#5 Digital Energy Journal - February 2007

8/9/2019 #5 Digital Energy Journal - February 2007

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February/March 2007 Issue 5

What Vista could do for oil and gas

SPE's IT Technical Section takes shape

Approaches to information management -from Shell,Aramco, ConocoPhillips, BP and Petro-Canada


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BYTES & BARRELS:

AN ENERGY RENAISSANCE

11-12 April 2007

George R. Brown Convention CenterHouston, Texas, USA

Register Now at www.spe.org/dec07

Society of Petroleum Engineers


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Feb/March 2007 Issue 5

Digital Energy Journalis published

on print 6 times a year, supported

by a free website and email news service

We cover information technology

and communications in upstream

oil and gas production,

drilling / completions and exploration.

Each issue ofDigital Energy Journalis mailed

to 2000 oil and gas executives, as well as

distributed at major trade shows such as ATCE,

Petex,Digital Energy and Intelligent Energy.

Subscriptions: GBP 195 a year for 6 issues.To subscribe, please contact circulation

manager Katerina Jeffery on

[email protected],

Digital Energy Journal, 213 Marsh Wall,

London, E14 9FJ.Alternatively you can subscribe

online at www.digitalenergyjournal.com

Front cover:

Kongsberg Maritime's ASSETT training

simulator. Aker Kvaerner has signed acontract with Kongsberg for an ASSETT

simulator for a FPSO topside

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EditorKarl Jeffery

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ContentsNews updateSPE's IT Technical SectionPlans for the Society of Petroleum Engineers' IT TechnicalSection are starting to take place, with subcommittees forsecurity,professional development, systems integration andevents

Microsoft's new VistaDigital Energy Journal interviews Craig Hodges, director of oiland gas at Microsoft, about how he believes the industry canbenefit from Vista,Office 2007 and Exchange 2007

Equipment and communicationsEquipment newsWellDynamics, Input-Output,Wavefield Inseis,Weatherford, Tideland Signal,INTEQ, Honeywell

Communications newsMicrowave Data Systems,Tyco, CapRock, Sperry,Alcatel,NesscoInvsat

Honeywell's wireless dataHoneywell would like its self-healing wireless data standard tobe incorporated as part of a new international standard

SoftwareFlare and Shell information awardFlare Solutions and Shell won a BritishComputer Society award for their informationmanagement catalogue, one of the clearestapproaches to the challenge we have seen

Scandpower's MEPO version 3Scandpower Petroleum Technology has launched version 3 of MEPO, its tool tomanage the creation of multiple reservoir models,which should give you amore accurate picture than just one

Statoil signs up to PlatformStatoil has signed up to use Platform Computing's computer managementsystem, so it can do complex number crunching on office computers whenthey are not being used, rather than in a central server farm.

Using good design to win licensesHow an oil company won 80 per cent of the licenses it applied for,by askingPrime Design to make its application look more snappy

Digital Oilfield - 6782 per cent growthDigital Oilfield of Calgary has grown its oil and gas electronicinvoicing business by 6782 per cent in 2001 to 2005

Kongsberg buys Sense IntellifieldNorwegian collaboration centre leader Sense Intellifield has been acquired for$45.7m by Kongsberg Maritime.We asked president Borge Kolstad where thecompany is headed now

IQPC Exchange LondonOil & Gas Exchange 2006Our comprehensive report from the IQPC Oil and Gas Exchange conference inLondon November 13-14, with speakers from ConocoPhillips, Shell, ChevronTechnology Ventures,Aramco, BP, Petro-Canada and the UK Department ofTrade and Industry

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SPE's IT Technical Section takes shapePlans for SPE's IT Technical Section have evolved to defining a new role and status for the oil and gas

IT manager, and helping the industry take a holistic approach to digital technology.

We spoke to Section founder Dr Mehrzad Mahdavi

The Society of Petroleum

Engineers (SPE's) IT TechnicalSection is starting to take shapewith the four subcommittees

holding telephone conference meetingsduring November to try to establish

direction.The different subcommittees are: linking

subsurface IT with the corporateenvironment (systems integration);developing a new discipline for the oil andgas IT manager (professionaldevelopment); addressing security of ITsystems (cyber security); and co-ordinatingall the initiatives together through events(umbrella industry forum).

Behind all of this is an objective topromote the use of digital technology inthe oil and gas industry, encouragingpeople from other areas of the industry tolearn more about what IT can do, raising

the status of the oil and gas IT manager(and encouraging him / her to develop awider understanding of digital oilfieldapplications),and helping the industry lookat its IT strategy in a more holistic way.

In other words, to quote sectionchairman Dr Mehrzad Mahdavi, to "help theindustry to look at IT properly."

Dr Mahdavi's day job is vice presidentEnterprise Security Services atSchlumberger, running the company's ITsecurity consulting business, a business linehe personally built from scratch.

The idea for the Technical Section aroseduring SPE's digital oil and gas securityconference in London in December 2005,which Dr Mahdavi chaired.

Discussions about setting up an oil andgas IT security association evolved into

plans for a more general IT Section, whichcould look at all kinds of IT projects.

"After talking to many of the people inthe industry, it became clear that we needto expand on the horizon, talking aboutinformation technology rather than justtalk about security," Dr Mahdavi says.

"In SPE we have 8-10,000 people that areinterested in the area of informationtechnology and management.That area isnot served within the community."

Approval was given by the SPE board forsetting up an IT technical section in March2006. A first meeting was held in August

2006.The steering committee is Mehrzad

Mahdavi, vice president,Enterprise SecurityServices, Schlumberger (chairman); SteveComstock,CIO upstream , ExxonMobil;Patrick Hereng,chief information officer, Total; Gary Masada, president IT,Chevron;Don Moore, vice president and CIO,Occidental Petroleum;and WashingtonSalles, president IT, Petrobras; RichardJackson, chief information protectionofficer, Chevron.

A board member of the IT technicalsection will be assigned to each of the sub-committees to help and provide guidance.

Of course, the Section will need strongsupport from the industry in order to beproductive.

"I encourage everyone to join theseinitiatives that we have started through thesubcommittees," says Dr Mahdavi. "It is avery efficient way of impacting how theindustry is going to move. I think this is tooimportant for our industry not toparticipate in fully."

"It is clear that digital energy is the mostimportant value proposition for copingwith the acceleration of the activity in theoilfield," he says.

"Our mission is to facilitate the

deployment and expansion of the digitaloilfield by bringing all the different aspectsof the information systems together."

"Companies that understand the valueof IT and the value of petrotechnicalintegrated with each other will be at aneconomic advantage compared to therest," he says.

"Then IT is no longer looked at as a costitem, it is looked as a part of what thecompany does."

SubcommitteesThe security subcommittee evolved fromthe first idea for the Section, which was to

set up a 'Federated Identity' security systemwhich all oil companies could use,allowingemployees from one company to be givensecure limited access to another company's

intranet.This ambitious plan has now been

shelved,but the subcommittee insteadplans to look at sharing best practises, andhelping develop secure ways for oilfieldequipment to be connected to thecorporate intranet.

The November telephone meeting ofthe cyber security subcommittee was ledby Richard Jackson,chief informationprotection officer of Chevron.

Meanwhile a professional developmentsubcommittee has been established, todefine and establish the profession and

career path of a dedicated oil and gas ITmanager, who will need an in-depthunderstanding of both IT and the differentcomponents of the digital oilfield.

The first telephone meeting was chairedby Steve Comstock, upstream CIO,ExxonMobil,who said in the meeting thathe saw a strong correlation between theindustry's ability to develop a hybridengineering/IT manager discipline,and itsability to bring the digital oilfield from thefuture to reality.

There is a systems integrationsubcommittee, which will look at how tospeed up the connection of subsurface

equipment into the corporate ITinfrastructure. It will not try to developstandards (but will work closely withorganisations which do).

The first telephone meeting was chairedby Don Moore,vice president and CIO ofOccidental Petroleum.

Finally there is an events subcommittee,which will co-ordinate the association'sevents initiatives. It is already involved inthe plans for the April 2007 Digital Energyconference in Houston.The first telephonemeeting was chaired by Dr Mahdavi.

