Digital Field technology has become the standard for green field development in the industry and brown fields are in the progress toward it. In this paper, the digital oilfield (DOF) technology will be outlined and one of the ongoing projects will be used as the case study. The digital field technology has evolved from only gathering data to making online analysis and real time optimization in the past forty years. The industry also leverages the platform to reduce OPEX and CAPEX by applying engineering workflows. The workflows could either replace human work with more efficient and quality job or provide proactive operation and foreseeable optimization advice. At the same time, the E&P industry are going to face more and more high frequency and high volume data challenges from technical side and change management challenges from non-technical side. The lesson learnt and successful experience will also be presented. The case study in this paper addresses the achievement of building digital field platform in one of the biggest digital oilfield projects in the world-Kuwait Intelligent Digital Field (KwIDF) project. The scenario or requirements are different form field to field around the world while customized workflows could always help operator -to work efficiently. In this project, the digital field platform not only make Kuwait Oil Company(KOC) to reduce the non-production time more than 50% and promote HSE standard to a higher level but also assist engineers to make better decision by applying production and operation workflows powered by the engineering software. The paper will also address the standing on the current digital oilfield development stage to overview the three components: the people, process and technology.
In 2009, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) launched the Kuwait Integrated Digital Field Jurassic (KwIDF-Jurassic) Project as a cross-domain solution consisting of a fully integrated infrastructure supporting field instrumentation, automated workflows, and ergonomic collaboration. The Jurassic gas field is a challenging environment consisting of heterogeneous carbonate reservoirs with natural fractures that can contribute significantly to productivity. Parts of the Jurassic reservoir consist of a tight matrix with a high density of connected fractures, but in other areas fractures are sparse and have limited connectivity. The high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) environment, the near-critical nature of the reservoir fluids, and the presence of H2S and CO2 are additional challenges for the development of the Jurassic complex. This project is the first in Kuwait to instrument gas wells with pressure and temperature gauges; H2S, gas, and corrosion sensors, and safety and control devices as a first step toward delivering on KOC's vision for integrated operations. The application of intelligent automation at the wellhead and advanced instrumentation minimizes the health, safety, and environmental (HSE) exposure of field personnel. Interventions at the wellsite can be supported by handheld portable devices embedded with work orders. New digital field work processes, supported by collaboration rooms, enable proactive, real-time decisions in accordance to the exploitation strategy defined for the field. One outcome is to use technology to leverage the competence of disciplines, such as the subsurface team, to contribute in real time to production operations as opposed to the traditional nonoperational role of studies and reviews. This paper presents a case study demonstrating the methodology and tools KOC has used to achieve timely and reliable data delivery for the Jurassic asset as part of the KwIDF-Jurassic Project.
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As oilfields mature and new fields come into operation, real time asset management of reserves is providing ongoing challenges to Kuwait Oil Company (KOC). Fewer engineers are managing more wells under increasingly tougher environmental conditions and compliance regulations. The combination of these factors has driven the need for KOC to make a step change in its approach to operations by incorporating digital field concepts to transform the way engineers are working. The result is the Kuwait Intelligent Digital Field initiative. To enable KwIDF, new technologies were deployed in both mature and immature assets, creating issues in terms of interoperability and integration thereby increasing the strain on the legacy IT infrastructure. In addition, there was the requirement to isolate the SCADA industrial networks from the corporate business networks while automating traffic control with the various enterprise data systems. This ‘managed’ separation complicated the delivery of productivity tools to employees and posed the greatest challenge to creating a transparent, seamless KwIDF infrastructure. The KwIDF Jurassic project was particularly challenging since it had the most limited existing infrastructure, requiring the design and deployment of an entirely new architecture scattered over significant distances and business areas. This in turn created significant hurdles in terms of integration and compatibility with the remainder of KOC’s proprietary systems and technologies. Specific efforts were required to allow KOC’s network infrastructure to be capable of embracing such solutions and technologies with proper security measures in place. Developing a network infrastructure to enable real time solutions for KwIDF Jurassic involved analyzing the specific business drivers of the asset to ensure that the capital investment not only delivered results, but did so within a secure environment. This paper presents the methodology employed by KOC’s Corporate IT Group (CITG) to deliver the right network infrastructure, along with lessons learned, for enabling the Kuwait Intelligent Digital Field Jurassic project.
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