that have ful-
ly incorporated all aspects of potential
risk.”
Paradigm’s Rock and Fluid Canvas
software is designed to work well with
these kinds of complex and diverse rock
structures, covering the whole exploration
and development life cycle, and to create
better images of previously hard-to-image
prospects.
Client technology leadership
Paradigm tends to be most successful when
working with clients who are themselves
technology leaders, Mr Jeffries says.
An obvious example is Statoil, which
has had technology leadership as an impor-
tant element of its long term strategy since
being established in 1972.
“We see all around the world that Par-
adigm tends to be most successful where
the subsurface technical challenges are ad-
dressed by innovative clients who are tech-
nology leaders. “Paradigm has had a long
and successful relationship with StatoilHy-
dro, going back many years, such that they
are today one of our most strategically im-
portant clients,” he says.
Along similar lines, Angola’s Sonan-
gol and Somoil are “making every effort to
embed high science and best-in-class tech-
nology in their DNA,” he says. “Today So-
nangol and So-
moil are invest-
ing in Paradigm
leading edge in-
novations, such
that we see a
long and mutual-
ly rewarding fu-
ture in Angola.”
Business
climate
There are many
big investments Richard Jefferies,
going on in Paradigm executive VP
Africa despite for Europe, Africa and the
CIS
the world’s cur-
rent economic issues.
“Many of our African clients do seem
to be less impacted by the financial crisis
than our European ones,” he says. ““There
appears to be a different dynamic in finance
and access to credit in Africa, versus the
more traditional European markets.”
“It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what
that is attributable to, but some factors are
likely to be home generation of capital and
the gradually maturing political and bank-
ing infrastructures in countries like Nige-
ria.
“Gas is featuring as an increasingly
strategic natural resource in the West
African offshore, and money from China,
India and Russia is still being pumped into
Africa, fuelling the need for constant in-
vestment in the best technology.”
Even smaller indigenous oil compa-
nies are slowly taking a more global view
of available technology, he says. That
trend,coupled with a drive to educate the lo-
cal workforce and to repatriate as much of
the value-adding “knowledge” work as pos-
sible, feeds the demand for new technolo-
gy.
Paradigm has historically been seen as
a smaller competitor to organisations such
as the major oilfield service companies, but
Mr Jefferies believes this is changing. “We
are no longer considered small. We are
competing extremely successfully. We are
not encumbered with a massive, capital in-
tensive services giant over us, so we can be
more nimble. We are that ‘breath of fresh
air.’ Our value is fewer wells, not more.”
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 9
Exploration
Getting technology implemented
Is the oil and gas industry slow to implement new technology? Many people think so. The issue was
discussed at a special session at Offshore Europe, with audience voting and examples covering the
introduction of wireless seismic and integrated asset models.
Steve Jacobs, president of RMI, an oil and gas
marketing consultancy company in Houston,
is on a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)
panel to try to accelerate the rate of accept-
ance of new technology. “It’s a pretty thank-
less task I might add,” he said.
Mr Jacobs put together a discussion ses-
sion at Offshore Europe ("From Bright Ideas
to Implementation," 10am Sept 10 2009) to
discuss ways to get new technology used, in-
cluding discussions of the implementation of
wireless seismic devices and integrated asset
models.
The oil industry has been fast to adopt
new technology when it sees an obvious ben-
efit, he said. It is the “second largest user of
computers in the world after the entertainment
industry.”
If a technology could be developed
which would enable 40 to 60 per cent oil re-
covery, that should be adopted quickly as
well. “The argument for peak oil would be
pretty moot,” he said.
If a technology has an enormous bene-
fit, you can expect much faster take up. For
example the first Measuring While Drilling
(MWD) technology introduced in 1978 had a
high additional cost ($4,000 to $5,000 a day),
poor reliability for nearly 10 years after its in-
troduction, but a massive benefit. “We
weren’t drilling in the wrong direction for
10,000 feet,” he said.
Meanwhile logging while drilling
(LWD) did not have such a great additional
cost, but initially did not have such a great ad-
ditional benefit – because logging by wireline
gave more accurate results. So the take-up
was not so fast.
Technology companies might be better
off trying to work out what oil companies are
prepared to pay for, than working out what
they say they want, Mr Jacobs said.
“If you can do something which does
something people need, it can have a fast
adoption,” he said.
“Many service companies have an incre-
mental view – bring in incrementally better
technology at a disproportionately higher
price. That’s not technology – it’s just busi-
ness.”
True to the theme of implementing new
technology, the audience was given handheld
voting machines, which they used to say
which kind of company they were from. Of
an audience of 50 people, 40 per cent were
service providers, 33 per cent from oil opera-
tors and 22 per cent from other and 4 from
academies.
The audience was asked what they think
is the most important technology for the fu-
ture, with options including improved seis-
mic, automated drilling, enhanced CTD
coiled tubing drilling, wireless telemetry,
nano technology, multifrac horizontals, smart
completions, enhanced EOR, look ahead
LWD.
Audience said enhanced EOR 26 per
cent; nanotech 23 percent; seismic 20 per
cent, with a small number going for the re-
maining options.
The audience was asked if they thought
oil companies focussed too much on incre-
mental innovation. 64 percent said there was
too much focus in incremental innovation, 8
per cent said there was too much ‘break-
through’ innovation and 28 per cent said the
balance was about right.
When asked what they thought was the
main obstacle to breakthrough innovation, 19
per cent said a conservative strategy, 36 per
cent said a short term focus, 26 per cent said
a risk averse climate, 9 per cent said linear de-
velopment proceses and 9 per cent said too
much internal orientation.
Introducing wireless seismic
Chris Friedemann, senior VP corporate mar-
keting with ION, talked about his company’s
experience introducing a new technology –
wireless seismic geophones.
Aware that new technologies take 35
years on average to reach 50 per cent pene-
tration in the oil and gas market, ION wanted
to look for ways to accelerate adoption as
much as it could.
It decided that a good way to do this was
to involve two oil companies, BP and Apache
Corporation, in the field trials. As well as get-
ting them involved in an early stage, both
companies committed $8m each to spend on
the wireless geophones.
This meant that it had a budget to build
10,000 stations for the field trial – otherwise
ION would probably only have built ‘hun-
dreds’, he said. Having a large number of sta-
tions was important in being able to see how
far the system could go.
BP wanted to find ways to really “chal-
lenge” its reservoir development and improve
the subsurface image. “They asked, how will
October/November 2009 2009 - digital energy journal
Exploration
we use the
data to im-
prove the im-
age,” he said.
Since
the first trial,
the system
has been
used many
times, in-
cluding in
China and
Mexico.
There is
something of
an art to “Many service companies
have an incremental view –
building bring in incrementally better
good rela- technology at a
tionships disproportionately higher
with oil com- price. That’s not technology –
panies, Mr it’s just business.” - Steve
Jacobs, president of RMI
Friedemann
says. “You
don’t need to have senior management falling
in love with your product, but you do need
someone within the oil company who thinks
it is a good idea and encourages his colleagues
to see things the same way.”
You also need people to accept that they
are working with an unproven technology and
things might go wrong. “It needs a lot of up-
front relationship / trust building,” he said.
“You have to acknowledge the real likelihood
of setbacks.”
In hindsight, it might have been better
to field test it on a smaller scale rather than
go for a big project at the start, he said.
Some oil companies say that they will
only get involved in the technology develop-
ment stage if they can have ownership over
the intellectual property, but that means it
would be impossible for the technology com-
pany to sell it to anyone else.
One of the biggest horrors when trying
to introduce new technology is the oil com-
pany procurement manager, he said – they
will often try to use methods to reduce expen-
diture which really don’t work with new tech-
nology.
“Typical procurement metrics don’t ap-
ply. When the procurement guys show up and
try to drive cost out, you just can’t do that.
They are not quite set up to work with new
technologies that are emerging. We are really
scared of this,” he says.
9
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 10
Exploration
When doing partnerships with oil com-
panies, two is probably the right number. “In-
volving more than two is likely to prove chal-
lenging.”
Mr Friedemann was asked what he
would do differently if he had a chance to do
it again. “We got pulled into the field trial a
little earlier than we wanted to. We would
have liked to be one year later so we had a
chance to evolve the equipment,” he said.
“We got a minor black eye because some per-
formance metrics weren’t where people
thought they should be.”
The investors were very supportive of
the new development before the economic
meltdown. “We were seen as a company that
spent a lot on R&D and became a growth sto-
ry,” he said.
Although some investors were expect-
ing a much faster up-take than ION was able
to achieve – with mass adoption within 2-3
years, like the iPod.
The audience was asked if they thought
technology diffusion rates in oil companies
was accelerating. 51 per cent thought it was
accelerating, 41 per cent said they thought it
was staying the same and 7 per cent said slow-
ing down.
The audience was asked if they thought
onshore seismic was tougher than offshore.
57 per cent said they thought onshore was a
greater challenge, 21 per cent said the same
as offshore, and 21 per cent said it was less of
a challenge.
Integrated asset models
Richard Ella, production business manager
for EAF at Schlumberger Information Solu-
tions, talked about his efforts encouraging oil
companies to install Integrated Asset Models
(IAM) – where you have the reservoir, pro-
duction facilities and economics of a well in
a single computer model.
It is common for the same oilfield’s op-
erations to be captured in three separate mod-
els, for subsurface, surface and economics.
The geoscientists and engineers have a com-
mon earth model of the reservoir; the facili-
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ties engineers have a model of the surface
equipment and the mass flow rates of fluid
through it and the energy required to operate
it; and the economists have an economic mod-
el for the business.
“But it’s the same asset – and it all has
the same sensitivities and uncertainties,” he
said. “The system is all connected – any
change affects what happens upstream and
downstream.”
Communications between the models
and departments is normally done “with a lot
of manual work and effort.”
There are plenty of questions which
come up regularly which need co-ordinated
input from all of the models to be able to an-
swer. For example, working out how much in-
jection water is required and how it should be
distributed, or working out a program for
drilling new wells to ensure use of the pro-
duction facility is optimised.
But there have also been plenty of prob-
lems with putting together Integrated Asset
Models.
There are different attitudes towards
time – production engineers are only interest-
ed in the instantaneous flow rate (i.e. in litres
per second) but reservoir engineers are more
interested in what will happen over the next
few years. “That was a major challenge for a
long time,” he said.
A recent development is simplified
“proxy” models, which can model what is
happening in the reservoir much faster than
standard models. They do the modelling in
less resolution, but the trade-off is welcome
because high resolution models update them-
selves too slowly.
Integrated Asset Models, which bring
everything together, were first built in 1993,
and are now used in around 20 per cent of
wells, Mr Ella estimates.
There are two different ways to do it.
One method (called ‘implicit’) builds a gigan-
tic model with everything included. The sec-
ond method, which is much easier to imple-
ment practically and becoming more com-
mon, is to try to connect to individual models
(subsurface, surface, financial). This is known
as ‘explicit’.
Reservoir engineers tend to end up be-
ing the primary custodians of the Integrated
Asset Models (IAM), possibly because they
have the most expertise with models in gen-
eral, he said.
There are many success stories already,
for example Petrobras in Ecuador reckons it
could increase production by 20 per cent as a
result of using an integrated asset model, to
