Technical Data Management – Standards and Replication for Enabling Increased Production from Global Assets

Abstract

Abstract Technical Data Management (TDM) is an integral part of the global Wells, Reservoir, and Facility Management (WRFM) program in Royal Dutch Shell, plc, aiming to maximize production from existing global assets. WRFM data is wide-spectrum in nature, ranging from subsurface to wells development, facilities, production and reservoir engineering data. Managing this wide spectrum data is important for WRFM success and requires addressing bottlenecks at both local and global levels. The various data challenges encountered in upstream assets can be categorized under the following: a) technical data is often hard to access, scattered and in non-standard data repositories, b) lack of robust discipline data ownership like Well Engineering, Reservoir Engineering, and Production Technology with well defined data management plans or c) inconsistency in data types and quality managed within assets. The above mentioned issues are being addressed by: 1) the development and implementation of the WRFM Standard TDM Plan for assets bringing further consistency in managing data, 2) the use of WRFM Critical Data Catalog to ensure all assets have consistency in managing the same minimum discipline data and data types and 3) the development of minimum data standards for additional data types to further enable replication efforts with a standardized approach. The WRFM Standard TDM Plan was first piloted in three assets to validate the standardized data support plan in the assets from heavy oil to deep water lines of business. The standard TDM plan deployments are now being replicated across other assets to bring further data management standardization, data consistency, tracking of Data Quality (DQ) measurements, and improvements in quality assurance with guidance from discipline data owners as well as Global Discipline Heads, Principal Technical Experts and Subject Matter Experts. The WRFM Critical Data Catalog serves as a standard list of data to manage, included in the plan's implementation with traffic lights to measure and track the continuous improvements within specified periods. Minimum standards for data — for example PVT (Pressure Volume Temperature) standard, endorsed by the reservoir engineering as well as the Technical Data Management disciplines — ensures this valuable reservoir engineering data is stored in the corporate store, versus an ad-hoc local solution, thus providing easy access of this data and supporting replication of DQ assessment/assurance mechanism globally. The impact of the above technical data management efforts are evident in several assets, where data management scores are improving from the past measurements, also resulting in assets being ahead on their production plans, enabling additional barrels with efficiency gains and timely decision making. This paper presents the Technical Data Management journey on global WRFM data assets within Shell aimed at providing reliable data at engineers' and geoscientists' finger tips and value-add to the business.