"Every day, as we keepgrowing in this journey,of organizing our industryaround this, with chieftechnology managers,CIOs and petrotechnicalasset managers, people aresaying, the day that youhad an IT person justdoing an IT work haspassed," says Dr Mahdavi.

Dr Mehrzad Mahdavi,founder of SPE's IT

Technical Section

News update


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New kind of IT managerThe professional developmentsubcommittee has a very interestingobjective, trying to crystallise a newdefinition of the oil and gas IT manager,including what he / she will do, whatexperience he needs, what he needs toknow about and what his career path will

be.There is already a broad understanding

of what a (for example) geophysicist,geoscientist or reservoir engineer shoulddo and know about,and it shouldultimately be the same for the oil companyIT manager.

In many oil and gas companies, the ITmanager is still somewhat ghettoised in arole as someone who looks after e-mail andbusiness software,not someone with therole of holding the whole companytogether, making sure everyone has thedata they need and creates the data whichthe next person in the chain needs.

"Every day,as we keep growing in thisjourney,of organizing our industry aroundthis, with chief technology managers, CIOsand petrotechnical asset managers, peopleare saying, the day that you had an ITperson just doing an IT work has passed,"says Dr Mahdavi.

Of course, as well as and IT managerswith engineering skills, the industry alsoneeds engineers with IT skills, or anunderstanding of what computers can do."You could also say the day that theproduction engineer would do theproduction work in isolation has passed,"

"That is the kind of things we arelooking for - in the new energy IT - type ofdiscipline,people that combine theknowledge of the workings of thepetrotechnical environment with verygood knowledge of IT."

"We are all immersed in this digitalenvironment now - the boundaries and theworkflows now are so interconnected -there's no way we can ignore each other,"he said."My results of what I do, dependsvery hard on my knowledge of what the ITguys do."

Dr Mahdavi's own business profile, hesays, is an indication of the kind of role wecould be seeing in future - someone withexpertise in both IT and other areas of oiland gas.

"I spent a large portion of my career inthe petrotechnical environment,and Ispent time in technology centres -developing very high technology tools anddevices," he says.

"Through working with IT, I focused inthe security area - but I never went awayfrom the roots of where I came from,whichwas petrotechnical."

"Through my career I have used IT andsecurity in conjunction with my knowledgeof petrotechnical. I have found that to bevery efficient."

"If I have a good knowledge of thenetwork and the infrastructure that I'mworking with, I can organise my analysisand my computing environment, with myknowledge of what I want to get out of thereservoir."

Dr Mahdavi says."We need these disciplines to be

completely aware of each other, integratedin such a way that we can bring the idea ofadded value of digital energy into life."

Many oil and gas industrycommentators have said that by looking atIT and software in isolation from the users

and their business processes, you just endup with software which nobody findsconvenient in their work.

"People used to think of the pure ITperson, and say, this guy is IT, let him goand play with this IT stuff. You can nolonger operate that way if you have anyhope of having a digital oilfield," he says.

Don Moore, vice president and CIO,Occidental

Petroleum, who is on the committee's steering group

You are probably aware thatMicrosoft has launched its new

Vista operating system, 2007Microsoft Office system and

Exchange Server 2007,together describedas the 'most significant product launch inMicrosoft's history'.

According to Craig Hodges,Microsoft'soil and gas director, the new systems willmake your company IT systems easier tomanage. It will be easier to put togetherstandard work processes for the company.Information management systems will beeasier to build and use. It will be easier tokeep your data secure and manage thesecurity.Microsoft Office will be easier touse and should help people be productive.

The oil and gas industry has beeninvolved in the product development.Several oil and gas companies signed up toMicrosoft's 'early adopter' program, making

suggestions about product design andfunctionality.

The software was made available tocompanies with volume licensingagreements November 30th, with a generalrelease on January 30th.

What is not so clear to many oil and gascompanies is why they should undergo theexpense and hassle of implementing thenew software products,when there is oftennothing obviously wrong with what theyare using already.

Although having seen users stumblewith Microsoft Office,or been through thepain of trying to set up and run a smallcomputer network, or have a failed

information management project, or lostsecure data, it is perhaps easier to see thepotential benefits.

When you start to imagine the potentialof computer systems which are much

easier to build and manage, informationmanagement systems which give peoplethe information they need, data storagewhich is reliable and secure, and softwarewhich employees can get comfortable withinstantly, the argument for giving the newsoftware a try becomes a lot stronger.

Microsoft is strongly emphasizing thepeople-friendliness of its software, with itsmarketing message "your potential ourpassion."

It has commissioned a study fromCapgemini, showing that companies whichadopt the new software tools shouldexpect 'dramatic gains in productivity,through capabilities that address corebusiness issues in new ways,' through'process workflow automation, easieraccess to information, improvedcollaboration with colleagues, and lowercosts of compliance."

Information managementInformation management is a term whichmeans different things to different people,but Microsoft is trying to help peopleorganise their information in everypossible way.

"One of the key things - that we now

Microsoft, the world's largest software company, has made its

biggest ever software launch, with the combined launch of Vista,

2007 Office and 2007 Exchange.We spoke to director of oil and gas

Craig Hodges, about how he thinks the oil and gas industry

will benefit

Microsoft's new launch

News update



bring to the table is the ability to managecontent," says Mr Hodges."The ability tomanage that data - and properly catalogue

it, is of high importance.""I think every company is unique and

will manage data differently," he says.To make it easier for people to find

documents, there is a functionality called'business data catalogue,' which enablesdocuments to be indexed.Software systems can easily be builtaround the indexing, to serve up thedocuments that people need quickly,wherever they are stored in the company.

There are tools to make it easier tomanage key performance indicators,soyou can see how well business is going ona single screen, and different views of the

data can be developed for people indifferent roles. It will be easier to buildsystems to gather data uniformly acrossthe company.

It will also be easier to manage theinformation which is not held in officialcompany documents,should they want to.

"Over 80 per cent of data today - residesoutside corporate systems," Mr Hodgessays. "They reside on your PC,my PC and inour head, and in our experiences."

"We're dealing with a world today thathas an explosion of data in a variety offormats - in a variety of locations. The bigchallenge facing our customers today is

how do I manage all of that capabilitytogether."

It is important for companies to get thebenefit of shared expertise."Let's say, ifyou're in the Sakhalin Islands, you needsome expertise to solve a problem overthere," he says."We have the ability forpeople to make visible their expertise."

The software has more powerful toolsto put together group workspaces,structured documents, and buildcollaborative workflows.

The SharePoint Server tool, which is partof Microsoft Office, helps co-workers to co-ordinate their schedules, organisedocuments and get involved indiscussions.They can find people in thecompany with specific expertise.

There are tools to help companiesstructure workflows,so employees have

the right data at their fingertips for the jobthey need to do next, they know exactlywhat to do, and they leave the data they

create in the right format to make it easyfor the next person in the chain.This will, in turn,help support companies inone of their biggest projects,trying to standardise the way they dothings (processes) in the company."Mostcustomers in the oil patch - have beenfocused for the last 5-7 years on processstandardisation," says Mr Hodges.

AdministrationThe new systems should prove a great dealeasier to manage.

Servers and networking software mayhave improved over the last ten years, but

that is hard for an IT administrator tonotice,because the demands of users forfaster networks,sending more data,withincreased security, has meant that runninga company network has never been easy.

Microsoft promises that the newsystems will be easier to install, standardiseand manage across a company.

Security systems will also be easier tomanage.There will be tools which candeny access to a certain document evenafter you have e-mailed it to someone, ifyou discover that it may have reached thewrong hands.

There is a tool to encrypt all the data on

your hard drive, "BitLocker," so when youthrow it in the rubbish bin when you buy anew computer, no-one will be able to readit.

There is a tool to manage make sure allof your employees are looking after theirdata properly.

"We've spent considerable energy onimproving security," says Mr Hodges. "Allcompanies - are going to be requiringemployees to securely manage data - andnot allow it to be compromised."

PeopleOn the people side, the user interface on

Microsoft Office has been redesigned tomake it more user friendly, after manyhours of testing.

As part of the product development,Microsoft watched customers work using

its software in a billion user sessions."These kinds of very subtle things haveimpact on people's day," he says.

