DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:57 Page 1

Production:
Implementing digital
energy - lessons from
US Air Force
The company that
monitors 20,000 wells
Oil and gas industry ‘like
teenagers’ with data
management
April / May 2009 Issue 18

Subsurface:
Using dynamic dampeners to drill 50 per cent faster
Associate Member
Secrets of networked drill pipe ™
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:57 Page 2

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DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:57
April / May 2009
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Front cover: IntelliServ's networked drill pipe
can carry data at 57,000 bits per second
from measurement tools in the bottomhole
assembly and for the first time all along the
drillstring. In the photo - the electronics in
the link subs get checked before being
assembled into the pipe.
Printed by Printo, spol. s r.o., 708 00 Ostrava-Poruba,
Czech Republic. www.printo.cz
Page 1
Contents
Leader
Planning this September’s Offshore Europe conference
We interviewed Thomas Thune Andersen, this year’s chairman of Aberdeen’s Offshore Europe
exhibition and CEO of Maersk Oil, about plans for this year’s event on September 8-11 3
Western Geco’s land seismic system
WesternGeco has launches UniQ; a new integrated point-receiver land seismic system.
Pronounced ‘Unique,’ the system can record up to 150,000 live channels at a two millisecond
sample interval 4
Issue 18 Norway – broadening its data reporting requirements
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) is considering broadening its reporting
requirements, forcing companies to supply both their pre-stack data as well as all relevant
processed post-stack, and implementing mechanisms to ensure that data from relinquished
areas is collected and efficiently managed 6
Exploration and drilling
Improvements with broadband networked drill string
Networked drill pipe transmits data from downhole MWD/LWD tools at 57,000 - bps – far more
than the 6 bits per second commonly available using mud pulse. We asked National Oilwell
Varco how it works. 7
Communicating from downhole with a chirp
Calgary company XACT Downhole Telemetry Inc. has developed a way of transmit 20 bits per
second (bps) uncompressed data from downhole to surface that is independent of the drilling
fluid and formation properties. 8
Geotrace introduces ray-traced anisotropic PSTM
Seismic data processing and data management company Geotrace has announced its new
KirchMig tool for anisotropic ray traced prestack time imaging 9
Drilling technology - evolution or revolution
The second plenary session of the IADC conference had the theme “technology – evolution or
revolution,” talking about how the drilling industry develops new technology, and whether it
is innovative enough to develop new technologies and methods needed to help produce the
oil which the world needs 10
50 per cent faster drilling – with APS active damper
APS Technology has developed a system to keep your drillbits in constant contact with the
formation by reducing bit bounce and stick slip– which could help you drill 50 per cent faster,
and make your drill bits last 25-30 per cent longer 13
SPT Group launches new version of Drillbench
Norwegian software and simulation company SPT Group has launched a new version of
Drillbench, its software for simulating and modeling drilling operations 14
Oil and gas production
Lessons from the US Air Force
The oil and gas industry could learn a few lessons from the US Air Force in working out the
best way to implement and integrate new technology, says Houston oil and gas consultant
Dutch Holland of Holland & Davis 17
The company that monitors 20,000 gas wells
Oklahoma company Universal Well Site Solutions has implemented its remote monitoring and
control system at 20,000 coal bed methane wells – including technology to switch your pump
and on off remotely 20
Sword – developments with electronic documentation
European business software and applications company Sword Group is aiming to take oil and
gas engineering document management to a new level – where documentation systems can
really be used to help maintain safety and efficiency 22
Oil and gas industry “teenagers” with data management
The oil and gas industry is like “teenagers” with data management – getting there slowly, but
still needing some prodding, cajoling and forcing to get them to do it properly, delegates to
SMI’s E&P Information and Data Management conference in London on Feb 10-11 heard 23
Using live 3D drawings instead of technical documentation
Silicon Valley company Right Hemisphere has a new vision for technical manuals of the future
– replacing them with live 3D images of the equipment 28
April - May 2009 - digital energy journal 1
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:57 Page 2

eFields
Smart Fields
Digital Oil Fields
Fields for the Future

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PQFSBUJPOTGPSCFUUFSQSPEVDUJWJUZBOETBGFUZ
The 5th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTEGRATED OPERATIONS IN
THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY, TRONDHEIM, NORWAY 29–30 SEPTEMBER 2009

International meeting place for business and science

IO 09 Science and practice is the international meeting place that will bring you to the network and give you trends and opportunities
for research and business in integrated operations. You will meet the players from oil companies, suppliers, research laboratories and
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price situation in order to improve productivity and save costs.

