How to use Big Data technologies to optimize operations in Upstream Petroleum Industry

Abstract

"Big Data is the oil of the new economy" is the most famous citation during the three last years. It has even been adopted by the World Economic Forum in 2011. In fact, Big Data is like crude! It's valuable, but if unrefined it cannot be used. It must be broken down, analyzed for it to have value. But what about Big Data generated by the Petroleum Industry and particularly its upstream segment? Upstream is no stranger to Big Data. Understanding and leveraging data in the upstream segment enables firms to remain competitive throughout planning, exploration, delineation, and field development. Oil & Gas Companies conduct advanced geophysics modeling and simulation to support operations where 2D, 3D & 4D Seismic generate significant data during exploration phases. They closely monitor the performance of their operational assets. To do this, they use tens of thousands of data-collecting sensors in subsurface wells and surface facilities to provide continuous and real-time monitoring of assets and environmental conditions. Unfortunately, this information comes in various and increasingly complex forms, making it a challenge to collect, interpret, and leverage the disparate data. As an example, Chevron's internal IT traffic alone exceeds 1.5 terabytes a day. Big Data technologies integrate common and disparate data sets to deliver the right information at the appropriate time to the correct decision-maker. These capabilities help firms act on large volumes of data, transforming decision-making from reactive to proactive and optimizing all phases of exploration, development and production. Furthermore, Big Data offers multiple opportunities to ensure safer, more responsible operations. Another invaluable effect of that would be shared learning. The aim of this paper is to explain how to use Big Data technologies to optimize operations. How can Big Data help experts to decision-making leading the desired outcomes

The Obstacles in Big Data Process

“…The lack of data analyst will also create more problems for the companies that want to do ad hoc analysis on big data and implement the new models in the market. The problems discussed in this article will result in most companies losing their customers as a result of skew in the data and misinterpretation [37][38][39][40][41].…”

Information Production and Development of Society: Causal Relationships

“…Here, 5V means quality indicators associated with the features as Volume, Velocity, Variety, Veracity and Value. In other words, Big Data is a technology discovering knowledge and true and valuable (significant) results by providing high-speed processing of extremely large-scaled data received from various sources (streams or databases in online and offline modes), which are interpretable for certain decisions [3] .…”

Conceptual Big Data Architecture for the Oil and Gas Industry

“…However, application of Big Data analytics in the oil and gas industry is still on an experimental level [13]. Only a few companies are trying to use Big data technology [14]. For example, Chevron uses Hadoop for seismic data processing (IBM BigInsights).…”