"I had a CIO of a major oil company - sayto me a few weeks back, If you can help mesave a few minutes a day - we will havetremendous business advantage from justthat."

"Just helping us save 3-5 minutes a day -helping us use the tools more effectively -that would be great for us."

CommunicationsMicrosoft has put a lot of effort intomaking it easier for people tocommunicate and work remotely.

Microsoft Vista has improvedcapabilities for running on mobile

computers.Microsoft Exchange server will make iteasier for people to manage theirmessages,with e-mails, faxes, voicemessages and videos coming into a singlemailbox, which different devices canaccess.

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007, partof Microsoft Office, has new tools to helppeople work together and put togetherworkflows.

Craig HodgesCraig Hodges is director of oil and gas withMicrosoft, based in Houston. He joined the

company in January 2006.He is responsible for development andexecution of Microsoft's oil and gasindustry strategy, solutions portfolio,business development and industryrelationships.This includes ensuringsatisfaction with all of Microsoft's productsand services.

He was previously regional salesmanager with Dell, with responsibility forglobal sales to major oil companies. He alsoheld a number of other roles at IBM,including vice president,sales, IndustrialSector - West Region,where he handledsales to oil and gas industry.

Before that he was general managerpetroleum for IBM, living in Singapore. Hedrove a change in IBM from country basedorganisations to a consultancy sales modelfocusing on different industries.

"We're dealing witha world today that hasan explosion of datain a variety of formats -in a variety of locations.The big challengefacing our customerstoday is how do Imanage all of thatcapability together,"says Craig Hodges

Microsoft Vista. How will it help

the oil and gas industry?

Craig Hodges, director of oil and gas with Microsoft

News update



www.wavefield-inseis.com

Seismic service company Wavefield

Inseis has made an agreement with

Weatherford, to commercialise the

four component, four sensor, ocean

bottom, optical seismic device,

developed by Weatherford's

subsidiary Optoplan, working

together with Statoil.

The technology has been fullytested over the past two yearsin installations off theNorwegian Coast,and provento have excellent performance,providing a very clear vectorpicture ('high vector fidelity'),Wavefield says.

Compared to othertechnologies, the opticalsystem can take more precisemeasurements,uses lesspower, is more reliable andcheaper, Wavefield says. Itbelieves many operators are

waiting for such a low cost,reliable system.

The first commercialinstallation of the technologyis expected in 2008.

The technology is thoughtto be particularly suitable for

www.welldynamics.com

WellDynamics, a Houston company

formed with a joint venture between

Halliburton Energy Services and Shell

Technology Ventures, has acquired

Halliburton's Reservoir Performance

Monitoring (RPM) business.The Reservoir PerformanceMonitoring business has fourcomponents; downholepermanent monitoring (viaoptical pressure sensors andpressure / temperature gauges);fibre optic monitoring oftemperature; multiphaseflowmeters; and associated

software which manages andanalyses the data, includingflow simulation.

This acquisition followsWellDynamics acquisition inDec 2005 of the Wood Group'sproduction technologybusiness, a suite of permanentdownhole,subsea and surfacemonitoring products.

WellDynamics alsoannounced a partnership in

permanent seismic recording,so operators can understandhow the 3D reservoir picture ischanging over time (4D).

The device has threegeophones,recording soundwave velocity in all threedirections, and a hydrophone,to record changes in waterpressure.This is why it is called4C (four component).

As part of the agreementbetween Wavefield andWeatherford, Wavefield will buy35 per cent of Optoplan, withan option to purchase the restof the company when thecommercialisation period iscomplete.

Optoplan is based inTrondheim, North of Norway. Itpioneered the development ofdown-hole optical sensors inthe 1990s.

"We have now a solidfoothold in place for delivering

permanent 4C4Dmulticomponent acquisition,using a technology that willbring the step change in costand performance that themarket has been waiting for,"says Wavefield.

Sept 2006 with Halliburton'sLandmark software, to worktogether on 'closed-loop'

optimisation of wells,integrating Well Dynamics' wellmonitoring data withLandmark's productionreservoir modelling tool,DecisionSpace.

Altogether, Well Dynamics'strategy is to provide a full'closed loop' intelligent wellservice, incorporating puttingtogether 'intelligent' wells,incorporating sensors in thewells and datacommunications, which wouldfeed data into a reservoirmodel.

The reservoir model wouldwork out ways that theproduction could beoptimised,and changes couldbe made accordingly.

WellDynamics believes thatthe acquisition will help itserve existing customers andalso build up new customerslooking for well permanentmonitoring systems.

www.weatherford.com

Weatherford has completed what is

believed to be the first ever drilling

operation sending data to the

surface by electromagnetic pulses

through the mud, rather than mud

pressure pulses.A feasibility test for thetechnology was carried out forSaudi Aramco.Resisitivity,neutron and density data isbeing sent to the surface('triple-combo').

Saudi Aramco is planninggas injection on future wells,mixed with the drilling mud.Pressure pulses sent throughdrilling mud which contains gasdoes not work very well, so analternative communicationsmethod needed to be found.

This is because it wants todrill deeper wells inunderbalanced conditions (withthe drilling mud pressure lowerthan the pressure in thereservoir), so that the well isn't

WellDynamics acquires Halliburton'sReservoir performance monitoringbusiness

Wavefield Inseis to sell 4Cocean bottom technology

www.i-o.com

Seismic systems company Input

Output has launched its new Scorpion

system for land seismic acquisition.

Improvements have beenmade to the telemetryarchitecture,groundelectronics,central recorderand operating system software.

The new system is lighter,smaller, faster and uses lesspower, the company says. It hasa better user interface which arapid troubleshooting system.With the improvements, thesystem can handle morecomplex spreads and sweepmanagement systems.

Input / Output's new Scorpion seismicsystem

Weatherford - first electromagneticpulse LWD damaged by having high

pressure mud inside it.Sending data as a low

frequency electromagneticwave is also faster, because youdon't have to wait while the themud pumps are turned on andpressure is built up.

Sending data from the

drillbit is independent of theliquids in the wellbore, so thatreal time updates are possible.

Weatherford says that theproject represents a 'successfulproof of concept forelectromagnetic logging whiledrilling'.

The feasibility test wascarried out in a horizontalsection of well, of 6.125 inchdiameter, being drilled from8,100 feet to 11,189 feet in onerun, under underbalancedconditions.

The well was also flow andpressure tested, readingpressures in the annulus(between the drillbit tubing andwell wall),with the pumpsswitched off.

Together with the new release,Input Output has redesignedits training programs forcustomers and internal fieldsupport personnel.

It can be used with digital

VectorSeis recievers andconventional analoguereceivers.

The system is not wireless.It builds on Scorpion's SystemFour platform which has beenon the market since 2002, butwith improved recordingcapacity, reliability, productivityand ease of use.

The first customer isParagon Geophysical Services(Inc) of Wichita, Kansas, whichalso provided input into thedesign of the system.

Equipment news

www.tidelandsignal.ltd.uk

GUPCO (The Gulf of Suez PetroleumCompany) has signed a contract with

Tideland Signal to supply lanternsand a fog signal for its Gulf of SuezSaqqara platform.Tideland will supply theequipment on a skid, includingsolar panels, batteries,enclosures and a monitoring /

control system.The wholesystem will only need to beplugged in.

All of the equipment is

certified for use in a zone 1hazardous area.

The lantern being used,ML-300, has a range of 18 nauticalmiles, 19,800 candelabrightness,and 256 userselectable flashing codes.

Tideland lights on Suez platform


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+1.703.444.2527

www.wfnstrategies.com

Engineering of submarine and terrestrial optical cable, microwave/WiMax,mobile, satellite and RF systems for telecom, oil & gas and government clients

digital energyjournal - February/March 2007

Equipment news

www.bhinet.com/inteq/BakerHughes INTEQ and Houstoncompany Knowledge Systems havelaunched the BEACON (Baker Expert

Advisory Center / OperationsNetwork) Remote PressureManagement Service, for remotemonitoring of drilling.As part of the serviceKnowledge Systems engineerswill remotely monitor wellpressure and stability, whiledrilling is taking place.Theywill use the company'sDrillworks Predict application,to forecast pore pressures andimprove performance.