Where Science and Practice meet

This conference is about the methods and tools for integrated operations, today and in the future. IO09 is the place where science and
practice meet. It will present the experience from some of the most advanced oil companies, system suppliers and research institutions
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meeting place for generating new impulses in the further development of integrated operations practice. See: www.ioconf.no

Sessions
IO 09 will highlight aspects of the technologies and work processes for better productivity and safety.

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2. Smarter oil and gas world – experiences and solutions
3. Pushing the boundary of integrated modeling
4. New work processes and collaboration environments
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7. IO solutions for improved safety and environment
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Sponsoring organization: 5IFDPOGFSFODFJTPSHBOJ[FECZUIF$FOUFSGPS*OUFHSBUFE0QFSBUJPOTIPTUFECZUIF/PSXFHJBO

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TZTUFNTVQQMJFST BDBEFNJDJOTUJUVUJPOTBOEUIF3FTFBSDI$PVODJMPG/PSXBZ XJUIUIFPCKFDUJWFUPVOEFSUBLFSFTFBSDI 
Established by the Research Council of Norway

innovation and education on integrated operations. www.ntnu.no/iocenter

Partners in the Center for Integrated Operations in the Petroleum Industry:

Cooperating academic partners:

Kyoto University
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 3
Planning this September’s Offshore
Europe conference
We interviewed Thomas Thune Andersen, this year’s chairman of Aberdeen’s Offshore Europe exhibition
and CEO of Maersk Oil, about plans for this year’s event on September 8-11.
“The North Sea has always been a key melt-
ing pot,” says Thomas Thune Andersen,
chairman of Offshore Europe, also CEO of
Maersk Oil and a member of the executive
board for AP Moller-Maersk, the world’s
largest container shipping line.
“A lot of industry has been developed
and driven there. Everything around health,
safety and environment (HSE). A lot of that
has been exported.”
“We have a lot of companies who have
developed from there. They have a long term
future. They are doing things in the Middle
East and so on.”
So it seems reasonable to expect that
there will be plenty of interest in this year’s
Offshore Europe conference and exhibition,
which is (alongside Norway’s ONS, held on
alternate years) the largest event for North
Sea oil and gas.
“Fundamentally it is my hope that any-
one who has joined Offshore Europe leaves
it inspired, with more enthusiasm to go back
to their job,” he says.
“I've been to a number of Offshore Eu-
rope sessions. It seems like a place where
things are happening and a vehicle for new
ideas. I thought it was quite exciting to be a
chairman.”
The 2007 event attracted 40,000 visi-
tors each day, with 1,455 exhibitors, and ex-
hibition space this year is already sold out.
There is a lot of confidence in the success
despite the economic downturn.
“It’s our obligation now to make sure
exhibitors get the value out of that,” he says.
“We hope some people will make a bit of
business.”
“The main thing that we would hope to
achieve from this conference when it is over,
will be to have addressed young people – ei-
ther joining the industry or who have an in-
terest in the industry – who can come and
get inspired and learn about what the oppor-
tunities are for them.”
“Offshore Europe attracts people of all
different aspects,” he says. “It’s a forum
where people can talk. There's few places
where people in the industry get together. We
want an environment where it’s easy to net-
work.”
It is important that people aim to make
contributions to the event as well as look for
what they can get out of it. “The quality of
what comes out is as good as what comes
in,” he says.
The theme this year is “energy at a
crossroads,” looking in particular at technol-
ogy, climate, industry operational models
and people.
The themes were decided on 12 months
ago. “The world has turned upside down in
some ways since we did it,” he says. “But
the topics are more relevant.”
Technology and innovation
New technology will be a key area for Off-
shore Europe. “We want to share the latest
technology, trendsetting stuff,” he says.
“We are getting more input to the tech-
nical papers - it is evidence that the industry
is very much alive,” he says. “It’s important
there are hardcore technical papers.”
Mr Andersen defines two different
types of innovation – traditional innovation,
such as where a large company develops
new ideas, and open innovation, when new
ideas are developed by diverse groups of
people.
For open innovation to succeed, com-
panies need to be open to the idea of inte-
grating with other companies, and entering
partnerships, he says.
Mr Andersen strongly believes that
there is a continued need for integration and
partnerships in the oil and gas industry, par-
ticularly to get new technologies being de-
veloped and used.
“You need a good transparency of
where the technology is, and less focussed
about who brings it to market, so we allow
some of these ideas to come faster to the
forefront,” he says. “The need for being open
and sharing is more important.”
Mr Andersen’s views about integration
have been influenced, to some degree, by his
Danish background. “Denmark is fairly
small - in certain areas we are world class
but we can't be experts in all things,” he says.
“When we have been doing things in
Denmark - it has been done very much with
partnering,” he says. “It shows a need for in-
tegration.”
Climate
The event, on Sept 8-11 2009, is just a few
April - May 2009 - digital energy journal
Leader
"Fundamentally it is my hope that anyone
who has joined Offshore Europe leaves it
inspired" - Thomas Thune Andersen,
chairman of Offshore Europe, also CEO of
Maersk Oil
months before the United Nations Copen-
hagen Climate summit on December 6-18
2009, where there are high expectations that
the world might agree on new targets for
greenhouse gas emissions.
Connie Hedegaard, Danish Minister for
Climate and Energy, and host of the Decem-
ber United Nations summit, will address Off-
shore Europe.
The outcome of the Copenhagen sum-
mit could affect the oil and gas industry in
many ways – such as by helping encourage