identify which wells to do workovers on and
plan its drilling campaign.
ConocoPhillips used an IAM model for
a water alternating gas development in Alas-
ka, where it needed to decide how much wa-
ter and gas to inject in a number of different
wells. This was on the basis that all the pro-
duced gas needed to be ultimately re-injected
(none of it was exported), all produced water
was re-injected, and there were constraints on
the energy available to compress the gas
across the entire field.
BP used the system to model a 500-well
onshore gas field, which had 30,000 horse-
power of mobile compressors, to work out
how it could get the best flow with the injec-
tion gas compression power available.
StatoilHydro used IAM to model a wa-
ter alternating gas flooding scheme on its
Snorre B field, and claims an improved net
present value of the field of 30-35 per cent.
“We had to create a simplified reservoir mod-
el so it would run much faster,” he said.
Pemex used a system in Mexico on a
well which had slugging problems, where
slugs were constraining the amount of pro-
duction which was possible.
The audience was asked if they thought
full field optimisation models, from “pore to
pump”, with real time data being fed in the
model to continuously optimise it, would be a
“reality” in the next 5 years. 54 per cent said
yes, 46 per cent said no.
When asked if they were more likely to
adopt integrated asset models in their compa-
nies as a result of listening to the speech, 83
per cent said yes.
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 11
Nano technology and the oil business
We might never put robots in reservoirs, but nanotechnology can help out in plenty of other areas of the
oil business – particularly enhanced oil recovery, better catalysts and reservoir surveillance, says Shell’s
chief scientist Sergio Kapusta.
The reality of nanotechnology is per-
haps a little different to the expectations, but
it is not hard to see some areas where it can
make a big difference to the oil business,
said Sergio Kapusta, chief scientist and man-
ager engineering innovation and technology
with Shell Global Solutions, in a luncheon
talk during Aberdeen’s Offshore Europe ex-
hibition.
Nano technologies have already been
used to help make stronger and lighter mate-
rials, with improved corrosion / erosion re-
sistance, for example in carbon fibre materi-
als for aircraft. Nano technologies have also
been used to make better membrane water
filtration systems.
Nano technologies have been used to
make better coatings, to make them more
scratch resistant, or to make them oil wet or
water wet (ie determine whether oil or water
will stick to them preferentially).
In the oil business specifically, nan-
otechnologies could be used to make better
catalysts for chemical reactions, or used for
enhanced oil recovery (finding ways to push
more oil out of the reservoir and into the
wells), and for better surveillance (working
out what is happening in the reservoir).
Still, nano technology materials are be-
ing priced at dollars per gram – a long way
to oil company typical pricing models of
cents per barrel. “So there are a couple of or-
ders of magnitude to be reduced in the
price.”
Plenty of other technologies have seen
very fast cost reductions in the past, he said,
and the same might happen with the cost of
nanotechnology. For example, the price of
digital calculators has fallen in recent years
from very expensive to so cheap they are
hardly worth charging for.
In-house expertise
Shell is making careful choices about which
technologies it wants to develop in house
and own - mainly technologies which will
find their biggest application in the oil and
gas industry, but might not be so useful to
other industries.
The main area of nanotechnology
which Shell is interested in are developing
new catalysts for chemical reactions. “That’s
where the core of the business is,” he said.
“We will be there at the start.”
“We have an extensive research pro-
gram looking at how to do better enhanced
oil recovery,” he said.
Surveillance
Nano technologies could also be used for
reservoir surveillance, tracking what hap-
pens in oil reservoirs between oil wells.
“We can’t see very far into the well-
bore,” he said. “Seismic doesn’t have the
resolution we would like. We don’t know
where our injected chemicals are going. We
take very wide guesses.”
This is analogous to a doctor working
on a patient buried 5000m underground, with
only two cables from the ground down to the
patient, and no idea what was happening in
between them, he said.
Medics are already using supermagnet-
ic nano particles in human bodies, which can
be interrogated as they pass through the
body, providing data about parts of the body
which have never provided data before.
It would be helpful if nano particles
could be used inside reservoirs, for example
to take enhanced oil recovery (EOR) chemi-
cals to the right places, or help steer drill bits
into oil reservoirs. “None of this is being
done today. We have laboratory studies on
core samples, but they are far from any ac-
tual realisation,” he said.
“It would be good if we could deliver
emulsifier and foamer to precisely the place
that it is needed- but we’re still far from
that.”
Nano particles can act as antennas – so
(for example) they could be designed to sit
on the interface between oil and water, and
tell people exactly where this interface is.
Another possibility is combining nan-
otechnology with biotechnology – which
could enable biological chemicals already in
the reservoir to act as ‘enhanced oil recov-
ery’ chemicals, helping push more oil out.
Shell is part of a group of companies
called the Advanced Energy Consortium, set
up at the University of Texas Bureau of Eco-
nomic Geology, investigating the use of nano
technology for reservoir surveillance.
Companies in the Advanced Energy
Consortium are oil and gas companies (BP,
Conoco Phillips, Marathon, Shell, Total,
Petrobras, Occidental) and service compa-
nies (Halliburton, Baker Hughes and
Schlumberger).
It is currently making studies on the
October/November 2009 2009 - digital energy journal
Exploration
“I get articles every day about using
nanotechnology to improve lithium
batteries,” he said. “I expect you will see large
improvements in lithium batteries in the next
5-10 years.” - Shell’s chief scientist Sergio
Kapusta
flow of nano particles through rock – to esti-
mate how much nano particles injected into
one well could be retrieved from another
well – for example if they were used for sur-
veillance.
Studies have been made on small core
samples, showing that all of the nano parti-
cles passed through the cores can be re-
trieved. But there is a big difference between
core samples and an entire reservoir. “We
don’t know what forces are in effect, many
particles get stuck in the pores,” he said.
Nano robots
Mr Kapusta said that putting nano robots in
reservoirs, an idea mentioned in the indus-
try, “is more sci-fi than reality.”
Consider that oil and gas reservoirs typ-
ically contain pores which are 100nm to
1000 nm across (0.0001 to 0.001mm) – so
any nano particles would need to be under
100 nano metres so they could move through
the pores.
Designing a robot which can fit a pow-
er system, movement and data communica-
tions into 100 nm does sound quite hard –
and even if it could be achieved, there is a
question about the cost.
There would be a further question
about how the data sent out by millions of
tiny robots in the reservoir would be man-
aged – and of course how the nano robot
would survive in the harsh conditions of the
reservoir.
11
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 12
Exploration
Broader ideas
There are many broader ideas about how nano
technology could help in the oil and gas in-
dustry, such as with improved coatings, sen-
sors, water treatment. “These are more open,”
he said.
Stronger materials could be useful in all
areas of oil and gas industry – for example in
making stronger downhole seals.
Nano enhanced materials can already be
10 to 20 per cent better than what went be-
fore, but Mr Kapusta expects a lot further de-
velopment. “I expect 100 per cent improve-
ment when we learn how to do these things,”
UK’s seismic data available via CDA
UK oil and gas data management organisation Common Data Access (CDA) is how storing public seismic
data, so people who need it do not have to go to the trouble of asking for it from the person who owns
it every time they want some data.
Common Data Access, a UK organisation
which is part of the Oil & Gas UK associa-
tion, is now collecting releaseable 2D and
3D seismic data, so it can make it available
to whoever wants it much more easily than
getting it from the original source.
Under UK regulations, seismic data is
released to anyone who wants it after 4 or in
some cases 3 years.
CDA aims to create benefits to both the
provider and the user of the data - and has
estimated that the direct savings from the
system could be £1.1m a year.
Currently, if you want publicly avail-
able seismic data, you still have the trouble
of going to the oil company which did the
survey, finding the right person to speak to,
and getting a copy of their tapes from their
archives. It can take several weeks, take a lot
of hassle and you’re not even sure if you’re
getting the right data at the end.
“We can do it in 3 days and its quality-
checked,” says Malcolm Fleming, chief ex-
ecutive, Common Data Access.
Mr Fleming envisages that if the data
is easier to access, companies will be able to
do more extensive analysis of seismic data
leading up to a license round. “It could have
an impact on the whole shelf,” he says.
The organisation has spent March to
September 2009 gathering and loading data,
and reckons it has 15 per cent of all the data
available. It is starting with the data which
is most in demand.
By December 2009, it hopes to have a
further 5-10 per cent completed, with data
from more than 750 different surveys. So
far the database size has reached “several
terabytes,” says Mr Fleming.
12 digital energy journal - October/November 2009
he said.
In carbon capture, there have been de-
velopments of new materials with metal or-
ganic frameworks which can absorb carbon
dioxide much better than any other material,
he said. “But it is very expensive. The appli-
cation for this are fantastic but we need to do
it at lower cost. It can’t compete with tradi-
tional ways of carbon capture tools.”
Nano sensors can be developed which
can determine the oil saturation in rock, by
showing you were the oil-water interface is,
or tell you what the acidity is.
Nanotechnologies could also have a less
The system currently only covers
processed data – the raw data files are still
too large to comfortably handle within our
current business model, Mr Fleming says.
The system will cover the process of
managing licenses for the data – member
companies will only need to sign one data li-
cense with CDA for any data they want, not
a separate one for each seismic file they want
to access.
CDA will also quality check the data,
so users will know the quality standard of
the data before licensing it.
A fee is charged for downloading the
data on media – although CDA does not aim
to make any profit on it. The database is op-
erated by Schlumberger.
Members of CDA will be able to down-
load seismic data directly – and if the files
are too big to download, CDA agrees to put
it on tape and have it on their desk within 3
days. Non-CDA members will be able to re-
ceive data on tape within the 3 week guide-
line (as set by agreement between industry
and the UK government). Joining the CDA
Seismic DataStore costs £12,000 a year.
It will be a similar project to DISKOS
in Norway, which also stores seismic data.
Until now, CDA has maintained two in-
formation stores: DEAL, which provides in-
formation about the wells, seismic surveys,
licenses and infrastructure data for the UK
continental shelf, telling you what data is
available, running on the Schlumberger
Seabed data model; and Well DataStore,
which provides information about wells.
Mr Fleming says he sees his role as a
manager of data management, or a “data
manager manager.”
expected impact on the oil industry in terms
of reducing demand for oil – by helping make
better batteries for electric cars, or helping
produce much lighter cars made of composite
materials, which need less oil to propel them.
“I get articles every day about using nan-
otechnology to improve lithium batteries,” he
said. “I expect you will see large improve-
ments in lithium batteries in the next 5-10
years.”
A critical factor with batteries is how
fast they can be charged up. “The speed of
recharge increases as you decrease the size of
the particles,” he said.
Making it easy to access publicly available UK
seismic data - Malcolm Fleming, chief
executive, Common Data Access
Companies will not be obligated to pro-
vide data to CDA – but if they don’t share it
through CDA they will have to handle the
cost and hassle of providing it directly to
other companies that ask for it.
In future, CDA anticipates storing com-
panies seismic data which is not publicly
available – because it can probably manage
the data more effectively than the companies
can themselves, and when the 3-4 years are
up and the data needs to be made public, it
can be done automatically.
In future the database might also be ac-
cessible directly via other software applica-
tions, so they can work on it directly (rather
than just downloading individual files).
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 13

