Risk mitigation in petroleum field development by modular implantation

Abstract

Risk is always associated to Exploration & Production projects, mainly due to the geological, economic and technological uncertainties. In the development phase, these uncertainties strongly influence the oil recovery. The acquisition of additional information and flexibility are key points to risk mitigation. The value of information quantifies the benefits of new information and flexibility can be added to the project considering various possible scenarios; it offers the opportunity to improve projects by changing decisions in the future.Decision makers can develop giant fields immediately without information and assume the risks or acquire more information and delay the project, adding flexibility to it, such as flexible facilities, intelligent wells and development by modules, which is the focus of this work.A methodology to quantify the risk of a modular implantation of large petroleum fields was proposed. Evaluations of the expected monetary value (EMV), with and without information on possible scenarios, are based on the value of information (VoI). Geological uncertainties are integrated to different production strategies through the geological representative models (GRM). The net present value (NPV) method, supported by the multiattribute utility theory (MAUT), evaluates the return and risk of each possible scenario.The proposed methodology was applied in a case study based on a Brazilian offshore field in order to mitigate the risk associated to its development.