The well data is alsoanalysed by Inteq's datamonitoring and data

management engineers.Information about drilling istransferred out of the well viaBaker Hughes' RigLink system,

to the BEACON centre.The service can also be

combined with INTEQ'slogging while drilling (LWD)tools, including its TesTrakservice for data aboutformation pressure whiledrilling.

The data can be used toupdate predictive models,andinterpret the formationpressure scenarios, getting amore detailed understandingof the pressures in the hole.

Three different tiers ofservice are being offered.

INTEQ and Knowledge Systems remotepressure monitoring

www.honeywell.comNorsk Hydro has bought Honeywell'sProduction Control Center (PCC)system, to install at its central

onshore support centre, whichremotely monitors its North Sea rigs,to help monitor production andoperations.The system will also be installedon its Njord platform.

The Production ControlCenter integrates differentbusiness applications into oneintegrated system. This means itcan monitor and optimise manydifferent pieces of equipment atonce, including turbines,safetyvalves and shutdown systems; itcan also provide a single screen

overview of everything which isgoing on.

Hydro buys Honeywell's ProductionControl Center

The solution also helps thecompany standardise andsimplify work processes.

The installation has been

made following an initial trialon its Troll B platform. "Weconfirmed that we couldincrease operational efficiencyand reduce downtime bycombining vital rigmanagement and productionapplications into an automatedsystem," says Sverre Hyster,discipline manager at NorskHydro.

"Honeywell's solution allowsus to monitor separate processfunctions simultaneously,alerting us to potential issues

so they can be dealt withquickly and accurately."

www.roxar.comRoxar has won a 'multi-million dollar' contract

to supply 19 multiphase meters

to ExxonMobil's deepwater Kizomba C

development in offshore Angola.

The meters will be installed inExxonMobil's Mondo and Saxi/Batuquefields, operated by its subsidiary EssoExploration Angola (Block 15) Ltd.The immediate contractor is Vetco Gray.

The field is 370km West of Luanda,Angola, in 740m of water.

The Kizomba project is the largestdeepwater development in offshoreWest Africa.

The contract follows Roxar installingmeters for ExxonMobil in Kizomba Bfield, which went into productionin 2005.

The meters continuously monitor theamount of oil, condensate, gas and wateron the wellheads on the sea bed.

ExxonMobil will use the informationfrom the meters to help identify theoptimum production capacity of thewell, reducing the risk of damage due tooverprodduction. It will also be able toconduct quicker well tests.

Roxar says that ExxonMobil chose itsmeters on the basis of their accuracy,continuous monitoring, light weight(1500 pounds / 680kg), and having theelectronics and computing modules in aretrievable canister.

The meters can be installedand maintained using a remotelyoperated underwater vehicle,withno impact on production, and no needfor test lines and manifolds.

The meter is independent ofseparation efficiency and insensitive toslugs, foam, carry-overs and emulsions.

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Roxar multiphasemeters forExxonMobil Angola


9/32February/March 2007 - digital energyjournal7

Communication news

www.caprock.com

Oil and gas satcom company CapRock

has upgraded its network operations

centre (NOC) in Aberdeen, Scotland,so it can provide better service

to its customers in Europe, Middle

East and Africa.At the centre, Caprockmonitors its customers'satellite communications andequipment,to checkeverything is working properly.

The centre is also connectedby fibre optic to Caprock'scentre in Houston.

An opening ceremony washeld on Jan 26th, with tours ofthe building and teleport,

followed by a Burns' supper.

www.halliburton.com/sperry-suSperry Drilling Services has tested itsINSITE logging while drilling servicetogether with Grant Prideco'sIntelliServ drill communicationsnetwork, as a way of transmitting

data from the drillbit to the surfacefaster than was previously possible.Using the two tools together, itis possible to transmit highresolution images of thesubsurface.

Sperry also sees thedeployment as part of itsparent company Halliburton'sstrategy to enable customersto model, measure and

www.nesscoinvsat.com

Aberdeen satcom companyNesscoInvsat has won a contractto supply a 2.4m C band satellitecommunications antenna

and associated equipmentfor the Floating, Production,Storage and Offloading(FPSO) vessel BW Peace.The vessel, operated byNorwegian BW Group, iscurrently named BWEndeavor, but will berenamed BW Peace followinga refit.

It will be used by PeakPetroleum Industries Nigeriaand Equator Exploration Ltdin the Bilabri Field,offshoreNigeria, from the second

quarter of this year.The satellite connectivity

and associated equipmentwill be provided byTeleconsult A/S of Norway.

NesscoInvsatsatcomsto Nigeria FPSO

www.microwavedata.comGE Industrial (part of GeneralElectric) has acquired Microwave

Data Systems, a company whichprovides microwave data communications to the oil and gasindustry (among other sectors).Microwave Data Systems waspreviously a subsidary ofwireless data communicationscompany Moseley Associates.

It will now be renamed GEMDS, and be run by RobertoVengoechea, currently generalmanager of Multin'sInstrument TransformerBusiness.

GE made the acquisition

because it thinks MicrowaveData Systems' technology willbe a good complement to itsMultilin business, whichprovides metering, control andautomation systems,transformers and telecomnetworks to various industrysectors.

Microwave Data Systemsemploys around 275 people,who design and manufacturehigh speed networkedmicrowave radios,for use in oiland gas, utility, trafficmonitoring,public safety,lottery and other industrialapplications.

"MDS is a highly technicaland innovation-basedenterprise with a stream ofnew products planned forlaunch in '07 and beyond.Thisis exactly the type of businesswe want in our portfolio," saysGE Multilin.

www.alcatel-lucent.comFrench communications companyAlcatel-Lucent has been selected bythe Norwegian Oil IndustryAssociation OLF to carry out a WiMAXpilot in the North Sea, to find outhow well it works on oilrigs andships.High power base stations willbe installed on one of theplatforms on BP Norway'sValhall field, and two vesselswill be equipped with terminal

equipment.OLF wants to find ways to

improve communicationsbetween platforms and vessels,in different weather conditions.

The system will be deployedin the first quarter of 2007,and

GE Industrial toacquire MicrowaveData Systems

www.tyco.comBP America's long awaited contractfor a fibre optic system in the Gulf of

Mexico has gone to TycoTelecommunications.Tyco will construct and installthe 1400km undersea fibre opticsystem, connecting BP's offshoreproduction facilities to itsregional operating centre in

Houston.The system is expected to be

delivered to BP in mid 2007.BP will lease spare capacity onthe system to other oil and gascompanies.

The cable had been in

discussion for several years.Tyco will manufacture the mostimportant elements

Gulf of Mexico fibrecontract goesto Tyco

of the system at its plants inNewington (New Hampshire)and Lowell (Massachussetts).

The undersea plant will beinstalled by Tyco Decisive, a140m cable laying vessel basedin Baltimore,Maryland.

The cable will initiallyconnect seven deepwaterproduction platforms, with thecable coming ashore in landingstations at Freeport (Texas) andPascagoula (Mississipi). It willcost an estimated $80m.

To ensure reliability,eachplatform will be served by abranch cable from a deepwater trunk, so thatcommunications will not be cutif anything happens on one ofthe rigs.

This means that if the cable

is ever cut, each rig will still beable to reach at least one of thelanding stations.

Alcatel North Sea

WiMAX pilot

Faster data from the drillbitwith Sperry + Prideco

optimise asset performancewhile the drilling is takingplace.

The IntelliServ network canbe used for sending commandsfrom the surface or betweendownhole devices, and for

monitoring and measuringdownhole operations, at speedsup up to 1 megabit per second.

"Today,drilling rates can belimited by the transmissionspeed of high volume datacollected during the drillingand evaluation process," saysSperry. "With the SperryIntelliServ solution, thislimitation is eliminated."

will last for nine months.The standard to be tested is

WiMAX IEEE 802.16e-2005.Alcatel-Lucent will provide itsLucent 9100 solution, includingbase stations.

WiMAX antennas - Alcatel-Lucent is

involved in a WiMAX trial

in the North Sea

CapRock upgradesAberdeenoperationscentre

CapRock's Aberdeen network operations

centre



Communications

Automation giant Honeywell hasdeveloped a new wireless datacommunications networkstandard, a self-healing, self-

propagating network, which it is very keenon promoting as part of a forthcomingInstrumentation,Systems and AutomationSociety (ISA) SP100 standard.