Production

Subsea control systems and software

Do well tests without a riser at up to 10,000 feet of water; model your subsea flow much more accurately
than you could do before; a new control system for a subsea landing string; and the first off the shelf
subsea tree for up to 300 feet (90m) depth. Some of the new subsea technologies on display at Offshore
Europe.
AX-S – well intervention at 10,000 feet
with no rig or riser
Expro, an international specialist in well flow
management, has developed a new subsea
well intervention system called AX-S, en-
abling well intervention at up to 10,000 feet
of water without a rig or a riser.
The AX-S system is 33.5m tall, weighs
220t and is rated for operations at up to
3,000m. It is deployed onto a subsea tree with
an active heave-compensated fibre winch
from a monohull vessel, and is remotely con-
trolled from the surface like a ROV. The sys-
tem comprises an integrated set of subsea pres-
sure-contained packages comprising well con-
trol, wireline tools, wireline winch and fluid
injection functions.
The well control package (WCP) is the
dual safety barrier containing industry-proven
7 3/8inch shear seal and gate valves. If any
safety issues arise, the operator has time to
identify the problem as the system is a fully-
enclosed pressure housing with no dynamic
seals between wellbore and surrounding envi-
ronments.
Positioned directly above the WCP is the
tool storage package (TSP). The TSP contains
eight tool pockets which are located around
the inner circumference of the package. The
tools are swapped on the seabed and as they
are held in a pressure retained housing, no
pressure testing is required after each tool
change.
The tools are run in the well by the wire-
line winch package (WWP). The pressure
housing means issues such as hydrocarbon
leaking into the surrounding water and water
seeping into the well are all but eliminated.
The winch has 25,000ft of mono-conductor
which conveys the various intervention tools
into the well. The fluid management package
is the final subsea section and can deploy gly-
col fluid into the system to flush out hydrocar-
bons which are then circulated back into the
well or subsea production system. Depending
on the specific customer needs, sea water can
be mixed with the fluid in variable ratios as
required.
A control cabin on the vessel has a com-
puter generated interface which is used to in-
struct the various packages on a fully automat-
ed basis. All the hydraulic power is generated
in the AX-S system so there is no requirement
for a hydraulic line going back to surface. To
Kongsberg software - model complex flows in subsea flow lines which run along the seabed for
long distances then rise to the surface
ensure operations are safe and effective, video
cameras and an ROV are an integral part of
the system.
The control system is designed to be self
healing, so if one communications channel
breaks the data can go down another path. The
system can be controlled on the surface with
touch screen panels.
The system is lowered onto the ocean
floor in four sections, with a maximum weight
per section of 75 tons. Restricting each load to
75 tons, means the handling equipment on the
boat does not need to be so substantial.
Subsea wells have typical recovery rates
of 10-15 per cent of the total oil thought to be
in the reservoir, compared to typical recovery
rates of 30-50 per cent for typical land wells.
The recovery rates on subsea wells are low be-
cause of the difficulty in working on the well
to increase production.
With Expro’s technology, it will become
much less expensive to do well interventions
on subsea wells. These interventions will ulti-
mately improve recovery rates to a level simi-
lar to land wells.
Since the initial idea in 2002, Expro be-
gan a research a development programme in
2003, a feasibility study was completed in
2004 and since then the design and testing has
been ongoing.
Expro uses technology developed in oth-
er industries to help - for example, it uses fi-
bre rope instead of cable to lower the equip-
ment to the seabed, because it is lighter - a les-
son learned from the salvage industry.
The system has been tested to 10,000psi
and also been tested for vibration and high
temperature. "So it's not going to fail in serv-
ice," says Matthew Law, engineering project
manager for AX-S with Expro.
The first field trial is scheduled to take
place in the North Sea in June 2010.
New multiphase flow modelling
software available
A new multiphase flow modelling software is
available on general release from Kongsberg,
building on an estimated $20 m of research
funded by Total and ConocoPhillips at the
SINTEF research organisation in Trondheim.
The software is already being used by
Total and ConocoPhillips, but is now released
for commercial use.
The software was designed to model typ-
ical subsea flow lines, typically running at a
long distance along the seabed and then sud-
denly turns to rise to the surface, with several
kilometres of vertical height.
Having good multiphase flow models is
very important in avoiding slugs (e.g. large
volumes of liquid in the gas flowline) which
can come up to the platform and cause enor-
mous problems.
If you know what kind of conditions can
cause slugs, you can try to tweak the flowrates
and pressures to avoid them.
The software calculates the dynamic flu-
id flow in three dimensions, and can simulate

