Technology Focus: Intelligent Fields Technology

Abstract

Technology Focus Over the last couple of decades, we have seen a steady stream of “intelligent” innovations go from ideas to infancy to catalog solutions. Advances in metering, measurement, control, automation, and modeling have changed our daily routine such that our decisions are better informed, and, as a result, we produce in more-challenging environments, at lower cost, and with better recoveries. Whether deployed in the office or in the field, the majority of these advances have pertained to improvements in our organizations, in our production facilities, and in our wells. While still not routine, tools based on artificial intelligence, large-scale model integration, and automated data/model integration are finding their way into the typical practitioner’s toolbox. What is clearly emerging now are practical solutions that take the next step into the reservoir and across solution types and discipline boundaries. In the coming years, artificial-intelligence applications will steer our exploration and appraisal processes. While we push model integration (e.g., between static and dynamic and for entire production systems), artificial intelligence will be working behind the scenes to find model inconsistencies, to narrow uncertainties, and to improve our forecasts and option assessments. These advances are coming at an opportune time in that they can support better decision making in some of our most-costly decisions (e.g., helping us to improve our productive drilling rates and demonstrating the real costs of deviating from reservoir-management plans). The papers highlighted in this section provide clear illustrations of how some of this will be achieved. JPT Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. OTC 26209 Proactive and Reactive Strategies for Optimal Operational Design: An Application in Smart Wells by A.C.A. Abreu, PUC-Rio, et al. SPE 176760 Leveraging Intelligent-Field Data for Full-Field Pressure-Transient Analysis by B. Al-Wehaibi, Saudi Aramco, et al. SPE 177829 Smart Proxy: An Innovative Reservoir-Management Tool; Case Study of a Giant Mature Oil Field in the UAE by S.D. Mohaghegh, Intelligent Solutions, et al.