Integrated Reservoir Studies Roll-Up Initiative. A New Industry Step Change Innovation

Abstract

An enormous volume of data, models and decisions are gathered and generated in each and every integrated study. The ability and opportunity, however, for a multi-disciplinary project team, including management, to easily browse, review, visualize and analyze in-progress and final cross-discipline study results in a fast, responsive and easily comprehendible manner does not readily exist. Likewise, it is challenging to easily visualize the impact (potential gain and / or loss) of study uncertainties and alternative study decisions. It is suggested that the integrated Studies Decision Synergy (SDS) initiative is a major new industry step change innovation that is unparalleled in enabling a level of integrated multidisciplinary study synergy across all technical and management professionals at a pace not achieved by traditional industry means. The SDS initiative is composed of five primary components: (1) An integrated multidisciplinary study process (the Event Solution process approach), (2) A proxy, also known as a response surface, to quickly interrogate all study results, (3) Data storage and data mining, (4) Fast, interactive 2D and 3D plotting and mapping, and finally, (5) A user interface enabling process oriented study practice. This paper presents the evolutionary development (technology and process) and study improvement impact (technical workflows, study decisions and results) of the SDS initiative as an innovation product of the Saudi Aramco Event Solution Study Approach (Elrafie et al., 2007). The paper is supported with sanitized illustrations from completed world-class scaled reservoir studies. Additionally, the paper explores potential SDS applications including: (1) Real-time simulation, and (2) A content rich staff skill set development program. The ultimate objective of the SDS initiative is to facilitate easy access, retrieval and visualization of all integrated reservoir study data and decisions by a wide multidisciplinary technical and management community with a specific focus on critical study results and the relationships that exist between: (1) Study uncertainties (static, dynamic, timing, and financial), and (2) Study decisions (strategic, well and operations tactics) in the achievement and success of the project objective (i.e., off take rate, oil recovery, oil rate plateau extent, NPV, etc.).

Smart E&P Collaboration Centers: Design, Technology Support and Lessons Learned

“…For example, the Roll-Up initiative was adopted as a new integrated reservoir studies industry standard. This initiative provides Executive and Management dashboards (Figure 7) to easily explore, display and contrast study results and alternative development plan scenarios 4 . Another example is Drilling Real Time Data Hub (DRTDH) 6 , which is a data management and exchange solution for real-time drilling and completion data based on the drilling industrial standard WITSML (Figure 8).…”