October/November 2009 - digital energy journal 13

DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 14
Production
and visualise waves, slugs, droplets and bub-
bles.
It can also help you manage the flow to
try to reduce hydrates, which can solidify out
of the liquid and gas flowing through the pipe
and block it.
Total and ConocoPhillips invested in the
new technology because they were struggling
to adequately model multiphase flow in these
complex conditions with the technology avail-
able, says Chris Ruigrok, head of sales, multi-
phase flow solutions, with Kongsberg Oil and
Gas Technologies. "It is difficult to accurately
simulate multiphase flow in the risers with
current tooling."
The system calculates in more detail than
the competitors, Mr Ruigrok claims. "The
main aim is to predict liquid hold up more ac-
curately," he says.
The project combines together detailed
calculations of oil and gas flow based on the
fundamental physical and chemical properties,
with real experimental data from the SINTEF
Multiphase Flow Laboratory, where there is a
12 inch diameter flowline setup with a 70 m
vertical riser.
20 people have been working full time
on developing it since 2002.
"Experimental data is very expensive but
it's also very important," says Mr Ruigrok.
Kongsberg has established a new busi-
ness unit called Multiphase Flow Solutions to
industrialise the technology, and look for ways
to combine it with other product offerings, for
example its K-Spice software which can mod-
el oil and gas process plant and control sys-
tems.
Setting the software up is fairly simple -
you type in the shape of the pipeline (in terms
of x, y, z co-ordinates at different lengths along
it), you type in the data about the pipe and its
contents - diameter, pressure, fluid tempera-
ture at start, outer temperature, heat transfer
co-efficient, description of the fluid and start
(ratio of gas, oil and water) and estimate of
pressure in the well. The simulator then works
out everything else.
If you want to see if you can reduce slug-
ging with a choke in the pipeline, you can see
how well this will work.
Schlumberger - new subsea landing
string electrohydraulic operating
system
Schlumberger has launched a new subsea
landing string electrohydraulic operating sys-
tem called SenTURIAN*, which is used dur-
ing completion installation and well testing
operations.
SenTURIAN is a key component of the
subsea landing string and is deployed during
operations performed from a dynamically po-
sitioned vessel. The system provides verifica-
14 digital energy journal - October/November 2009
tion of installed equipment functionality and
enables fast acting well control in the event of
an emergency situation.
The compact design of SenTURIAN
makes it easy to handle and operate, and the
small diameter umbilical allows for safer and
faster deployment. The overall configuration
enables efficient operations and results in
valuable rig time savings.
The innovative design incorporates pres-
sure balanced accumulators which are more
efficient and shorter than conventional de-
signs. This reduced length allows for the ac-
cumulators and solenoid valve manifolds to
be incorporated in one single unit.
Electrical signals are sent from the sur-
face to operate the solenoid valves and allow
the stored hydraulic pressure to be transferred
from the accumulators to the desired subsea
or downhole function.
It is compatible with all Schlumberger
SenTREE* subsea test trees, third party tub-
ing hanger running tools, and downhole equip-
ment.
SenTURIAN can send and receive data
from the surface, so it can provide instructions
and send back telemetry feedback from sub-
sea and downhole equipment.
The standard configuration is capable of
operating in water depths up to 15,000 feet
(4,572m) and pressures up to 15,000psi. The
systems modularity allows for upgrade to meet
project specific requirements.
Schlumberger claims that it is the first
and only in-riser electrohydraulic operating
system that is designed and certified in accor-
dance with the International Electrotechnical
Commission's IEC 61508 SIL 2 reliability
specifications for safety-related systems, cer-
tified by TüV Rheinland. Its design enables
compliance with ISO 13628-7 standards by
providing electronic redundancy and teleme-
try feedback.
SenTURIAN was used in the first deep-
water well completed offshore India, then sub-
sequently on a total of 29 completions in In-
dia and the Gulf of Mexico. This includes four
jobs in a high pressure environment.
If there is ever a need to disconnect the
landing string (eg because of a storm), it can
close all the subsea test tree valves and dis-
connect the landing string in under 15 seconds
safely, following a pre-determined sequence
of operations.
*Mark of Schlumberger
GE new SVXT S-Series subsea tree
GE Oil & Gas has developed a new subsea
tree that has a streamlined pre-configured de-
sign and promises to be massively more effi-
cient than conventional predecessor subsea
trees.
Designed and manufactured in Ab-
Schlumberger engineers preparing the
SenTURIAN electrohydraulic operating system
for a deepwater completion operation
erdeen, the SVXT is destined for harsh shal-
low-waters (i.e. S-Series) up to 90m deep. GE
expects it will find a market in the UK North
Sea and Asia Pacific, among other places.
The new Tree on Mud-line (TOM)
equipment merges horizontal and vertical tree
technology, reducing weight by 20%, reduc-
ing height, and also delivering essential func-
tionality in a pre-engineered, pre-configured
'modular' way. By assessing its entire cus-
tomized shallow water tree portfolio designed
and built over the last 30 months and incor-
porating the around 85% common denomina-
tor elements, GE is confident that the new
SVXT unit will offer customers enormous
benefits.
Firstly, GE says, by offering all cus-
tomers pre-engineered quality solutions we
will improve clarity during equipment speci-
fication. This in turn streamlines the supply
chain with rigorously qualified and validated
products, and also speeds on-time delivery,
driving faster execution in pre and post order
phases. Importantly senior engineering ex-
pertise is freed-up to focus on customers' most
challenging customisation requirements and
problems.
Having CapEx and OpEx in mind,
makes off-the-shelf equipment attractive to
both buyer and seller - the buyer gets the
equipment at potentially lower cost with es-
sential elements built-in, thereby reducing up-
grade, repair and maintenance needs over the
long-term, while the seller gets potentially
more profit through efficiency gains.
But it only works if the buyer is prepared
to accept that a predominantly standardised
piece of equipment meets most of the needs,
something which Manuel Terranova, senior
VP, subsea product platform, GE Oil and Gas,
calls the "standardisation battle".
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 15
A typical scenario, he says, is when the
client’s engineer initially scoping the equip-
ment, comes up with a list of demands that
the equipment must meet, and the contractor
works out how much it will cost to meet the
demands.
With a standardised piece of equipment,
GE can explain that it can have the standard
equipment for a certain price, but if it needs
the extra special valve then it could mean ad-
ditional cost and potential time delay.
If a company procurement manager gets
involved alongside the engineer, the discus-
sion may get easier, he says. "The procure-
ment manager says to the engineer, do you re-
ally want that valve? It's an extra $2m and an
extra month’s wait," he says.
The SVXT tree is designed for wells
producing up to 50,000 barrels a day, and for
shallow waters of up to 90 m depth.
Normally oil and gas companies need to
use deepwater equipment for anything over
50m, so if the water is 50m to 90m deep, they
can have even bigger cost savings by being
able to use shallow water equipment.
The unit weighs 15 tonnes, compared to
25 tonnes for most shallow water trees, Mr
Terranova says. Keeping the weight down to
15 tons enables it to be deployed directly from
the jack-up rig, without special vessels re-
quired.
The company designed the SVXT from
a 'blank sheet of paper', not by tweaking its
existing designs.
It was also designed from the start as a
system, rather than looking at individual com-
ponents and putting them together. "If you do
design from a components mindset, the holis-
tic functioning system can easily become an
afterthought," says Mr Terranova.
This means that, for example, the final
SVXT unit has a lower weight - it is also per-
fectly balanced when it is hung from a cable
(i.e. being lowered to the seabed) and it does
not need any additional ballast to keep it lev-
el.
Special consideration has been given to
enabling operators to see what they are doing
when making connections to the tree unit, be-
cause there is often a lot of mud swirling
around in harsh shallow waters.
The unit therefore has cameras installed,
pointing at the connections, so you don't nec-
essarily need an ROV (remote operated vehi-
cle).
Control system
A whole new control system has been de-
signed for the tree.
The company employs a number of con-
trol engineers with experience working in the
aviation industry, that know how to make sys-
tems super-reliable.
The new subsea tree from GE Oil & Gas: promising improved efficiency available "off the shelf"
Reliability is very important, because
"you would lose the well and your business
reputation if you can't operate the tree safe-
ly," Mr Terranova says “GE puts environ-
ment, health and safety first – this protects our
mandate and licence to operate”.
The control system opens and closes
electro hydraulic valves, which manage the
flow of fluids out of the well.
The control system is housed in a "pod",
which can be removed, refurbished and rein-
stalled if necessary.
Special consideration was given to de-
signing a system that would be ‘future proof’
- using standardised electronic components as
much as possible.
Subsea equipment usually has lots of
custom-designed electronics, Mr Terranova
says, including custom designed microchips,
data communications protocols, control sys-
tems at the surface and circuit boards, which
can cause many problems later when some-
thing needs to be replaced and it isn't avail-
able, or no-one knows how to do it given the
time lag with equipment designed to operate
for a generation or more”.
However, the GE tree uses the UNIX
operating system, and communications in
TCP/IP protocol. "In 20 years, Ethernet will
still be a standard," he says.
The unit has the some of the same cir-
cuit boards that GE installs in its wind tur-
bines, with around 70,000 in operation.
The chipset maker undertakes to main-
tain records of what has gone into the chips -
the "bill of material" - for 18 years.
The unit has redundant circuit boards, so
if a circuit board fails the control system can
continue operating.
It is normally possible to update soft-
October/November 2009 - digital energy journal
Production
ware features; however, it is hardware up-
grades that can usually cause the most prob-
lems, Mr Terranova says.
Remote monitoring
GE also offers remote monitoring services,
assessing the stream of data from the unit and
translating the information into performance
driven actions that operators can act on.
"We want to be able to say "you've cy-
cled that valve 400 times - after 200 more cy-
cles you have a risk of failure"," he says. "We
can tell customers what the remaining life ex-
pectancy is in that particular system. This
prognostic approach is critical to keeping our
equipment in great shape and ultimately help-
ing operators drive greater profitability."
GE has a great deal of expertise in
equipment remote monitoring - it conducts re-
mote monitoring for its jet engines, locomo-
tives, medical scanners, turbo compressors
and power generation equipment.
The company has a specialist remote di-
agnostic centre in Nailsea, near Bristol in the
UK. The ‘Subsea Monitoring & Remote
Technology Center’ (or SmartCenter) is a re-
mote-access data hub connected to subsea
field control and instrumentation facilities
around the world.
The new state-of-the-art facility will of-
fer assistance & services to the field at every
stage of development - from installation &
commissioning, through field start up and on-
wards into routine operation for operational
support, condition monitoring, diagnostics,
and production optimisation.
"When you have separators and com-
pressors on the seabed, you need to know
what's happening on a real time basis," Mr
Terranova says.
15
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 16
Production
Anadarko Petroleum – using Oracle’s
Primavera for project planning
Anardarko Petroleum uses Oracle’s Primavera software for project planning and co-ordination, including
making sure it makes best use of its available rigs and avoids conflicts.
Anadarko Petroleum, one of the world’s
largest independent oil companies with an-
nual revenues of $15.9bn, uses Oracle’s Pri-
mavera software to help make best use of its
drilling rigs, avoid conflicts and keep its ex-
ploration teams co-ordinated with its drilling
teams, with all data kept in a central data-
base.
Anardarko has operations in the Gulf of
Mexico, onshore in the US, Algeria and Chi-
na, among other places.
It uses Oracle’s Primavera P6 solution.
Partly as a result of using the software,
“we are working in a much more collabora-
tive environment,” says John Reno, project
management professional, area project advi-
sor, with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation.
“Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise
Project Portfolio Management gives us
shared resources across multiple entities,
which is critical when scheduling the high-
value assets we operate,” he says.
