Decision support for production optimization

The oil industry has come a long way in establishing efficient production routines. However, there is still a potential to squeeze out more barrels by making fine-tuned production decisions on a daily basis. Solution Seeker is developing the technology behind a software advisor for daily production optimization. The product will be called ProductionCompass, a name that reflects a completely new way of approaching the optimization problem. ProductionCompass will provide the operators and production engineers with automatically generated alternatives on how to adjust e.g. well chokes so that the production of oil is increased, without violating the gas compression capacity. December 2013 Solution Seeker was granted an IPN project together with The Research Council of Norway, ConocoPhillips and GDF SUEZ. The project was initiated April 2014, and the scope is to test, verify and develop the technical principles and methods behind ProductionCompass in collaboration with the industry partners, lasting until the end of 2016. Technology has developed rapidly, and the data available from sensors and control systems at an oil-producing asset has increased enormously. This poses the question of how to efficiently utilize the vast amounts of historical production data to enhance decisions about near future production. Additionally, continuously optimizing production means constantly operating at the boundaries of the existing production system and its inherent bottlenecks, a notoriously difficult task to master. Conventional optimization strategies utilize advanced simulators trying to find the optimal production strategy right away. Due to the vast complexity of the multi-phase flow system, the optimization software is vulnerable to inaccuracies in the simulators, and relies on deep expertise from experienced engineers to simulate the real world correctly. The complexity and large dependence upon a highly specialized workforce, result in a low success rate and the software are often abandoned. This results in current operational practice not exploiting the production system to its full potential. Solution Seeker's answer to getting around the decades old production optimization hurdle is; simplify and automate. Solution Seeker's innovations lie in better utilization of historical production data and a smart simplification of the production optimization problem. This will enable a higher degree of automation and better utilization of expert personnel. ProductionCompass try to find the small changes that push you in the right direction, iteratively moving towards better production settings. In situations with low information content in the data, ProductionCompass suggests experiments that enriches the data set to enhance performance. Another differentiating feature of this decision support tool is in the handling of uncertainty. The way the wells respond to operational change is inherently uncertain. Solution Seeker acknowledges this uncertainty, and is developing innovative ways to calculate and represent this uncertainty in the recommendations, in order to better assist decision makers at oil producing assets. ProductionCompass will automatically provide reliable production recommendations, assisting the production engineers in their daily quest to maximize oil throughput. For the oil companies this means: - Sustainable production optimization in true real-time - Increased production and revenues - A system that leverages and frees up your best people - A less complex, less work intensive, more automatic and more intuitive production optimization workflow An annual production increase of 1-2 % can sum up to more than one billion NOK for a single large asset. During the first year of the IPN project Solution Seeker worked on research and verification of the system excitation technology, SmartX. In relation to this, six test campaigns were conducted at two different fields offshore, provided by the industrial partners. In parallel, resources were dedicated to the development of a technology for better utilization of historical production data through advanced analysis and data learning techniques. The last twelve months, Solution Seeker has focused on verification and testing methods and technologies behind three real-time applications; analysis of deduction well test, assessment of production settings, and production optimization. The results are promising. During this work, ProductionCompass analyses have been included in the decision making process for allocation of gas lift between wells at one of the assets. The total contribution to increased daily production, due to changes implemented in line with the ProductionCompass analyses, is estimated to approximately 800 bblsd. In addition, a study on actual production data from the second field indicate that a single recommendation from ProductionCompass would have resulted in additional production worth 120 000 NOK per day.

Solution Seeker AS was founded in Trondheim January 2013 as a spin-off company from NTNU and the Center for Integrated Operations in the Petroleum Industry (IO Center). Its business idea is based on a new and patent protected decision support concept fo r optimization of oil and gas production, named ProductionBooster. The main objective of this IPN project is to develop, test and verify ProductionBooster. To achieve this, we need to finalize the functionality requirements, design the data presentation system, develop the ProductionBooster methods, develop and implement the first version of the decision support system, and test and verify it on two fields provided by GDF SUEZ and ConocoPhillips. The two most critical R&D challenges are related to the success of the SmartX technology, i.e. the production systems response to oscillation, which is used to increase the information content in the measurements. And the robustness and speed of the optimization search on real fields. If the project succeeds , the anticipated result is a decision support system that enables the production engineer and operator to increase the production by 1-3% on the two production facilities where it is installed. For the GDF SUEZ Gjøa field, this translates into 200-600 MN OK per year. Further, we anticipate to have finalized a version of ProductionBooster that is ready to be sold on commercial terms.