carbon capture and storage, encouraging
lower energy use in oil and gas extraction,
and reducing overall oil and gas demand.
“For me, climate change is a pretty
wide subject,” he says. “If there is to be a
low carbon future – how does that impact
us? What does it mean for the oil industry to
make sure we reach the goals?”
“Then it’s an issue of - how can we ex-
tract resources with the lowest energy foot-
print? What is the best way of doing these
things?”
“We are preparing our role in industry
to make sure we can be socially responsible
companies, and working out what the right
targets are.”
3
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 4
Leader
“One of the biggest components is car-
bon capture and storage,” he says. “It is get-
ting a lot of support. There's a huge focus on
it right now - a lot of research and develop-
ment. I think we will see great break-
throughs.”
“There's different players involved -
power stations [to separate out the carbon
dioxide], engineering companies [to trans-
port it] and oil companies [to inject it in un-
derground reservoirs].
Mr Andersen is particularly interested
in the idea of using carbon dioxide to help
get more oil out of ground (enhanced oil re-
covery). “I think its hugely important as a
general concept,” he says.
Operating model
Discussions will be held at Offshore Europe
about gradual changes in the operating mod-
els of the oil and gas industry.
“There are a number of unique things
Western Geco’s land seismic system
WesternGeco has launched UniQ, a new integrated point-receiver land seismic system. The system can
record up to 150,000 live channels at a two millisecond sample interval.
Geophysical services company WesternGe-
co has launched a new land acquisition and
processing seismic system called UniQ. The
system combines high channel count point-
receiver technology with support for ad-
vanced simultaneous source techniques.
Field tested in the Arctic and the desert,
UniQ can address land seismic challenges in
a multitude of environments from the hottest
deserts to freezing conditions.
“The system is designed to extend the
capacity, flexibility, reliability, efficiency
and quality of land seismic data acquisition,
particularly in areas of complex geology and
high-noise environments,” says UniQ land
marketing manager, Stuart Papworth. “UniQ
can be used for fast-moving, fit for purpose
exploration surveys and also wide-azimuth,
broad-bandwidth appraisal and development
surveys,” he adds.
A high channel count
UniQ builds upon the existing high fidelity
provided by the broad bandwidth Geophone
Accelerometer (GAC) sensor and the West-
ernGeco Q-Land point-receiver acquisition
and processing system. Q-Land, launched in
2002, is acknowledged for its capabilities of
acquiring up to 30,000 live channels. UniQ
however, takes Q-Land successes further,
boasting support for up to 150,000 live chan-
4 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
happening around state control of resources,
access to resources, and what's happening
with the resources,” he says. “There's a need
to look at trends and the operating model.”
“If we were 3-5 years in the future and
look back, we'll see this as a time there were
some structural changes. It would be excit-
ing to have a discussion around that.”
“We’ll have a panel of people from the
different groups – national oil companies, in-
ternational oil companies.”
People
The people issue is most important, he says.
“How do we attract and motivate people and
in a way which is sustainable?”
“The most important thing is we show
the outside world that this is an industry with
a lot of future.”
However, “we can't turn a blind eye to
the fact that there's an economic crisis out
there,” he says.
nels at a 2 millisecond sample interval.
According to Mr Papworth, “The abili-
ty to acquire and process high-channel-count
point-receiver surveys has brought about a
step change in the quality of onshore seis-
mic imaging.”
Mr Papworth explains why a high
channel count is important, “In current land
projects, source points are often repeated
twice or more in order to acquire well-sam-
pled full-azimuth (FAZ) data. This is ineffi-
cient and expensive: twice the shot points
means it takes twice as long to complete the
survey with double the costs. So, how do you
reduce the number of shots?
“The great thing about seismic is that
geophysically, sources and receivers are in-
terchangeable – you can compensate for hav-
ing few receivers by having more shots, and
vice versa; you can reduce the number of
shot-points by increasing the number of live
receivers. This is where the extreme channel
counts supported by UniQ come in. UniQ
enables us to field the right number of point-
receivers to do any job optimally, including
efficient full-offset, FAZ land surveys - the
‘holy grail’ of seismic.”
Precision Imaging
UniQ, however, is not simply a scaled-up
version of existing land systems. “In order
During the economic downturn, it is
important that companies ensure that their
core competencies are protected.
“No-one feels they can do this without
a sophisticated and professional approach,”
he says. “We’re getting into deeper water
and more harsh climate environment. There
will be quite a lot of companies who will see
their competitive advantage in being at the
forefront of technology.”
In particular, the industry should be en-
couraging more children to study science
and engineering. “Overall we're short of peo-
ple with a science and engineering back-
ground,” he says. “I think that's a whole
mindset around education.”
The Offshore Europe event will work
together with the Oil and Gas Academy OPI-
TO (see www.opito.com), which will bring
in large numbers of school children to the
event on the final day. Also a large number
of students are expected to attend.
The UniQ GAC is a motion sensor that delivers
significantly reduced signal distortion and
increased bandwidth
to support the extreme channel capacities
and associated data volumes and quality con-
trol requirements, a new architecture has
been developed. Everything is redesigned,
from the GAC sensor and the ground elec-
tronics to the recording truck and camp data
processing trailers,” says Mr Papworth.
The high channel count point-receiver
technology is combined with a continuous
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 5