Challenges
The company has seven deepwater drilling
rigs in its fleet: three dynamically posi-
tioned, three semisubmersible moored, and
one semisubmersible dynamically posi-
tioned.
Storms and unexpected currents can
mean schedules need to be changed very
quickly.
In 2006 it acquired two companies,
Western Gas Resources, which has assets
and infrastructure in the Rocky Mountain re-
gion, and Kerr-McGee, which has operations
in deepwater Gulf of Mexico and other parts
of the world.
Anadarko had to work out how to
merge the assets and systems together, to
make best use of its available rigs.
It has to match each drilling target with
the vessel best suited to drill it, based on the
rig’s limitations and drilling capacity.
The restrictions are quite complex. For
example, dynamically positioned rigs can
work in bad weather or shifting currents,
even during the hurricane season, whilst
moored rigs must be specific distances from
existing platforms and pipelines during the
hurricane season.
The rigs are used in delineation drilling,
16 digital energy journal - October/November 2009
development drilling and completions.
A particular challenge is integrating the
work of different departments and avoiding
conflict.
“For example, an installation vessel
can’t be installing subsea flowlines while the
drill ship is drilling in the same area,” says
Mr Reno. “The integrated schedule allows
us to easily identify these conflicts and plan
accordingly.”
“It also allows us to identify when we
need long lead-time components for our sub-
sea infrastructure projects, some of which
must be ordered 18 months in advance.”
“Every month of production is worth
millions of dollars, so it’s important that we
have tight integration between the various
areas of our operations,” he says.
Software
Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project
Portfolio Management is used to manage the
complex schedules. “As volatile as the rig
schedules can be, this integration enables the
construction schedules to tie in all critical
completion dates, making requirements and
progress visible,” says Mr Reno.
The solution is also used for Anar-
darko’s planning sessions, which takes place
in its “operations intelligence centre,” where
the different stakeholders involved work to-
gether to refine the scheduled activities.
“With this system, we can get everyone
together to review and update schedules and
project items,” says Mr Reno. “We can pri-
oritize drilling activities on multiple rigs,
and we can build in our lease expiration
dates. We can, for example, do ‘what-if’
analysis to prepare for unforeseen changes
in rig availability.”
The software is used to co-ordinate the
activities of different departments, identify-
ing interface points and possible conflicts.
In the future, Anardarko expects to in-
tegrate its project management tools more
with back-office systems including docu-
ment management and enterprise resource
planning.
It also plans to expand its use of Pri-
mavera’s web-based capabilities, integrating
Primavera dashboards with the company’s
existing dashboards for use by people within
various levels of the organization.
“Today, we are working in a much
more collaborative environment,” says Mr
Reno. “The fact that everything is in one en-
terprise database delivers connectivity across
regions, zones, and asset areas.
“In all, the solution’s project integra-
tion capabilities add tremendous value to
Anadarko.”
Oracle in oil and gas
Oracle has developed a number of different
software tools for the oil and gas industry.
It’s software is used by 49 of the world’s top
50 energy companies, and over 200 E&P
companies. It is the only software company
on the US National Petroleum Council.
Oracle also participates on the board of
PPDM (Professional Petroleum Data Man-
agement Association), and collaborates with
the SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) IT
Technical Committee, PESA (Petroleum
Equipment Suppliers Association) and Texas
A&M University’s Oil & Gas RFID Solution
Group.
Its Business Intelligence Suite can be
used for analysis and reporting, combining
information from multiple sources, includ-
ing operational, production, PI, supply chain,
HSE, and financial data. Companies can
analyse each well, asset and field at any
time.
It also has a number of partnerships
with other software companies.
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 17
Schlumberger launches Enterprise
Planning Software
Schlumberger has made its Merak Enterprise Planning (MEP) software available on commercial release –
which can be used for dynamic oil and gas corporate planning.
By Saheed Kenku, global portfolio business manager for Merak, Schlumberger
www.slb.com/merakep
Creating innovative solutions requires vision
and the technology to make them happen.
When Schlumberger first envisioned
the “Living Business Plan” - a dynamic,
event-driven or evergreen corporate plan-
ning methodology - it was clear that technol-
ogy innovation was still required to make it
a reality.
The Living Business Plan is now an ac-
cessible reality with the release of Merak*
Enterprise Planning (MEP), a complete en-
terprise planning solution based on standard-
ized, commercially available technology that
provides a collaborative platform for oil and
gas business applications to generate valu-
able planning information in context.
That information is generated by a ro-
bust and efficient calculation engine and is
captured in an open, accessible, relational
format.
For more than two decades, project
evaluation solutions and specialist planning
applications have been vital components in
oil and gas corporate planning.
However, for the most part, oil and gas
corporate planning processes remain
lengthy, cumbersome, potentially error prone
and often ineffective in responding to mar-
ket and operational realities.
These issues highlighted the need for a
robust enterprise solution to facilitate corpo-
rate planning and address the key challenges.
An alliance between Schlumberger and
Microsoft is making the difference to deliv-
er the solution that enables oil and gas com-
panies to realize the full benefits of a Living
Business Plan.
Though MEP has just been released
commercially, the solution has already un-
dergone field tests with three oil and gas
companies headquartered in different geo-
graphic regions - a large integrated oil com-
pany, a national oil company and a mid-size
independent oil company.
Traditional Planning
Any oil and gas company executive or sen-
ior staff member usually has a horror story
about tedious, time-consuming planning,
forecasting and budgeting activities.
Typically done annually, the workflow
Production
involves a sig-
nificant slow-
down to daily
operations as
the work force
gathers infor-
mation in dif-
ferent formats,
from different
tools across dif-
ferent disci-
plines, from
technical staff
to planners to
finance and the Merak Enterprise Planning (MEP) enables the Living Business Plan, a
board, which is dynamic, event-driven or evergreen corporate planning process that
time consuming allows companies to quickly adapt to changes and addresses challenges
in the traditional corporate planning process
and often error
prone.
The information is (somehow) ana- causes to daily operations.
lyzed, summarised and rolled up to make New synchronization technologies al-
significant strategic investment decisions for low data from business units and asset teams
the coming year. around the world to be transmitted and up-
Resulting documents, plans and data dated - either on demand or at pre-scheduled
are often outdated before the planning intervals - and stored in a central planning
process is over. And if market or operational database.
assumptions change drastically - as they did Automation of data gathering mini-
late in 2008 - this process doesn’t allow for mizes interruption to the work force and im-
companies to easily regroup and re-evaluate. proves data accuracy and reliability.
Needs evergreen data Powerful computers
The Living Business Plan proposes that cor- With the terabytes of technical and business
porate planning for oil and gas companies data required for long-range business plan-
can be an ongoing, evergreen process with ning and multiple scenarios, calculations can
better results and minimal impact to daily be intensive and time-consuming. Tradition-
operations. ally oil and gas companies have had to
The key to enabling the Plan is technol- choose between accuracy and performance.
ogy that simplifies capture, update and ac- Do you summarise technical and busi-
cess to planning data, and leverages planning ness data to simplify your corporate roll up?
data for maximum value to the company. Results come quicker, but valuable details
Having evergreen data allows business- are usually lost which, across an entire or-
es to quickly respond to changing economic ganization, can potentially skew results.
and operational circumstances. Capturing Now it is possible to preserve accuracy
actual data consistently with the plan allows and calculation rigor from the project to the
benchmarking of performance and making enterprise level through the efficiencies
necessary adjustments as required. gained by the parallel calculation engine in
MEP.
Gather data automatically During field testing, the solution re-
Key problems with traditional planning in- duced the time for a company’s entire enter-
clude the time required to gather and trans- prise planning roll up from 16 hours to just
mit data for analysis, and the interruption it a little over three hours.
October/November 2009 - digital energy journal 17
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 18

Production
Integrate data streams
The corporate planning process relies heavi-
ly on integrating a wide variety of data from
disparate data sources.
MEP addresses integration on several
levels.
First is the integration of the myriad of
data types required and organizing them into
their logical relationships. This data includes
production forecasts, reserves, economics,
financials, general asset information and
more.
Second is the integration and resolution
of the same type of data from different
sources.
While companies strive to standardize
on a single solution for specific processes,
in reality, different systems still exist (for ex-
ample, in the specific case of recent acquisi-
tions) for the same information. MEP has
technologies to integrate data from the vari-
ous sources.
Third is the integration of actuals with
plan information in the appropriate context, Advanced visualization technologies from Tableau Software can be used to mine valuable
e.g., production, revenues, operating and business insights in multiple dimensions, securely across the enterprise
capital expenditure etc. This capability al-
lows for continued monitoring and adjust-
ments as required.
During field testing, the solution en- ly across the enterprise. approval criteria.
abled integration of economics data from Collaboration technologies can also New project proposals are automatical-
multiple third-party systems and general as- bring significant efficiencies to various as- ly routed to the manager for approval, ap-
set information from a proprietary system. pects of the process. pearing in the manager’s dashboard, where
For example, evaluation and approval their performance against the criteria is vi-
Intelligent data cube of new project proposals can be greatly sim- sually displayed. The manager can then effi-
All of the planning data that is being auto- plified - an asset manager can designate stan- ciently approve the project proposals, or
matically gathered and updated is stored in a dard metrics (e.g., production, capital invest- identify issues and collaborate further to re-
central database with a data structure spe- ment, operating costs, cash flow and govern- solve them.
cially designed for fast analysis of data in re- ment share) and specify quality control or In field testing MEP demonstrated the
al time. potential to halve project process time, in-
The OLAP (online analytical process- crease confidence in results (due to reduced
ing) Cube allows data to be stored along economist workload and enabling a stage
multiple dimensions unique to the industry, gate approval process) and reduce a two-
thereby creating and preserving context. month report generation time by at least
For example, evaluations may be cap- 75%.
tured with information about their strategic
themes, approval stages and for various Saheed Kenku is the global portfolio busi-
commodity price scenarios. ness manager for Merak software at
Creating and preserving this context Schlumberger Information Solutions, a
makes it possible to ask and answer subse- position he has held since January, 2008.
quent questions without having to go back He has over 12 years of experience in the
and collect more data. The efficient use of oil and gas industry focused mainly on pe-
time periods and organizational levels is al- troleum economics and corporate plan-
so important. ning solutions.
For example, many oil and gas compa- During this time he has held various con-
nies would expect the first year of the long- sulting, marketing, business development
range plan to translate into the budget, albeit and management positions and been re-
at a finer level of detail and specified month- sponsible for several projects around the
ly. globe. He holds a bachelors degree in
Chemical Engineering from the Universi-
Share information ty of Birmingham and a Masters degree in
With MEP, advanced visualization technolo- Saheed Kenku, global portfolio business Petroleum Engineering from Imperial
gies can be utilized to mine valuable busi- manager for Merak at Schlumberger College, London.
ness insights in multiple dimensions, secure- Information Solutions