Both Honeywell and its main competitorin the process automation market,Emerson, are pushing for their own version

to be included in the SP100 standard.Both are currently offering solutions to

the market, and pledge to migratecustomers to the new standard wheneverit is decided, probably some time in 2008.

It is not hard to see why Honeywell isexcited about the prospects for wireless. Itcan already claim some success in themarket, with installations of the XYR 5000wireless transmitter at more than 300customer sites since its introduction in2004, and growth in sales of 110 per centeach year.

The technology promises to open up arange of applications where cabling is

either difficult to install, such as on a rig, orprohibitively expensive compared to thebenefits.

It also offers the key advantage ofintegration of multiple devices,such assensors, mobilePCs and securitysystems.

Mesh networksuse a self-propagating,self-healing networkof nodes toachieve blanketcoverage of an

area.Each nodecan communicatewith any othernode, so that ifone goes downthe network canre-route data andconnectivity is notlost.

Honeywell'snetwork isscalable,up to30,000 nodes, hasbuilt in industrialsecurity and is fastwith low latencyto enable controlapplications.

and may lead to network instability.The need to more frequently replace

batteries,Honeywell argues, negates someof the major benefits of wireless: lowermaintenance costs and the possibility ofimproving health and safety by havingfewer engineers in the field.

The Honeywell approach is to use apowered network of 'inodes' thatcommunicate with the battery poweredwireless sensors,and route all network

traffic.The inodes would ideally be elevated

and have an optimum displacement of300m for non line of sight communication.

Of course, the need to run power cablesto each inode does in some ways negatethe whole wireless concept.

Honeywell argues that the nodes wouldbe installed in areas where power wasalready available and anyway companieswould still save on cabling costs.

However in more remote locations theidea of a battery powered network thatextends itself through its sensors withoutpower lines does have a certain appeal,

even if battery replacement would beexpensive.

Honeywell was keen to emphasise thedifference between its offering and that ofits main competitors.According to thecompany, "battery life is the elephant inthe room," meaning that it is reliability andpredictability of the sensors and nodes inthe network that is the issue.

The key difference is that the Honeywellnetwork does not use its sensors to passon network traffic.This means that thebattery on a sensor is only used when that

sensor is transmitting information and notfor anything else.Therefore the battery lifecan be predicted with some accuracydepending on the frequency of use andthe ambient temperature conditions.

Other wireless mesh networks, includingthat of Emerson (Digital Energy Journallearned at a recent Honeywell userconference), use the sensors as nodes inthe network.

Honeywell say they tried this approachbut abandoned it because of theunpredictability of the network trafficfrequency,and therefore the battery life, ateach sensor node, particularly as the

network size grows.This will causeunpredictable performance of the devices

Honeywell's wireless data standardAutomation giant Honeywell has developed a new self-healing wireless data networking standard,

and is competing against Emerson for it to become a new international standard

Honeywell believes its self-healing wireless network

standard will be very useful in oil and gas installations


11/32February/March 2007 - digital energyjournal9

Communications

Network architectureThe Honeywell network architecture wasdesigned from the beginning to enablecontrol applications, not just dataacquisition and sensing.

"We feel that if something is not readyto be used in control it isn't ready forsensing," said Paul Orzeske,Honeywell'svice president and general manager forEMEA.

This means that the network has latency

control and redundancy built in, making itsafe and reliable for critical controlsolutions. It also means sensor frequenciescan be up to one measurement persecond,while Honeywell claims itscompetitors have sensor frequencies of'around 5 minutes at best'.

While Honeywell is pioneering anapproach that integrates multiple wirelessprotocols into a single network, the realityis that in many applications severaldifferent networks from different vendorsmust co-exist in the same space.

This places demands on interoperabilityof networks,all of which must share thesame media for propagation andpotentially share frequencies as well.

The technologies are evolving rapidlyand it is not possible for the standardsbodies to incorporate proprietaryprotocols quickly enough to ensure all willoperate together; in fact by the time thestandards are fixed the technology willprobably have evolved, maybe toconvergent devices that can use a range ofdifferent networks depending on the usescenario.

Trends in the consumer market towardconvergence will impact industrial systems.

For example,mobile (cellular) devices thatcan also use a local private network tomake calls over the internet when the useris in range will offer companies costsavings by reducing expensive mobilecalls.

It is likely that future devices willautomatically roam over the availablenetworks,using which ever system orprotocol is the most suitable and leastexpensive.

SecurityOne of the major concerns with wirelessinfrastructure is security of the network.

All the protocols used in consumerapplications,such as WEP and WPA used indomestic broadband 802.11b/g networks,have already been shown to be not secure.

Honeywell has partnered with 3eTechnologies International, a provider ofindustrial IT infrastructure securitysolutions used in government and militaryapplications. It has developed the first (andso far the only) Common Criteria ValidatedWLAN Infrastructure and client products.

The Common Criteria describes aframework in which computer systemusers can specify their securityrequirements,vendors can then implementand/or make claims about the securityattributes of their products and testinglaboratories can evaluate the products todetermine if they actually meet the claims.

Common Criteria provides assurancethat the process of specification,implementation and evaluation of acomputer security product has beenconducted in a rigorous and standardmanner.

Security covers several aspects,including eavesdropping on networktraffic, unauthorized access or denial ofservice attacks, where a hacker jams the

network with interference to slow it downpast acceptable levels of performance.Industrial solutions now exist to address

all these issues,and indeed in many casesthe wireless network will be more securethan the existing Ethernet cabled networksit is connected to,due to improvements insecurity standards and understanding.

Many existing wired networks alreadyhave important vulnerabilities due tomisconfiguration of firewalls and othersecurity options.

The Honeywell network uses the sameproven security that has been tested forseveral years as part of its Experian PKS

(Process Knowledge System) platform forcollecting, integrating and analyzingbusiness and process knowledge frommultiple sources.

The company is relying on this trackrecord to reassure customers that itswireless offering is a safe technology.

Mobile dataHoneywell's solution for wireless field datacollection is called IntelaTrac PKS, whichuses hand-held devices to enableoperators to take measurements in thefield and have that data electronicallydownloaded to reliability, engineering, and

equipment databases.The company claims IntelaTrac is thefirst system on the market to integrate fielddata with data from other sources,

including production, process control, andwork management systems, allowingoperator rounds to be automated andproblems more quickly identified.

Another interesting innovation indevelopment is the real time locationsystem (RTLS) that tracks physical objectssuch as mobile equipment and employees.This cuts down on the cost of findingequipment and personnel, but can also beused for a wider range of security andsafety applications.

Using a three dimensional view of thefacility, assets can be monitored andinformation pulled up on the screen aboutan individual operator to check what theyare doing.

Integrating positioning informationwith other process variables using theExperion PKS platform,it is possible tomonitor not only where a person is, but

also to raise an alarm if they are not wherethey are supposed to be.Threedimensional areas can be designated foraccess only by operators with the rightsafety certificates for instance, and ifanyone else strays into the region thealarm can trigger a range of responses,such as shutting down the processes in thearea in extreme cases.

The system can also be used as asecurity tool, and is compatible withHoneywell's security card access system;visitors to the site can be tracked and asthey move through the facility and warnedif they enter an unauthorised area.

Adapting to changeHoneywell announced an ambitious planfor 'double digit' growth in the EMEA(Europe, Middle East and Africa) region andat its user group meeting in Seville lastNovember.

Paul Orzeske,Honeywell's vice presidentand general manager for EMEA, talkedabout 'adapting to change', as the focusand theme of this year's conference.

As well as tackling new and increasingthreats such as cyber security andterrorism, this means looking at widerproblems in the industry such as the

growing shortage of engineers and waysof improving knowledge retention throughinformation systems.

He also talked about the demand fromcustomers to be able to 'do more with less',completing projects with less personneland less resources and operating them ona tighter budget.

All this means more automation andmore need for data collection systems thatmonitor every aspect of a project andallows managers to see where savings canbe made.