Leader
acquisition system that eliminates dead-time
between acquisition records, and supports si-
multaneous source techniques. Seismic data
are continually streamed from the sensors to
the central system so that there is no delay-
inducing system cycle time between shots.
System timing is GPS based, increas-
ing accuracy, and the GPS time-stamps are
used to separate the data into shot-records
either in the recording truck or in camp. The
field planning software, source and record-
ing control systems and camp data-process-
ing facilities are all designed to work in an
integrated manner to enable efficient equip-
ment layout and optimized data handling
while ultimately reducing the time from shot
to processed deliverable.
Receiver lines are formed by connect-
ing sensor strings back-to-back to create
long segments that are powered at both ends.
Each string does not require a take-out, and
Desert Explorer vibrators probe shifting dunes of indeterminate velocity and thickness to image
there are no heavy lines cables to deploy and the rock formations beneath
retrieve.
Cut a sensor string anywhere, and data
and power continue to flow from both sides,
keeping the sensors up and running until the nection. Sensor data are completely self-de- opment.”
break can be repaired. A network of light- scribing, sending coordinate, test, and envi- UniQ is also fully compatible with all
weight fiber-optic cables replaces the tradi- ronmental data back to the recorder for in- the high productivity vibrator techniques that
tional single backbone, and automatically corporation into the seismic data headers. are becoming standard.
routes data via an alternate path in case of a “This reduces the risk of errors in data
cable break. processing and speeds up turn-around-time,” For more information about UniQ, please
The UniQ sensors are also plug-and- says Mr Papworth. “Clean data is essential visit www.westerngeco.com/UniQ
play, running their own self-tests before be- to producing high quality imaging results at or email seismic@slb.com
ing ready for acquisition seconds after con- any stage of oilfield exploration and devel-