18 digital energy journal - October/November 2009

DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 19
Autodesk - 3D plant design software
Autodesk, a leader in 2D and 3D design software, has launched AutoCAD Plant 3D 2010, bringing the
benefits of model-based design to mainstream plant design products.
www.autodesk.com/autocadplant3d
Autodesk produces 2D and 3D design soft-
ware for the manufacturing, building and en-
gineering and media and entertainment mar-
kets, including the world's leading computer
aided design software AutoCAD. The compa-
ny claims it has over 9 million users in total.
AutoCAD Plant 3D 2010 can be used to
design process plants in 3D models as well as
2D piping and instrumentation schematics.
The solution is designed to help the typically
small teams which work on operation, main-
tenance and expansion of plant facilities.
There is already 3D design software on
the market for the process plant industry but
Autodesk believes that the existing software
is so expensive and complicated it could only
be used on the largest or highest budget proj-
ects.
With the launch of the new solution, Au-
todesk is making software accessible to small-
er projects, such as retrofits, upgrades and ex-
pansions on tight budgets. Autodesk says it is
'democratising the technology'.
"Autodesk has never been a niche play-
er. We see it as a key part of our role to refine
high-end and complex technology to make it
both usable and useful for the mainstream
market," says Abel Smit, senior director sales
and business development, plant solutions
with Autodesk SA.
In particular, the new 3D plant design
software can easily be used on 'brownfield'
projects - working on old plant - because users
can quickly build up a model of the plant they
Automating Your Fields
Houston company GlobaLogix helps oil and gas companies feed field data into office decision making
systems, so they can run the fields more efficiently and intelligently.
GlobaLogix has built its business by helping
energy companies turn their operational data
into actionable information. Information that
can be used to prevent mishaps and shut-
downs, and run operations more efficiently
and intelligently.
The company has seen extraordinary
growth since it was founded in 2004. Glob-
aLogix now has 100 employees and claimed
1300 per cent growth in 2007, 50 per cent
growth in 2008, and a further 50 per cent
Production
already have,
even if they
don't have any
of the designs in
digital form.
It looks
similar to Auto-
CAD software
which many
people are fa-
miliar with, the
company says.
The soft-
ware can be
used to work out
how different
plant items can
fit together, us-
ing standard part Designing oil and gas plant with AutoCAD Plant 3D
catalogues or by
adding in draw-
ings of specific
pieces of equipment, covering the piping, which develops services for the nuclear ener-
equipment and support structures. And draw- gy industry.
ings can be produced quickly using the soft- Across the oil and gas industry as a
ware. whole, Autodesk has tools for visualisation,
If you already have the CAD drawings equipment design and plant design.
of the parts you are putting together to build AutoCAD is used by nine out of 10 en-
the plant, you can use the software to incorpo- gineers, the company claims.
rate those as well. This is the first time Autodesk has devel-
AutoCAD Plant 3D 2010 has already oped software for piping design. The compa-
been used by Veolia Water Solutions to put a ny set up a plant design group about three
bid together for a water treatment plant in Sin- years ago to develop the software.
gapore, and by EnergySolutions, a company
growth is expected in 2009, despite the tively address problems.
downturn. The company has been involved To do this, the company employs teams
in projects all over the US, Mexico, and off- of project managers, field technicians, elec-
shore, and even a coal bed methane field in trical, communications and IT engineers. It
Australia. also has programmers and information man-
The company believes it has found its agement experts skilled in working out ex-
niche by combining several useful skills and actly what information and reports energy
services in one package – offering services professionals in different roles need, so
that follow the data path from the wellhead GlobaLogix can provide them with exactly
to the Web site to help customers remotely the actionable information they are looking
monitor their oil and gas assets and proac- for to do their job – whether in terms of
October/November 2009 - digital energy journal 19
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 20
Production
alarms if something is going wrong, or re-
ports showing performance over a period of
time.
The company also provides a lot of
consultancy. “We spend a lot of time with
the clients evaluating what’s already there,”
says Jim Fererro, co-founder and vice presi-
dent,” and presenting plans that incorporate
existing equipment into new systems.”
“Most companies have made some in-
vestment in automation technology, but are
not necessarily getting the most out of it. We
begin by looking at what they have already
bought, and then determine how we can
weave that together into an infrastructure
that gives them the end product they need.”
Many customers appreciate the fact that
they can work with one team with all the
necessary skills, and all have an understand-
ing of the business, Mr Fererro says. “With
GlobaLogix, you don’t ever have a situation
where an IT guy is developing a screen when
he’s never actually seen a compressor. The
programmer who works on the SCADA sys-
tem is on the same team as the field techni-
cians, both working for the same project
manager.”
Some companies also choose Glob-
aLogix because it can install a standard sys-
tem across all of their wells in the world –
and this is better than working with separate
companies for each region to automate their
field operations.
GlobaLogix also helps companies in-
corporate their well data into their Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP)systems, where
they also manage other business data, such
as accounts and personnel information.
By tying the data about employees in
the ERP with data from the wellsite, it is pos-
sible to operate more efficiently. For exam-
ple, a company could track field operations
staff in the field, and quickly find out where
the nearest person with a specific skill set is
to the wellsite when there is an alarm.
The right data
Working out which data to capture in a SCA-
DA system to meet the needs of people in
various oil company roles is often the pri-
mary challenge, especially when the cost as-
sociated with the data stream is considered.
The company accountants are concerned
with different data than the operations or en-
gineering groups.
“Sometimes it’s assumed that all data
can be captured,” he says. “Sometimes they
start with a wish list – the client wants every-
thing every millisecond. Then when they un-
derstand what the cost is – they reduce that
by 90 percent.”
“A lot of our activity gets into helping
them prioritize what has value.
20 digital energy journal - October/November 2009
A complex piece of plant generates a large amount of data - GlobaLogix helps you convert that
to useful information in the office so you can make decisions
We start off by spending a lot of time
really understanding what they’re trying to
do with the data – and then establish the pri-
ority – which of these areas are causing the
most pain right now,” he says. And of course
different people have different priorities.
“[for example] Geologists’ interest in data is
very different from production managers,”
he says.
GlobaLogix will often look at the data
people have been collecting by hand – and
work on the basis that it indicates the high-
est priority data, and the first which should
be automated.
As one example of GlobaLogix work,
in one offshore project, the customer was
collecting large streams of data and sending
them back to the office. The bandwidth re-
quired was expensive and unsustainable.
GlobaLogix got involved and in talking to
the engineers evaluating the data, realized
that real time data was only important when
the data points started changing. “We devel-
oped algorithms that monitor rate of change
of data points,” he says.
“For that project, we only actually
transmit data in high speed packets when
there’s information that’s changing. Other
times they just get a pulse of information
saying everything is staying the same. This
leads to a significant reduction in communi-
cations costs.”
Data Transmission and Infrastructure
GlobaLogix works independently of any one
technology product or vendor so a key
strength for customers is that the company
can work with existing and new equipment
to custom make a solution to the problem at
hand. For example, for the communications
component of a data automation system,
GlobaLogix can install a wide range of dif-
ferent communications options, depending
on which one is better for the project, includ-
ing WiFi, WiMAX,Microwave, serial radio,
Ethernet radio, satellite and DSL.
The company can also store data on site
if there is ever a problem with the communi-
cations link (e.g. due to equipment failure or
solar panels being out of action for a while
due to a snowstorm).
The field data (e.g. from tank level
gauges, flow meters and compressors) can
be provided from the equipment in a variety
of different protocols, including MODBUS,
fieldbus, Hart or proprietary protocols.
Regardless of the collection method,
data is generally brought into a SCADA (su-
pervisory control and data acquisition) sys-
tem. SCADA is software which understands
the equipment language, and turns it into
useful information for people, including vi-
sual displays and reports.
The SCADA system will also sort out
alarm priorities, ensuring that if there is more
than one alarm at once, the user is alerted to
the most important one first.
Future Growth
In general, most customers understand the
benefit of automatic data capture more than
they did a few years ago, Mr Fererro says,
and this has helped spur GlobaLogix’ rapid
growth.
“We’ll continue to expand our business
to offer customers the data automation serv-
ices they need to improve their operations,”
Mr Fererro says. “Our company is built on
the idea that an oil or gas field can operate
as smoothly as the most efficient factory
floor and we’ll keep working towards that
goal.”
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 15:18 Page 21
Shell’s HSE director talks about safety
Safety managers should be ready to challenge and should be the kind of people with the “headroom” to
run the business one day says Kieron McFadyen, head of global health and safety with Shell.
Shell wants its safety managers out in the
field challenging what people are doing, not
“waiting for the phone the ring,” said Kieron
McFadyen, head of global health and safety
with Shell, speaking at a breakfast meeting
during Aberdeen’s Offshore Europe event.
“One of the biggest ways we can get im-
provements is people taking the time to en-
gage with staff on site. We need to put our-
selves in the environments that we create,”
he said.
“A few years ago, I did one hour safety
visits (to platforms) on a monthly basis. But
this is not good enough. It’s at 10pm at night
that people tell you that the system doesn’t
work. You have to let the helicopter go home
and stay overnight.”
Shell has had a traffic light system for
its safety for many years – red, amber, green.
The “red” issues are normally obvious and
need as much management support as possi-
ble. But the “green” problems might indicate
complacency and need continuous challeng-
ing. So the motto is “support the red and chal-
lenge the green,” he said.
Most of all, the best way people can
maintain safety is by continuing to work to-
gether and learning from each other, and get-
ting out there, he said. You have to make sure
that safety is everybody’s “number one
choice.”
“There’s no quick fixes and panaceas –
at the end of the day its plain hard work.”
Shell expects everybody to take respon-
sibility for their own safety – it is not some-
thing you can depend on your managers to
sort out for you, because there are many
things they don’t know.
Root causes
“Going back, we find 80 per cent of incidents
are due in a large part by failure to comply
with safety rules (looking at root causes),” he
said. “We need to impose zero tolerance for
rule breaking, and make rules clear.”
Shell recently completed a project to
identify which incidents had the most poten-
tial accidents, then set clear rules which must
be followed by all Shell employees and con-
tractors. For example, don’t phone and drive.
“If you choose not to follow the rules, you
choose not to work for Shell,” he said.
If the rules are broken there are also
consequences for the people managing the
staff who broke the rules.
A major focus is “process safety,” he
said – ensuring that facilities are well de-
signed, properly operated and maintained,
with multiple barriers which could prevent a
chain of events leading to a loss of contain-
ment.
Typically 50 per cent of oil and gas in-
dustry fatalities a year come from road acci-
dents. “At Shell we drive 2bn km a year – of-
ten in the most challenging environments. It’s
been the no 1 cause of fatalities,” he said.
“We started a road safety expertise cen-
tre – with a road safety global manager,” he
said.
“We aim to reduce road travel - more
transport by bus, accommodation near work
sites. More use of rail and water. It works.”
“We have in-vehicle management sys-
tems in all our vehicles – which can monitor
behaviours.”
In Sakhalin, Shell’s efforts to encourage
seat belt wearing had an impact beyond its
own employees. “We helped Sakhalin police
to improve seat belt wearing rates from 5 per
cent to 85 per cent – with rapidly increasing
traffic,” he said.
Supply chain
Shell has calculated that 95 per cent of fatal
incidents have involved its supply chain part-
ners. “It’s clearly an area where we can make
a big difference,” he said.
Shell recently held a meeting to discuss
safety management with its major contractors,
and many of them had suggestions of what
Shell could to improve safety management.
“It was the best meeting – but it was
tough for Shell to be there,” he said.
“The suppliers said making clear re-
quirements would help them. They also
wanted to get involved,” he said.
Safety equipment
One delegate from a personal protective
equipment (PPE) manufacturer asked him
what he thought PPE manufacturers could do
to contribute more to safety.
“I can’t comment specifically on PPE,
but my call to all those in the Safety arena to
make sure that in our efforts to try and pro-
tect people, we should be mindful not to
overcomplicate things for people.”
“I worry that with some of our basic
safety things we make it more complicated
than might be necessary.”
LTI –a good indicator?
One delegate asked how good an indication
of overall safety the number of years without
October/November 2009 - digital energy journal
Production
lost time injury
is. “One plat-
form had 10
years without a
LTI, but it was-
n’t a very good
standard,” the
questioner said.
Mr Mc-
Fadyen replied
that Shell aims
to look at a
range of differ-
ent indicators – “There’s no quick fixes and
including lag- panaceas – at the end of
ging indicators the day its plain hard
work.” - Kieron McFadyen,
(which tell you head of global health and
what has hap- safety with Shell
pened such as a
lost time injury)
and leading indicators (which indicate what
is currently happening which might lead to
an accident in future).
Examples of leading indicators include
the number of overdue inspections, how
much of the maintenance budget has been
spent. “This is everyday stuff, its vigilance,”
he said.
Drugs
One delegate involved in the offshore indus-
try said that the biggest safety problem is
drugs and alcohol. After his company imple-
mented a zero tolerance drugs and alcohol
policy, it “lost 50-60 great people,” he said.
Mr McFadyen said it came down to
people supporting their colleagues but also
being able to challenge them. “You should be
able to say to people, “This is not right”,” he
said.
“And if people feel the need to be heard
and they’re not being heard – they need to be
able to get to me.
Bureaucracy
Mr McFadyen was asked about how to avoid
safety regulation turning into an overly com-
plex bureaucracy which can get in the way
of achieving safety objectives.
“At times we’ve been a bit overly com-
prehensive – which leads to complexity,” he
said. “If you’re a contract operator and want
to understand what we want, you have to sift
through all that stuff. We have a tendency to
overcomplicate, we need the right balance.
“But my worry is that we may overly
simplify, which is worse.”
21
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 22
Production
Digital Oilfield 2.0 - it’s about the business
We are now moving to phase 2.0 of the Digital Oilfield, where vendors are expected to not just provide
technology, but also ensure that their customers achieve business success with it, says Dutch Holland,
PhD, Holland & Davis LLC.
Digital energy technology was once known
more for being new, exciting and promising
than for actually re-shaping how the oil and
gas industry works on a daily basis. The Dig-
ital Oilfield (DOF) concept, having been in
play for awhile, lets companies be more or-
ganized, more focused and operate with less
waste.
What is new today about DOF is how
decision-makers view and manage it.
The new business model is for vendors
discovering they need to take their customers
all the way to the bank. They must be able to
work with a client who is diagnosing a field
and determining what digital technology can
do, all the way through planning and execu-
tion – to ultimately deliver business value.
Practically speaking, providers must
move away from extolling and supporting the
next “sexy” app and transform themselves to
be able to provide complete solutions all the
way to client success.
No simple challenge, this means that no
longer can an app be “dumped by the door”
by solution providers with the comment:
“Technically, it does everything it’s supposed
to. If your (oil and gas client) engineers can’t
use it - well, that’s beyond the scope of our
assignment or responsibility.”
A more-timely expression to replace
“DOF project” may be a “business transfor-
mation project enabled by DOF technology.”
When companies focus primarily (or ex-
clusively) on getting technology up and run-
ning in the organization, they are actually
steering their people in the wrong direction.
Companies should re-title the box in
which they have been working and start re-
directing digital technology resources more
toward achieving business results.
Another major shift among solution
providers (or vendors) is they have expanded
their business pitch and, without modesty, are
saying they can cover the solutions landscape
from A to Z.
Essentially that entails going from diag-
nostics to design, to development of applica-
tions and infrastructure, getting systems ready
for the company, getting the company ready
for the systems and infrastructure and even,
in some cases, managing DOF infrastructure.
That means they are either capable of
supporting each oil and gas company all the
way from diagnosis to operations ... or they
22 digital energy journal - October/November 2009
are not.
Solution providers are making all the
“right comments” for DOF 2.0 success but
they have to do more than just talk, they have
to “walk the talk.” In order to serve their cus-
tomers from A to Z they must have major new
organizational/business competencies put in-
to place.
Unfortunately for some vendors, trans-
forming the way they operate, especially if
they are product-oriented, may prove to be a
Herculean task which is to say utterly daunt-
ing or even impossible.
Why? To “walk the talk,” providers
must embrace and become proficient in all
three elements of the transformation para-
digm: technology, processes, and people.
They must be able to modify customer
technologies, help modify their customers’
work processes as well as helping customers
align their people and performance systems
that oil and gas companies currently utilize to
manage them.
Organisational change
A multi-part model, Engineering Organiza-
tional Change, already exists for vendors to
mature their business to the DOF 2.0 level.
Instead of letting customer RFPs slowly drag
them into the new era, they can proactively
engineer their way to a more mature opera-
tion.
First, it is critical to tackle a transforma-