Honeywell will also focus on increasingits customer service offering, opening new

offices and expanding existing ones in theregion, and building relationships withrepresentatives who speak the locallanguage.

Battery life can be predicted with someaccuracy because the network does not useits sensors to pass on network traffic.


12/32



Software

Cracking information management -Flare Solutions

There have been many attempts atinformation management in theoil and gas industry,but perhapsnone have got so close to getting

it right as Flare Solutions, with its webbased information cataloguing tool, E&PCatalog.

Shell International Exploration &Production started deploying the system in2004, as part of a bid to try to reduce theamount of time users spent looking forinformation by 50 per cent.

Shell now has 1.5 million documents

and other items catalogued in its system,and it has been used by over 3,500 staffmembers, achieving significant reductionsin staff search time.

Flare is now rolling out EP Catalogacross the whole of Shell E&P, workingtogether with IBM Global Business Services,targeting exploration and developmentengineering staff.

In December 2006,Flare and Shell wonthe British Computer Society (BCS)European 2006 Knowledge ManagementProject Award,for the system deployment.

Flare and Shell were also highlycommended for the intranet project award,

and the content management projectaward.

Flare also plans to release aspects of itsdata structure during 2007, under thecustodianship of Energistics, so that thewhole industry can benefit from it.

E&P Catalog has already been integratedwith a number of different systems,including Schlumberger DecisionPoint andLandmark TeamWorkSpace. Also the GISbased graphical systems ESRI andMetaCarta; the user can choose whichassets they are looking up on a map, andthen dig out the relevant documents usingE&P Catalog

Other integrations include EDMS'LiveLink document management software,and soon Enigma's PARS archiving system,and PetrisWINDS Enterprise includingRecall.

CatalogueThe system builds a catalogue of acompany's documents, archives and chunksof data. Flare treats them all as documents.Information catalogued includes reports,logs, reservoir models, project archives;databases, information about differentpeople; even physical items such as cores.

The documents are not held in any

central location, but can be storedanywhere in the company (so long as theyare accessible over the network).

Critically, adopting E&P Catalog does notrequire that a company change anythingabout the way they store and manage

access to documents; they can still be keptin different data stores around thecompany, with different access rights set todifferent documents. But the tool makes

the documents easier to find.The catalogue holds information about

the documents, for example which well,field,survey or license they refer to, whowrote it, what it is and what it is about.

The right touchThe trick to getting informationmanagement right is getting the touchright, Flare believes.

Too many information managementprojects have failed,because they tried tomodel work processes too minutely, endedup telling employees to do things theydidn't want to do,or ended up being too

complex and creating too much work.Projects have failed because they tried

too hard to index more information thanwas necessary,they treated data anddocuments differently, they were beingpushed by the company IT department notsenior management,they needed lots ofmaintenance and classroom training forend users. Projects have failed because theyended up as 'Wiki/Discussion' type systemswith no mechanism to differentiatebetween chat and important companyinformation.

Flare skirts around these problems inmany clever ways.

People carry on creating and retrievingdocuments much the same way as theyalways have done,but when they decide adocument is good enough for the rest ofthe company to see it or know it exists,they type in indexing data telling the

catalogue what the document is all about,essentially publishing the document to therest of the company.

The system does not try to index and

catalogue every single byte of data in thecompany, but just documents and chunksof data considered important enough thatpeople will want to refer to them in thefuture.This massively reduces the indexingworkload.

The quality of all the data can berecorded in the catalogue, so for example auser can tell if it is a final depth map whichmany people in the company worked onand approved,or something a geologistput together in an afternoon.

The 'workflow' to create and retrievedocuments is kept as simple and light aspossible, following processes and creatingdocuments which every oil and gascompany follows, rather than creating newprocesses.

Flare makes sure the project is driven bysomeone senior in the company, not by ajunior IT manager.

Search processYou can search for documents in the EPCatalog web interface using four mainmethods from the catalogue web interface.

Firstly, you can search by a word,similarto with Google, except that instead ofgetting your results in a list, you get yourresults in a table,so you can drill down andget the information you really want.

Secondly, for high precision searches,you can select values in drop down menubars and lists, and quickly find exactly whatyou are looking for.

UK / North American information management company Flare Solutions might have got closer to

cracking the oil and gas information management challenge than any service company we have seen

Flare Solutions and Shell receive the British Computer

Society European 2006 Knowledge Management Award.

From left to right Roger Abel of Shell;Graeme Burton

of Inside Knowledge Magazine;and Paul Cleverleyof Flare



Software

You can search for information gearedaround products (data, interpretations,reports); processes (activities,procedures,standards); people (personnel,organisations); tools (technology,applications).

A typical search could be - start with thespecific asset (well, field or survey), look fora context (eg 'geology' or 'core' or'operations report' or 'palynology'), thenget the results.

Thirdly you can find documents viahyperlinks with related documents.

Fourthly you can set up your ownsearches, for example to always retrieve aspecific set of documents for a well.

The system has a knowledge map ofwhat is related to what.

For example if they type 'oil shale Russia'in the search box,you might getdocuments about the Bazhenovkaformation, because the computerunderstands that this is an oil shale inSiberia.

Content can also be found (whererelevant) via map interfaces.

All of the documents are served up fullylabelled.So for example, if a user haslooked for all of the documents for aspecific survey,they can immediately awarewhich documents represent the finaloutputs and which is intermediary work.

You can see which documents have

been approved and by who, and you cansee the associated maps, and documentswhich were used to derive the conclusions,such as geological models, seismicinterpretation, reservoir models andeconomic models.

People also use the tool to search theirown project information, as differentpeople get involved with it, as it passesthrough the different stages of exploration,appraisal, development, projects andoperations.

PublishingThe other side of the coin is 'publishing',

when employees decide their work is readyto share with the rest of the company, andwant to publish it in the catalogue,andindex it accordingly.

The document at this stage must belocated in a secure repository which isaccessible through the corporate network.

Documents can bepublished and indexedby the individual user, or

the software applicationit is in could be madeto do the publishing.

If the documentsare already indexedin a certain softwarepackage, then E&PCatalog can be inte-grated with that.

This is the list ofsome of the tags givento documents:

- bibliographic (title, description, author,owner,reference, language, sourceorganisation,cross references,publishingdate)- document control information (owner,who approved it, how it will be retainedrecords management codes, the securityissues, if it is published, who reviewed it,revision number).- context (asset it is linked to, product type(e.g. field development plan), discliplinesuch as geological / geophysical, productgroup, subject matter (e.g.Roll-overanticline) )- usage (where the document is, whatmedia it is on, the data format, URL deeplinkto corporate database, external database)

Doing the indexing workThe first hurdle which many similar projectsstumble at is the work of indexing all of thedocuments.This task can be done by theexisting corporate library department,adedicated indexing team, or the staff whocreate the documents can do their ownindexing.

By employing dedicated cataloguerswho work directly with the project teams,you can index about ten times moredocuments than typically ever make it tocentral libraries.

Most staff are happy to put a smallamount of additional effort intocataloguing their own content, becausethey understand from their own experiencehow hard it can be to find the rightdocuments.They also want to ensure thatother people can quickly find and benefitfrom their work, particularly if another teamtakes over on the project at some point infuture.

It is possible to automatically classifycertain documents,using a special toolwhich makes a best guess at adding aproduct type classification, discipline,subject domain matter and assetinformation.This can work for about 80 per

cent of documents, Flare says.Documents can be sent and cataloguedautomatically through web services / feeds.

For example, there are sources of 'scout'information (information about what otheroil and gas companies are up to) sent byvarious agencies such as Deloitte, which oil

companies can buy. This data is sent as aweb service, and is immediately integratedinto the Catalog, so it is automaticallyavailable together with other external andinternal company information.

In the same way, information acquiredfrom operations such as well drilling andreservoir management can be self-

classifying using web services and thecorrect tags in the XML files so they appearin the catalogue in real time,differentiatinginterim and definitive final documents.Thiscuts the whole process of manual indexingout.

Work processesThe company has also built workflowengines around its catalogue, whichprovide people automatically with thedocuments they need for a particularroutine.

This is being used by one company totrack the deliverables from its Top 70 field

development projects around the world,by another to track well drilling and dataacquisition.

