Digital Oilfield Transformational Impact on Mature Field Productivity, Efficiency & Profitability. Mature Offshore Gas Lift Field Showcase

Abstract

Abstract Mature oil fields tend to face drastic changes at both levels of production and operational efficiency leading to increasing demand of manpower & logistics as well as decreasing trend of equipment uptime that results in associated production deferrals. A key to sustainability of mature oil fields is to ensure high levels of utilization of existing resources and defy the progressive logistical demand to maintain profitability margins at maximum levels. such objectives can be approached by transformation to digital oil field. Digital oilfield incorporates data acquisition through installation of necessary sensors & meters, data management & analytics, remote monitoring, remote control & automated workflow. Gulf of Suez Is one of the mature oil basins that started oil production in mid-1960s and suffers from the same challenges facing mature oil fields. A vision of going digital was adopted and various digitalization projects are being deployed to allow remote monitoring & Control of gas lifted wells. which suggest several values ; Productivity: Digital oil field supported production optimization by optimum lift gas utilization giving more room for reactivation of shut in wells. Accessibility to all wells allows proper production deferral management during any production upset. Innovative data driven diagnostic tools supports troubleshooting and setting priorities of interventions. Operational Efficiency: harmony of production system can be improved dramatically with remote monitoring and control resulting in higher uptime of key equipment such as gas lift modules. logistics and manpower is a major part of operating cost of any mature field, incorporating remote monitoring and control will decrease the need of helicopter & boats trips to manual investigate production drops, efficient distribution of lift gas resulted in less gas lift demand & lower load on compression facilities. Profitability: Imperative impact of digital oil field hitting two birds with one stone; production & cost optimization will boost the profitability margin. the progressive implementation of digital oilfield in the subject asset succeeded to achieve 3% production increase, alleviate the demand of logistics and manpower, decrease the gas lift demand and managed to stop one gas lift module which had positive impact on asset profitability. Digital oil field is a good investment for green fields but it is a vital investment for mature field and a key enabler for business sustainability.