tion initiative to mature a provider’s way of
working with a “project mindset.” Therefore,
providers must begin by forming an internal
project to effect the change i.e., turning the
initiative into a disciplined project to mature
their organization’s services to be able to
serve customers from A to Z.
Second, DOF providers must develop
and communicate a broader vision to their as-
sociates/employees. In one respect, they
should let employees see themselves in the
near future engaged with the customer in
technology, work processes and people align-
ment. And this is perhaps the biggest change
because previously the vision would have on-
ly seen solution providers and customer em-
ployees working solely with the technology.
Additionally, providers need to develop
and communicate how their organization will
support customers in the DOF 2.0 era. That
support is expansive --from diagnostic to de-
sign, to infra-
structure, to
system and
business
readiness,
sometimes
even to opera-
tions, i.e.,
from A to Z.
Third,
the providers’
internal work
processes will
need to be al-
tered or “When companies focus
primarily (or exclusively) on
added. Now getting technology up and
they will have running in the
to break the organization, they are
mold and add actually steering their
work process- people in the wrong
direction.” - Dutch Holland,
es that go be- CEO Holland & Davis
yond software
selection, im-
plementation and systems integration to
processes and methodologies that focus on
preparing customers for the use of the tech-
nology to create business value: increased
production and maximized recoverable re-
sources.
Fourth, the providers’ internal
tools/technology will have to be altered or
added to support A to Z work processes,
which might include adding models and sim-
ulations that detail the business readiness
process and collaboration tools that can be
used both by customers and other vendors (a
sticky situation for most providers).
And fifth, providers must alter their peo-
ple management systems by setting up new
organizational leadership structure with Value
Creation (as opposed to “Technical Opera-
tions”) as the focus. Additionally, new value-
oriented job descriptions must be written,
business readiness people must be brought on
board, employees must be trained on business
value/readiness ... from A to Z. Getting busi-
ness user feedback will be critical.
For providers willing to invest in trans-
forming their own competencies, three goals
can be achieved: longer-lasting customer re-
lationships, they can more likely keep their
“seats,” and they can keep the door open to
selling the next round of whiz-bang digital
technology and services.
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 23
UK's EIC - updates on oil and gas projects
The UK’s Energy Industries Council (EIC)
has launched a new service called EIC Mon-
itor, providing an update on energy projects,
taking information from EIC’s substantial
projects database.
EIC Monitor can provide very useful
information such as indications of economic
recovery, the number of new projects look-
ing for contractors, growth in renewable en-
ergy projects, which industry sectors have
been hardest hit by the recession and so on.
The data is pulled out of EIC DataS-
tream, possibly the world’s most comprehen-
sive database of energy industry projects
which are available for contract, who is bid-
ding on them, contract values, and who has
won them.
You can easily search for different con-
tractors, regions, or contract types. For ex-
ample, if someone is planning a trip to Abu
Dhabi, they can see all the projects out there
currently out to tender, or they can instantly
see every project BP is working on.
Much of the information is either pro-
RFID for oilfield operations
There have been many improvements in reliability to RFID (radio frequency identification) tag technology
for oilfield operations over past years, says Merrick Systems – and now they’re tough enough to be used
on drill pipe.
It is easy to see the appeal of installing RFID
on oilfield equipment. It allows engineers,
managers and the C-suite alike to keep track
of where equipment is and where it has been.
RFID technology is widely used in
many industries such as retail, medical,
transportation and packaging, but new tech-
nologies now allow RFID tags to survive the
harsh environments of oilfield operations –
extreme temperatures, pressures, corrosion,
abrasives and vibrations, as well as be read-
able through drilling mud and dirt.
The problem, says Steve Ball, RFID
Business Manager with Houston-based Mer-
rick Systems, is that many companies tried
RFID in the past – back when tags weren't
tough enough for the oilfield – and gave up
on it once the tags failed.
Through many years of research and
development, Merrick has developed a sys-
tem it says is tough enough for the oilfield
industry. Now is the time for those who were
frustrated by RFID in the past to have anoth-
er look at it.
“In oil and gas you need hard, robust
vided by, or verified by, the original client.
EIC has built up contacts at most oil compa-
nies and contractors around the world, and
they are happy to provide the information,
because EIC helps them pass the informa-
tion around, says Matt Smith, Scottish Mem-
bership Manager with the EIC. “We’ve got
personal contacts at every oil company in the
world,” he says.
The database has about 7,500 active
projects on it at any time, and 5 full time
staff working on maintaining it in the Lon-
don Head Office plus one in each of the
EIC’s overseas offices. Some projects have
been tracked over as long as 6 years. EIC has
been tracking projects since the organisation
was founded in the 1940s, but gradually mi-
grated the system from one based on paper
and physical meetings to an electronic sys-
tem over the past decade.
You can set projects as your
‘favourites’ and get an e-mail if there is any
update. You can study which parts of the
world have the highest value projects on ten-
tags that can stand up to an extreme environ-
ment,” Mr Ball says. “They are going to be
painted, sand blasted, they need to be read-
able through mud, and they need to be reli-
able when used over and over again.”
Merrick’s patented tags have been de-
signed to survive pressure up to 20,000 psi
and temperatures of 360 degrees F, making
them suitable for rigs and drills. They can al-
so withstand high corrosion, meaning they
will outlast the life of the asset they are at-
tached to.
Over the longer term, oil companies
might aim to have their entire inventories
tagged – and many companies are already
starting along this path.
“There's a lot of design work and engi-
neering that's gone into developing and test-
ing these tags and making sure they are sur-
vivable,” said Kemal Farid, Merrick’s CEO.
“We’ve invested many years to getting
where we are today.”
“The adoption curve is long - it is happen-
ing steadily but slowly,” said Mr. Farid. “We're
still in the early part of the adoption cycle.”
October/November 2009 - digital energy journal
Production
der, for example when considering where to
set up the office.
EIC has over 580 members – all UK
companies involved in supplying goods and
services to the energy industries (or non UK
companies with a UK subsidiary), from
companies employing under 10 people to
enormous contractors. The member compa-
nies employ an estimated 1 million people
in total and have an aggregate turnover in ex-
cess of £100 billion.
EIC is headquartered in London with a
number of offices around the world, includ-
ing Houston, Rio de Janeiro and Dubai.
There are 50 staff members.
The organisation also runs a large num-
ber of events to help its members win busi-
ness – for example, if there is a big project
going out to tender, it will invite the project
director to make a presentation, so the po-
tential contractors can find out more. It also
runs training sessions and international trade
missions and organises the UK pavilion at
10 international exhibitions each year.
Merrick's radio tag for drill pipe is actually
inserted within the body of the drill pipe and
painted over (two tags are visible in this
picture)
The Merrick drill tag
Merrick’s RFID tags are about the size of a
5 cent piece, with a hole in the middle, so
they can be affixed to the tool joint of drill
23
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 24
Production
pipe.
“You just drill a small pocket in the tool
joint, thread the hole and you screw the tag
into it,” said Mr. Farid. “People can attach it
to almost any kind of surface—it’s a very ro-
bust mounting”.
“They've been designed to stay affixed
to drilling equipment during their typical use
or extreme use for that well,” said Mr. Ball.
“We've had the tags survive drilling through
the most abrasive formations.”
Merrick’s portfolio of tags can be in-
stalled on risers, drill pipe, downhole tools,
flow iron, logging tools, wireline tools and
any surface or subsurface equipment. “Some
of our tags are going through testing, some
are in production, some are already in cus-
tomer pilots, and some are in full operation”
said Mr. Farid.
The cost of each tag is in the “tens of
dollars” range, Mr Farid said – more expen-
sive than tags used in a normal retail envi-
ronment because they have to be ruggedized
to meet the industry’s needs.
Once Merrick developed a tag that was
tough enough for drill pipe, customers start-
ed asking for the same tags to be installed on
all of their heavy duty equipment and risers.
One Gulf of Mexico diving company
approached Merrick after testing a range of
different identification methods on equip-
ment, including standard RFID tags and
stick-on labels, and had not found them ro-
bust enough. “The customer went through
extensive testing for every tag out there,” Mr
Farid said.
However this customer found that Mer-
rick’s tag, developed for drilling, would suc-
ceed where the other tags failed.
“It can be painted over, you can get
grease on it - it can be inset into a mechani-
cal iron configuration, it can be part of the
skid,” he said. “You can install one tag that
will last the life of the equipment, so you’re
not always replacing and re-associating tags
in the database.”
RFID’s application is meeting global
demand — Merrick currently has projects in
the US, North Sea, and in the Middle East.
There are rigs using its systems in China,
Brazil and West Africa, among other loca-
tions.
Benefits
So far, oil companies have realized many
benefits from the data generated by the ra-
dio tags.
At a basic level, the system is used to
track the location of items – to improve man-
agement of the items themselves, and track
maintenance history and requirements, cur-
rent location, and usage history.
Many oil companies benefit from track-
24 digital energy journal - October/November 2009
ing riser inspection and maintenance infor-
mation using RFID technology to make sure
what goes in the hole will get the job done.
“The inspection information is record-
ed on an intrinsically safe handheld device,
then uploaded to our system on the rig,
which in turn transmits to the ERP system,”
said Mr. Ball.
The system can also be used to keep
track of the history of specific pieces of pipe.
For example, if a dogleg has been drilled,
one length of pipe has been fatigued and
probably needs to be pulled out of service
when the drill pipe is removed. RFID allows
engineers to track that usage and ensure that
the fatigued pipe is replaced with a more
suitable joint. The benefit of RFID is that
the removed joint can be utilized in a less se-
vere location in the drill string to fully uti-
lize the life cycle of that pipe joint.
“You collect history about how the
pipe's been used that tells you whether or not
it’s appropriate for the drilling operations,”
said Mr. Farid.
The system also makes it possible to
configure more complex drill strings. When
building a string, engineers put together dif-
ferent types of pipe at different depths. If a
pipe is mislabeled or its usage hasn’t been
tracked properly, it can be placed in the
string incorrectly, causing the string to fail.
“This system can help ensure your drill
string is being built as planned, with the right
pipe in the right order,” said Mr. Farid.
“This may also turn out to be a very im-
portant technology in automated drilling,”
he said. “If you have automated equipment,
it needs to be able to correctly identify the
piece of equipment it’s picking up - ensur-
ing the right piece of equipment is used in
the right order. You have to use RFID for that
- you don’t use barcodes.”
There are also safety benefits to RFID
because it makes it easier to set up systems
to monitor that the right equipment is being
used for the current job.
Choosing your standard
Tags aren’t one size fits all – There is a range
of different RFID technologies available to
meet specific needs, including passive tags,
which can be scanned manually, and active
tags, which are battery-powered and active-
ly send out signals for scanners to pick up.
There is also a choice of low and high fre-
quency which affects the distance at which a
tag can be read. More advanced systems can
integrate with a GPS (global positioning
satellite receiver), for near real-time asset
tracking.
But in the oilfield, the most appropriate
technology is probably the most robust one
– no batteries in the tags, and low frequency
data – which means the data is less suscepti-
ble to interruption from paint, mud, drill flu-
id and dirt.
Lower frequency tags are also most
suitable for achieving accurate reads at short
distances of equipment that is close togeth-
er, like on a pipe rack, Mr. Ball said.
A high frequency data tag might be ap-
propriate if you want to (for example) track
items in a truck by scanning a pallet as it
drives past a reader. However, because of the
asset orientation, varying distances and
speeds at which the tags will scan, the relia-
bility of scanning can be compromised.
Higher frequency tags are also less
likely to be readable through grit. It is also
not possible to mount a high frequency tag
directly on metal because of interference –
for example, tollway tags that use higher fre-
quencies must be mounted on the glass
windshield.
“I think the complexity of the different
frequencies and types of tags available is
contributing to the long adoption cycle. En-
gineering groups, IT departments, produc-
tion companies and drilling companies are
all getting up to speed on their options,” said
Mr. Farid.
Merrick has a variety of different tag
types in its system, including its own designs
and off-the-shelf products. It uses standard
RFID communications systems to ensure
that its products are compatible with other
systems.
Data management
Data read from the tags can be kept on stand-
alone software, or integrated with mainte-
nance management systems or riser manage-
ment systems.
“We brought our experience from the
last decade and a half with field computing
in oil and gas production environment when
we launched this tool,” Farid said.
Merrick’s software tool can integrate
with a company’s enterprise asset manage-
ment system (such as SAP or Oracle), and
can run on mobile devices, so users can ac-
cess data literally from the field.
Merrick also provides a range of asso-
ciated consulting service, to help customers
determine what equipment they will track,
how they will install the tags and how they
will get the best out of the information.
RFID’s early adopters are finding that
the technology has many potential uses that
are still being uncovered. Mr. Farid added,
“Once you have the ability to electronically
identify a piece of equipment and know what
it is, the applications are limitless - this is re-
ally going to be able to change the game of
drilling operations and asset traceability.”
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 25
ConocoPhillips – using ASCI’s inventory
software
ConocoPhillips has signed a deal to use inventory management software purchased from Asset
Management Services (AMS), to manage its global supply chains, both upstream and downstream.
The deal follows a three year trial of the soft-
ware by ConocoPhillips at three of its largest
upstream sites; Alaska, Indonesia and North
Sea.
AMS is a subsidiary of supply chain
management company Advanced Supply
Chain International (ASCI).
The specific software tool purchased is
called OAS – Inventory, developed by Aus-
tralian company Oniqua Enterprise Analyt-
ics.
Put simply, the software helps you
make sure you have the optimum amount of
inventory in your storage at any time – not
too much that you have more capital tied up
than you need to (and higher storage
charges), but not too little that you risk run-
ning out of an important item and not hav-
ing it available in storage. It also helps you
ensure you are not purchasing items you no
longer needs. The software can integrate di-
rectly with purchasing systems, maintenance
management systems and enterprise resource
planning (ERP) systems.
“When working with a customer, we
usually see some areas where they are over-
stocked and other areas they are under-
stocked,” says Mike Schwarz, business de-
velopment manager of ASCI.
ASCI estimates that companies can
typically reduce their inventories by 15 to 25
percent by using the software – and of course
the additional benefits that come from hav-
ing something readily on hand which you
might otherwise have run out of, are very
hard to quantify.
“The software’s return on investment,
calculated in terms of money saved by not
having it tied up in inventory, over cost of
the software, is usually in “double digits”,”
Mr. Schwarz says.
The software gathers together all avail-
able data about the company division’s con-
sumption habits of various items, to try to
predict what will be needed in future.
Production
To make an analogy with your home re-
frigerator – imagine a software system which
would gather data about your orange juice
consumption habits over the past three years
and how often you go to the supermarket –
it could probably make a good guess of how
many gallons of orange juice you should
purchase on your next trip so you never run
out, and also ensure you never end up throw-
ing out of date orange juice away, or run out
of space in your refrigerator. It could do the
same for everything else you purchase as
well. For busy families, particularly who of-
ten buy groceries online, this could be quite
helpful.
Companies using the software can have
between 10,000 and 400,000 individual
items they need to manage inventory of,
rather more than you probably have in your
kitchen cupboards.
“There are a number of other inventory
management software packages on the mar- “The software’s return on investment,
ket,” says Mr. Schwarz, “but they are main- calculated in terms of money saved by not
ly geared for predictable manufacturing op- having it tied up in inventory, over cost of the
erations – so are not so suitable for oil and software, is usually in “double digits”, - Mike
Schwarz, business development manager of
gas plants which have much more vari-
ASCI
ables”.
Of course, it is impossible to perfectly But most importantly, users should not
predict how much inventory you need in have to spend time sorting through individ-
storage when you don’t know what you will ual component orders – they just tell the soft-
need tomorrow – even with the best soft- ware what has changed since last month at
ware. But ASCI’s tools help users refine their plant, and the software changes the or-
things until they feel they have the right bal- ders automatically.
ance. “The inventory analyst is presented
The software takes into consideration with the capability to go in and model dif-
how critical a certain item is to the running ferent scenarios - e.g. if they know in a
of the plant when determining the optimum month they are going to use more of a cer-
stocking level. It also takes into considera- tain item than is anticipated by the usage his-
tion how long it can take to obtain a part di- tory,” says Mr. Schwarz. “We put a lot of
rectly from a supplier if needed, even if it business rules and business logic into the
gets stuck in customs for 10 days on the way. software.”
“It is easy to update the software with The system can also be installed at
plant changes that will affect its consump- brand new sites (with no purchasing activi-
tion habits – such as pieces of the plant be- ty) – it can start off with an estimate and re-
ing decommissioned,” ASCI says. fine it as it goes along.
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DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 26