There are process steps,with templatesfor putting in documents, input documentsavailable and required outputs. Graphicalviews show multiple project and processviews .

There are templates for searches, forexample one which can bring up availabletechnologies and techniques which shouldbe considered at particular business stages.

The trick,says Paul Cleverley, director ofFlare Solutions, is to build systems at theright level, closely following the kind of 'big

picture' work processes which every oilcompany does, the big milestones and'baton changes,' not trying to get intopeople's work too closely.Common workflows include:Prospect generation (seismic dataacquisition, processing, interpreting,modelling);

Optimising drilling(well planning, well engineering, drilling,operations monitoring, reporting);

Field development planning (modelbuilding,well planning, facilities modelling,simulation);

And real time field operations (field data

capture, surveillance, intervention).Tasks which nearly all oil companies

have include project framing sessions, peerreviews, integrated reviews, value assurancereviews, decision review boards to releasefunds for the next phase, after actionreview to capture learning. There aredocuments which need to be created andsubmitted at all of these stages, as well asthe well, investment proposals, maps, fielddevelopment plans.

The system does not try to tell peoplehow they should undergo a complexworking activity, such as interpretingseismic data, but tracks what they havedone and stores their interpretations forfuture use.

At a later stage, it is possible to drawcharts, showing how long different stagestook, what the hold-ups were,what the costof them was, helping keep the overallprocess efficient. www.flare-solutions.com

Screenshot from Flare Solutions EP

Catalog - essentially, a

sophisticated

indexing of an entire company's

documents


15/32



Software

By running several reservoir modelsrather than one, you can get abetter model faster (whichmatches as closely as possible the

reservoir production history),and also havea better feel for how good your model is, bylooking at the range of different resultswhich are generated.

If multiple matched models clustertightly together it indicates that the field iswell understood given the uncertaintiesyou have defined for the field.

Of course, you can run several modelsusing standard software,but it can get a bittedious, so why not use MEPO to organisethe process for you.Scandpower estimatesthat its software will take 50 - 80 per cent ofthe time taken to do it manually.

Running several models can use a lotmore computer processing power, so MEPOuses tools which maximises the utilisationof the available computers, for examplerunning models on people's desktopcomputers overnight, and queuing jobs sothat as soon as one simulation has finished,another one can start.

MEPO version 3 has an improved userinterface. It has sensitivity analysis tools,enabling engineers to determine whichfactors have the biggest impact on theaccuracy of the reservoir model (assessedby comparing the model with the actualproduction history).Version 3 also runs onWindows XP (in addition to Linux).

Other enhancements include additionalexperimental design methods, improvedqualification of match quality, the ability tooptimise using response surfaces, clusteranalysis to automatically identifyalternative matches, and improvedmonitoring of ongoing runs.

MEPO is not a reservoir modellingsoftware itself,but it sits on top of othermodelling software,such as Eclipse andIMEX. It can work with all commercialmodelling tools and a number ofproprietary ones.

Companies already using MEPO includeChevron, ENI,TNK-BP, PetroCanada, Statoil,BG, Dong, Hess, PA Resources, RWE-DEA,Total.

It is not hard to see the benefits ofknowing how good your model is, if youare going to make multimillion dollarinvestment decisions, such as decidingwhere to drill,based on it.

Multiple modelsThe basic logic is - using the ReservoirEngineer to define the strategy and MEPOto launch, analyse and improve multiplemodels the more likely you are to come up

with a good one,and the better idea youhave of how good the model is.

One of the problems which oil and gascompanies have is making just one modelwhich looks right, assuming it is 100 percent accurate, and making high valuedecisions based on it, rather than keepingtrack of the level of uncertainty in it.

Scandpower is very keen on a quotefrom the Financial Times, which says "Thefinancial industry has found that the morefinely tuned a model, the more

catastrophically it tends to fail when theworld moves outside the parameters forwhich it was designed."

There is a large amount of uncertaintyinvolved in all stages of a reservoir model,but it is very difficult to track theuncertainty, so it is hard to work out thelevel of uncertainty in the final result.

Different reservoir models are normallyassessed by seeing how well theircalculations of the flow in the past matcheswhat the well actually produced ('historymatching').

While this is a useful way of assessingreservoir models, it does not necessarilymean the model accurately describes thesubsurface, because there can be manydifferent possible reservoir models whichall match the available data and all historymatch.

For example,engineers will sometimestweak the input data (for example,multiplying their porosity figures by acertain multiplier) until the model matchesthe actual production history; this is aprocess which will lead to a model whichmatches the actual production history,butdoes not guarantee a model whichaccurately describes the subsurface orfuture production.

The MEPO software can come up withmany models, which all history match, butare all slightly or fundamentally different.By examining how much they differ, youget a sense of how accurate each one ofthem is.

A further example of MEPO is that youhave an audit trail of everything that wasdone to the data since it was input; withconventional simulations, engineers canmake endless tweaks and changes to thedata until it matches the history, withoutnecessarily keeping a record of who didwhat or why.

"My prediction is over the next 18months this type of workflow will becomethe standard industry practice," says DrMark Brownless,manager of MEPO UK.

www.mepo.com

Scandpower launches MEPO 3Scandpower Petroleum Technology of Norway has launched version 3

of MEPO, its tool to manage the process of creating computer

reservoir models.

Just because a model history

matches,doesn't mean its

prediction is correct. The

answer is to make severalmodels which all history

match, then look at the range

of the predictions.(above)

Testing out three possiblelocations for an infill well.By

making a single manually

matched model,all locations

look equally good; but by

making a range of modelswhich all match, it can be

clearly seen that the second

choice is the best. (below)



Software

Statoil signs to Platform's grid computing

Statoil has signed up to use softwarefrom Platform Computing whichwill move big computer processingtasks (such as processing reservoir

models) around the company to whichevercomputer is most suited to doing it.

Instead of doing the job in a computercentre, it can be done on powerfulcomputers which engineers have runningon their desks,when they have spareprocessing capacity.

The contract covers Statoil's facilities inNorway, Houston, London and other future

exploration offices,which are all networkedand linked by leased fibre optic cable,andwill be extended to a further six sitesshortly.

Altogether it covers 1000 computerprocessors, which can run thousands ofjobs simultaneously.

Statoil wanted the system to be able torun 20 different software applications. Itfound that four of the 20 worked straightaway, the rest needed a small amount ofintegration work,taking between a fewhours and a few days for each integration.

The system is being used by over 2,000companies, including Shell, Nexen,

Marathon Oil, ConocoPhillips,Total, AgipPetroleum,BG, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC),and Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore OilOperations (ADCO).

Platform is the certified solution forSchlumberger's Eclipse, and will shortly becertified for Schlumberger's Petrel. In factSchlumberger Information Solutions acts asan unofficial reseller.

It is still necessary to have a softwarelicense on each individual computer beingused - so for example a Landmark Graphicsprocessing job could only be run on acomputer with a Landmark license.

BenefitsThe benefits of doing computer processingjobs on the computers you already haveare fairly obvious.The company can makemuch better use of its IT resources, andsave energy.

It reduces the amount of investment itneeds to make in expensive highperformance computers and server farms,which most oil and gas companies arecurrently investing large amounts ofmoney in.

By making computing power moreaccessible, it is easier to run the data more

times, so there is more chance of ending upwith the right model.

"Companies have more computer poweron people's desks than in their processing

centre," says Terry Suckling, SystemsEngineer, Oil and Gas at PlatformComputing. "What we used to run thecorporation on is now in the desktop.

"It is not unusual for a PC to have 2 GBof memory and 2 separate processors."

"In the PC world, everything is dual core.Many PCs are multicore and you only useone."

Users of individual desktop computerswill not normally be aware that theircomputer is being used for someone else'sprocessing job.

Many companies overestimate howmuch their computing resources are beingutilised, thinking they are being utilisedaround 90 per cent,when they are actuallyonly 20-30 per cent utilised, he says.

All of a sudden, engineers find that theyhave thousands of CPUs at their disposal,instead of just whatever they have in theirown offices.

Some engineers are understandablyreluctant to allow other people's jobs to berun on their own computers, but Platform

points out that it should not make theirown jobs go any slower,and in any case,their computers are a company asset, not apersonal asset.

