Practical Application of Computer Technology to Petroleum and Gas Operations

Abstract

American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers Inc. Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers Office. Such discussions may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines. Abstract Detailed reservoir calculations, large-scale pipeline design and many refining operations now are carried out with the use of computer techniques. However, routine handling of small projects such as the calculation of oil and gas reserves, the evaluation of pressure buildup data for production and reservoir applications, etc., continues to be done to a large extent by manual techniques. This paper discusses the considerable potential for the operations engineer in using potential for the operations engineer in using both the results of simple data processing and the new small scientific computer. It is concluded that valuable improvements in the use of technical manpower would result from a greater understanding and application of these modern techniques. Introduction The application of computers and data processing to the solution of technical processing to the solution of technical problems for the petroleum industry has seen great problems for the petroleum industry has seen great progress in recent years. However, in many progress in recent years. However, in many respects, this application has been limited to the more mathematically inclined and to those engineering problems involving detailed repetitive solutions such as process and reservoir engineering calculations. The application of these techniques to the day-today engineering problems besetting the individual field problems besetting the individual field engineer has not yet been universally accepted. This paper examines these applications in the light of more recent computer and data processing developments, and illustrates the processing developments, and illustrates the advantages of applying such techniques to routine daily problems. DEFINITIONS "Data processing" in this context refers to all machine processing that requires simple multiplication, division, addition and subtraction and the carrying of totals. These tasks need relatively uncomplicated sorting machines, printers, card readers, punches and a small printers, card readers, punches and a small arithmetic unit. A "computer", on the other hand, refers here to a processing machine that has considerable memory [storage] capacity and can perform calculations much faster than the simple data processing machine. However, while in many cases data processing problems are carried out on computers because of their greater capacity, it is rarely possible to reverse this and solve even simple engineering problems on data processing equipment. problems on data processing equipment.