Communications

Tracking helicopters outside radar coverage

Oil and Gas UK has launched a system to automatically track the location of helicopters when they are
outside radar coverage – collecting data from their transponders.

UK oil and gas industry association Oil and
gas UK, together with the UK’s National Air
Traffic Services Ltd (NATS), have built a
system to track helicopters going to offshore
platforms by their transponder data, when
they are outside normal radar coverage.
Radar can be used to track the helicop-
ters up to around 100 miles off the Scottish
coast, but most of the platforms offshore Ab-
erdeen are around 200 miles away.
Until now, when the helicopters were
outside radar coverage, they reported their
positions to Aberdeen air traffic control ver-
bally every 10 minutes or every 20 miles.
This means that if they have an acci-
dent just after providing a position report,
the authorities won’t know about it until 10
minutes later, and the rescue operation needs
to look through 20 miles of sea to find it.
It also means that the helicopter posi-
tions are being tracked manually (at Ab-
erdeen, using a system of plastic strips on a
board), rather than by computer.
But with the new system, authorities
will be able to keep continuous track of the
helicopters, with a number of position re-
ports every minute. So if there is a problem
and the helicopter stops transmitting, the au-
thorities will have a much more precise idea
about where it is – and they will also be able
to give its more precise position to nearby
helicopters which might be able to provide
equipment.
At the same time, the very high fre-
quency (VHF) voice communications net-
works for communications with helicopter
pilots have also been upgraded, with 3 more
VHF stations installed.
£5.3m was spent on the multilateration
and improved VHF systems. There will also
be ongoing cost to support the system and
pay for satellite and fibre optic communica-
tions from the platform.
Following the helicopter tragedy in Ab-
erdeen on April 1st 2009, a helicopter Acci-
dent Issues Task Group has been set up at Oil
and Gas UK, chaired by Bob Keiller, CEO
of
Production Services Network, an 8,500
employee company headquartered in Ab-
erdeen. Mr Keiller is also co-chairman of Oil
and Gas UK.
There are about 90 round trip helicop-
ter flights from Aberdeen each weekday, and
there can be 15 helicopters in the air at the
same time.
Helicopters go out from Ab-
erdeen airport to the offshore plat-
foms along fixed routes, with 3 de-
grees separation between them, (like
motorways of the air). Each route is
alternatively in bound and outbound
– so for two helicopters to be travel-
ling outbound, the closest they can
be is 6 degrees apart.
Helicopters normally travel
outbound at 3,000 feet (sometimes
1,000 feet) and inbound at 2,000
feet.
Multilateration
The system works by calculating the
position of helicopters from the vari-
ation in time their transponder radio
signal reaches at least three different
receivers, a process called multilat-
eration. The helicopters need to be tracked by the control tower
All helicopters carry transpon- when they are outside radar coverage (blue area). Their
ders which broadcast their call sign transponder data is picked up by receivers on North
Sea offshore platforms (pink area is radio coverage
and altitude continuously. area). This data is then sent back to the control tower
Transponder receivers have by satellite or fibre optic cable
been installed 16 different offshore
platforms, in four clusters of four. Each receiver has a GPS system, which
You need 3 receivers to calculate the can provide super-accurate time information.
position of a helicopter - the fourth will pro- The time the transponder signal was received
vide redundancy. is sent back to shore together with the
The data is sent back from the offshore transponder information.
platforms using whatever communications The project was in a trial phase during
options are available – fibre optic or satel- September 2009, to try to work out exactly
lite. what coverage is available.
Concentration: staff at Aberdeen Air Traffic Control track the position
of helicopters going to and from offshore platforms

26 digital energy journal - October/November 2009

DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 27
Video on demand offshore
Caprock Communications has put together a service to provide video on demand offshore via satellite –
including handling all the licensing. By Eduardo Correa, Caprock
Offshore quality of life has changed dramati-
cally over the past two years.
What was once a brief, periodic phone
call to family members has evolved into crew
morale services that provide a constant link
between remote personnel and those back
home.
Whether it’s keeping in touch with
friends and family through email or online
social networks like Facebook, now more
than ever remote crew members are capable
of staying updated on the latest happenings
in their personal lives. As on-site technology
progresses, it’s only fitting that communica-
tion providers are finding new ways to keep
the crew up-to-date on the latest in entertain-
ment as well.
Live television service to offshore sites
such as drilling rigs, maritime vessels and
FPSOs has been an added feature that some
providers have offered onboard crews for
many years.
While it’s provided the crew with a
great outlet for relaxing and re-connecting
with the world back home, it does have its
limitations.
The number of TV stations has been
limited because of the bulky equipment re-
quired to add additional channels. At the
same time, with the crew working long hours
and night shifts, they often miss their favorite
shows and don’t have the opportunity to
record them for when they are free.
While on-demand entertainment pro-
vides an answer to these challenges and no
longer restricts viewers to what’s currently
showing on live TV, it has yet to be fully uti-
lized offshore as it is onshore, even though
there is a greater need as crew’s yearn to be
connected to the world back home.
CapRock Communications has part-
nered with a variety of equipment and enter-
tainment providers to deliver vast content
possibilities through its video-on-demand
service.
The crew can select from thousands of
movies, TV programs and music options and
the trick-play capabilities such as pause, fast
forward, rewind and seek help make navigat-
ing the content that much easier.
Leveraging CapRock’s digital network
also brings a host of added benefits. It en-
ables quick channel changing, provides
closed caption options and offers interactive
program guides for live TV, formerly un-
available with analog systems.
And while it sounds like a system with
so many added benefits may require more
equipment, digital networks actually require
less equipment, freeing up critical rack space
and reducing maintenance and operational
costs.
Additionally when a rig or vessel ar-
rives in a new region, there’s no hassle to
switch out the equipment as there are no ge-
ographical limitations with CapRock’s digi-
tal network.
Beyond improving crew morale, the
most compelling benefit of the on-demand
service is that content is easily licensed and
managed by CapRock.
Owners and operators now have a legal
means to distribute the content digitally that
does not violate any copyright laws—no
more shipping DVDs and dealing with the
stringent legal issues behind watching and
distributing these movies on vessels.
CapRock is the first licensed provider
of video-on-demand content for the offshore
energy market. The content is contained and
managed on servers and comes licensed to
play, perfectly legal to use and can be ac-
cessed while a vessel is en-route or posi-
tioned in any location of the world.
CapRock’s new crew infotainment sys-
tem not only provides a means for video-on-
demand services but also integrates live TV,
music, DVD players and corporate applica-
tions including ROV feeds, CCTV and Rig
TV into a consolidated media console.
Using an easy television graphical in-
terface, users select with the remote control
which content from the entertainment system
to view. The interface is similar to what you
would find on the menu screen of a hotel tel-
evision—users can choose to watch movies,
play games, view TV and listen to music.
Further than providing the crew with a
much-needed connection to the outside
world, the corporate capabilities of the enter-
tainment system are almost endless. Video-
on-demand also enables remote personnel to
watch training videos and classes.
Since everything is digital, almost any
of the company’s media files can be played
on any television onboard the rig, including
required training and safety videos.
Companies can even set requirements on
when and how often these corporate videos
must be viewed before an employee can ac-
cess additional content on the television.
The infotainment system allows for ex-
October/November 2009 - digital energy journal
Communications
Caprock - making video on demand available
on offshore platforms (photo courtesy US
CoastGuard)
tremely advanced reporting and user controls
such as controlling viewing times for each
television (disabling video functions during
shifts), controlling channel access per televi-
sion and requiring users to watch certain con-
tent before accessing other content.
Management can even see the time and
date that the employee watched the content
for reporting and documentation. Having
these on-site training options available re-
duces travel costs by decreasing the need to
bring remote personnel back onshore for
mandatory training.
The infotainment system also allows rig
personnel to utilize televisions as monitors
for viewing rig activity and projects. When
configured with additional remote streaming
capabilities available from CapRock, man-
agers and technicians can monitor video
sources from other areas of the rig or even
outside of the rig quickly and easily.
Designated users can turn on the televi-
sion and view CCTV camera feeds from
around the rig, which not only heightens the
security of the vessel, but also helps ensure
the safety of its staff.
Other video content feeds, such as those
from remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), al-
so can be streamed through the televisions.
Specialists can watch the video feed of a sub-
sea riser being repaired in real-time without
ever leaving the break room or their living
quarters.
The technology available to the offshore
market continues to impact the quality of life
and the quality of work onboard these ves-
sels.
What’s most interesting is how we’re
finding ways to utilize onshore technologies
in the offshore world to not only improve
crew morale and standards during break time,
but also in how these technologies are being
applied to further crews’ professional devel-
opment and capabilities.
27
DEJ21:Layout 1 22/10/2009 12:52 Page 28
Communications
Microwave communications at Apache Corp.
Apache Corporation wanted faster data communications to support its drilling operations in Texas - and
faster data transmission time (latency). So it chose a Mobile Broadband Trailer System from ERF Wireless,
providing microwave data communications. By John Nagel, ERF Wireless, Inc.
During the course of 2008, ERF Wireless and
Apache Corporation have worked together to
develop a mobile, high-speed microwave IP
communication system, to support Apache's
drilling operations.
Microwave communications provide a
much faster data communication rate, and data
communication speed (lower latency) than is
available using VSAT.
ERF supplied a communications system
housed in a trailer, which it calls its Mobile
Broadband Trailer System (MBTS).
Apache Corporation wanted to install a
new communications system, because it was
upgrading its suite of drilling engineering soft-
ware and data management tools. Initial testing
and implementation indicated a need for in-
creased bandwidth and communication system
reliability.
This testing and implementation resulted
in a search for alternatives to the rig operators’
conventional satellite and landline systems, the
traditional solutions used for rig communica-
tion.
It needed a network that would provide a
real-time, continuous communication link from
remote rig sites to corporate servers located in
Houston.
Advanced well-logging and real-time col-
laboration with corporate resources housed in
distant cities requires communication links with
higher bandwidths and lower latency rates than
were available.
The nature of the land-based rig site is no-
madic, with drilling periods that generally range
from 14 to 75 days. The operation moves from
one remote location to another within days, ne-
cessitating the ability to easily reestablish a
high-speed communication link to be used by
the operating company, drilling company and
other subcontractors on the site.
Traditionally, each remote drilling and
production site was limited to a low-speed,
high-latency satellite communication link. This
link was often very expensive and could not
easily accommodate real-time collaboration in-
volving the transfer of high-bandwidth files or
any applications requiring high-capacity band-
width. Cellular coverage, if available, did not
have the speed or capacity to support advanced
third-generation digital services.
ERF Wireless, Inc., a Houston-based
wireless internet service provider, collaborated
with key Apache personnel to deliver more than
10 times the bandwidth (128 kbps to 1.5 Mbps)
28 digital energy journal - October/November 2009
and less than one-eighth of the latency (60 ms)
of traditional Very Small Aperture Terminal
(VSAT) systems—all on a nomadic trailer plat-
form.
The Mobile Broadband Trailer System fa-
cilitated real-time, continuous communication
between key personnel at the remote wellsite
and corporately secured servers at Apache’s
Houston headquarters, enabling drilling and
geophysical experts to access drilling and well
data in real time.
The increased transmission speed of criti-
cal decision-making data saved overall rig time,
reduced risk and exceeded the requirements set
by the Apache drilling group, thereby provid-
ing more efficient workflows.
The faster broadband speeds allow more
complex software applications to be run from
the wellsite than was possible with traditional
VSAT connections. It is also possible to expand
this service from a point-to-point connection to
a WiFi cloud coverage, allowing several loca-
tions to connect simultaneously without a re-
duction in bandwidth or an increase in latency.
This could provide an economic method to bet-
ter monitor permanent well and surface sensors,
allowing for better field production manage-
ment.
In addition, Apache documented that the
new broadband was delivered at a cost in line
with traditional VSAT services.
Fast decisions
Adopting a high-capacity network for data
transmission from the field would naturally re-
sult in less administrative time on several lev-
els, leading to a more productive drilling
process.
Larry Rader, drilling technical advisor for
Apache’s Central Region, called upon Pat
Moller, Apache process control systems advi-
sor, for assistance.
Mr Moller had incorporated the use of
high-speed microwave networks for packet
transport in the company’s production Supervi-
sory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA)
networks.
Although the packet sizes were much
smaller in the SCADA reporting, the concept
of network speed could be applied to the
drilling side of Apache, which required faster
networks and lower packet latency rates to han-
dle voluminous information flow.
ERF Wireless was already providing
high-speed internet to Apache’s Forbes Field
ERF Wireless has developed a mobile
microwave communication trailer system for
the oil and gas industry
office 50 miles from Lubbock, Texas. This par-
ticular field office was located more than a mile
off the local roads. The service provider was
able to offer more than 5 Mbps of internet band-
width to the site via its microwave broadband
network—typical of its Permian Basin network
speeds.
Realizing the need for better communica-
tion capability in the oil and gas field, the serv-
ice provider began to pursue a strategy where-
by the MBTS that it already used for emergency
response situations—an unfortunate but com-
mon occurrence across the Gulf Coast over the
last several years—could be customized to ad-
dress these communication needs. This produc-
tion field office became the initial test bed for
microwave communication for Apache’s
drilling operations.
After initial testing, Rader said, “I am see-
ing Internet connection speeds at this field of-
fice as fast as those I experience in my corpo-
rate offices in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma.”
Monitoring the link
ERF Wireless also provides a monitoring serv-
ice that tracks the performance of each piece of
communication equipment continuously.
Personnel at the company’s Network Op-
erations Center, located at its corporate offices,
have the ability to spot a problem prior to the
customer’s detection and to repair the link re-
motely.
The commitment to Apache is to have the
communication links operational as quickly as
possible, while maintaining a 99.95% reliabili-
ty index during drilling and production opera-
tion periods.
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“Embedding Energistics open standards into

our E&P products allows Landmark to reduce
R&D costs and enhance connectivity with our
global customers.”
Paul Koeller
President Landmark Software & Services, Halliburton
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