The Platform Computing software will

provide information about the processingjob and how the network is workingtogether, for example how many retrieshave been necessary to do a job on aparticular computer.

Companies can understand which oftheir hardware is performing the best.

The software can also give warningswhen their computer clusters get too busy.

The software can split one processingjob into many different slots. If onecomputer is switched off or loses power,the job can automatically be picked up onanother computer without any loss of data.Also, if a more powerful computer becomesavailable than the one running a specificjob, that job can be moved to the bettercomputer.

There is a web portal which you canreach from any machine, and see how thecluster system is working.

Different jobs can be given differentpriorities,so a group with a higher prioritycan be processed first.

The next development will be

virtualisation, enabling Platform forexample to run Linux software on a PCrunning Windows, by building a Linuxworkstation within the PC.

www.platform.com

Instead of doing your computer processing in a server farm...

"Many companiesoverestimate

how much theircomputingresources arebeing utilised,thinking they arebeing utilisedaround 90 percent, when theyare actually only

20-30 per centutilised."

Statoil has signed up to use Platform Computing's grid technology solution, which moves big computer

processing jobs to desktop computers around the company, rather than in a central processing centre

why not do it on your office PCs,when they aren't being used?



Software

AUK oil company, described asbeing in the FTSE 100, asked UKsoftware house / design agencyPrime Design for assistance

putting together a license application withthe UK government, so that it was easy toread and consistent.

After submitting the application, thecompany went on to win 80 per cent of thelicenses it applied for, after expecting towin just 50 per cent;doing the same thinga second time, it won 90 per cent of thelicenses it applied for.There was feedback

from the authorities that the design went along way to achieving those success levels.

Prime Design has an interestingbusiness model,designing companyintranets,and even technical documents(such as licensing applications), so that theylook appealing.

Clients include BP, Shell, NexenPetroleum,Hess Corporation,Petro-Canada,Petros Geoscience, Ikon Energy.

Prime Design has two directors and acompany secretary, with a further 7consultants working part time. Ken Clark,one of the directors,was previously groupdesign manager at Enterprise Oil.The other

director is Mac McEldon, who waspreviously a software developer outsidethe oil and gas industry until 2002.

License applicationThe license application the oil companysubmitted was very large,running toseveral volumes, including informationfrom many corners of the company.

The oil company decided that there wasno need to submit a boring lookingdocument, as companies normally do inthis circumstance.

The logic being - why should UKgovernment staff, who have to evaluate theproposal, look at boring lookingdocuments at work,and see well designedmagazines when they get home?

Prime Design managed the process ofputting the license application together,including taking images (in varying qualityand differing formats) from all areas of thecompany, as well as scanned documents,spreadsheets and word documents,andmanaging last minute changes fromdifferent departments up to the lastminute.

The final result had a consistent layoutand page design,and was clear and easy to

read.To undertake the project,Prime Designneeded to assess whether or not it neededsome kind of direct access to thecompany's IT system (and how to achieveit); also how to make sure it would use the

same naming systems the oil company uses,and fit in with its brand guidelines.

Prime Design was not allowed to interfacedirectly with the oil company's IT network forsecurity reasons, but it managed to linkcollaborate using a wireless peer to peernetwork.

The staff worked at the company's site,using Adobe Creative Suite 2,Adobe Bridgeand Version Cue. The software hadfunctionality to enable people in thecompany to get involved in producing theapplication,but with a version control policy

in place,keeping a check on who wasmaking which changes.

The company worked with experts acrossthe company to determine the best possibledesign, including geologists,geophysicists,lawyers and draughtsmen.

Making text clearerAs well as focussing on the design aspects,Prime Design provides advice andsuggestions about the clarity of the text, so itis easier to grasp the important points, andeasier to understand and assimilate the fulltext.

A common trick is to put the key points ina page down the left hand margin, so theycan be quickly grasped and scanned.

Another trick is to put particularlycomplex material into footnotes, rather thanthe main text, so it is available for anyonewho wants it, but does not interrupt the flowof reading for people who do not have timeto understand the complex material.

Prime Design writes section headers,which precis what is in the section, so peoplecan decide whether to read it or not, and canprepare themselves to get into the subject inmore depth.

Corporate intranetIn another project,Prime Design was askedby a 'New York Stock Exchange listed' oilcompany to improve its corporate intranet.

The problems with the company'sprevious intranet included inconsistencybetween pages, out of date content, nosystem to control changes, and drawn-outmanual processes to update the site.

The large amount of out of date contenton the site in particular was proving a barrierto usage of the system by staff.There was nosystem for users to signal content thatneeded review.

The intranet had just flat HTML pages,

with one member of staff managing all theupdates manually.Content was being received in all kinds of

different formats (Excel,Word,andPowerPoint) and had to be transferred toHTML, which was proving very timeintensive.

There was also no interface between theintranet and other business applications.

Prime Design's objective was to build asite which would make it easy to access

information,and encourage different peopleto get involved in supplying (and owning)content,with the system integrated as muchas possible with existing company processes,and would also support the company brand.It wanted to make sure the intranet wasrobust, secure, scaleable and easy to use.

Prime Design also wanted an intranetwhich staff would actually want to contributeto and use.

Prime Design started with an onlinecustomer survey to find out about userrequirements for the site, asking about howimportant different features were and askingfor suggestions about content.

A prototype intranet was built andreleased to selected members of the clientproject team, to get feedback on the look /feel of the site,and functionality.

The prototype was then deployed, usingan open source content management systemMambo CMS. It was hosted by Prime Design,accessible with a web address and username/ password.

For the actual intranet, Prime Designchose a product called Livelink WCM,built bya company called Opentext. Other softwarewas evaluated.

Livelink WCM has functionality fordepartments to publish their own content,

but keep the look and feel of the siteconsistent.The content storage database isall in one place.

All content is given 'go live', 'review' and'expiration' dates,so the site is always up todate.

The design has a 'simple but practical'three columns, with a variable width, tomaximise use of the screen.

Corporate colours were adhered tothroughout,but corporate branding was keptto a minimum.

All content has to be approved bysomeone before going live on the internet,with supervisors appointed in eachdepartment.The software has functionalityto manage the workflow,alerting supervisorswhen there is content which needs approval,and automatically publishing it if it isapproved,or submitting feedback / requeststo the authors if not.

The core intranet was built quickly byPrime Design and tested fully before beingmade available to the company.

Prime Design then put the content fromthe prototype and interim intranet onto thetest system, set up content groups, systemusers and processes onto the workflowengine.

The system was run offline for a while,sousers could start to input content and usethe system, while there previous intranet wasstill active.

Three day courses were held for systemadministrators.

Good design wins licensesAn (undisclosed) oil company won 80 per cent of licenses applied forwith the UK government, expecting to win just 50 per cent,andpartly attributes a well designed application by Prime Design to its

success.


19/32

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* Payment in full is required on16 February 2007 to qualify for the Early Bird Discount* Discounts DO NOT apply to workshop(s)-only bookings. * Discounts cannot be combined.* Discounts not valid if payment is received after closing date * Prices include lunches, refreshments & conference materials.* Singapore companies, please add 5% GST.

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Software

M

RO, an IBM owned companywhich provides maintenancesoftware to oil and gascompanies such as BP,

Amerada Hess, China National Offshore OilCorporation,Pride International,Occidental,Total and Kazakhstan Petroleum, hasstarted promoting the idea that companiesshould use software systems to managethe maintenance of their IT systems, alongwith everything else.

Maintenance of IT involves such thingsas monitoring the health of hard drives,checking everybody in the company hasthe latest antivirus and is doing scans,checking that the company has theoptimum number of software licenses, andmaking sure the set-up is keptstandardised.

Oil and gas companies are puttingtogether increasingly complex computersystems, with embedded sensors in almostevery piece of equipment, and it isimportant to keep track of which parts arebeing used where and how close they areto the end of their expected lifespan.

Principles of maintenanceBut MRO believes that the basic principlesof maintenance software are the same,whether you are maintaining a pump or anIT asset.

"An asset is an asset -

#5 Digital Energy Journal - February 2007

Documents

Transcript of #5 Digital Energy Journal - February 2007