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DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 6
Leader
Norway – broadening its data reporting
requirements
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) is considering broadening its reporting requirements,
forcing companies to supply both their pre-stack data as well as all relevant processed post-stack, and
implementing mechanisms to ensure that data from relinquished areas is collected and efficiently
managed, says Eric Otto Toogood, project manager of DISKOS, the data repository operated by the
Norwegian Petroleum Directorate in collaboration with the Norwegian oil industry.
NPD is keen to include pre-stack data be-
cause many companies are asking for it. “A
lot of smaller companies coming to Norway
would like to go back to field data using
modern reprocessing techniques,” he said.
DISKOS is also expanding its efforts to
track down non-reported data – where com-
panies have data they are supposed to sub-
mit, but they don’t.
It is also keen to prevent companies
from supplying data to the NPD in propri-
etary formats, because it does not feel so
confident it will always be able to read the
data when it needs to, decades into the fu-
ture. “We have some proprietary formats,
that we are keen to replace with open stan-
dards, but this can often be a technical chal-
lenge” he said. “We really want to get away
from there.”
DISKOS wants to be able to make data
from relinquished acreage more widely
available. In other words, if you don’t want
to drill in a certain area, there is an obliga-
tion to relinquish the acreage but the chal-
lenge remains in giving other companies ac-
cess to all the available data – i.e. maybe to
have access to most, or all of your data.
“There might be tough fighting when
we change reporting requirements,” he ad-
mitted.
NPD is keen to make it easier for peo-
ple to use and access the data. “We want
make the data available to non expert users,”
he said and is looking forward to the imple-
mentation of a more sophisticated, user
friendly front-end in the PetroBank software
currently being used by Diskos.
The DISKOS service recently changed
its service provider for managing the opera-
tions. The previous contract was awarded to
Schlumberger for 2004 to 2008, and now to
Landmark for 2009 to 2014.
The DISKOS initiative began original-
ly as the Geobank project in the early 1990’s
and began normal operations in 1995 run by
the company PetroData as a repository for
post-stack seismic data, with 5 companies
involved; now there are 52 members and da-
ta coverage has expanded to well and month-
6 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
ly production data.
Any oil company can join DISKOS;
Norwegian Universities are allowed to ac-
cess non-confidential data for academic and
research purposes. There are opportunities
for companies other than oil companies to
access ”public” data, but without online ac-
cess. Giving non-oil companies online ac-
cess to the database is a priority for Diskos
in 2009.
Managing the data
One of the biggest challenges for DISKOS
is managing the enormous amount of data.
The rate of data collection is increasing
all the time. “2007, 2008, and probably 2009
are record years for acquiring seismic data
in Norway,” he said.
The Norwegian government keeps data
about all the seismic surveys which have
ever been carried out and all of the explo-
ration wells, so that it always has the best in-
formation possible about what has been
found out so far about its oilfields and the
resource potential of the Norwegian conti-
nental shelf in general.
“We need user friendly systems and to
be able to find data over the long term and
we want to reduce the cost of moving data
around.”
One of the biggest challenges is keep-
ing DISKOS as complete as possible. There
is no easy way of knowing if DISKOS has
got all of the available data in its system,
even though there are very specific regula-
tions to ensure that all seismic, well and pro-
duction data data gathered on the Norwegian
continental shelf are reported to the authori-
ties.
A further challenge is making sure that
all of the data is high quality, and not dupli-
cated, he said.
There is a disaster recovery site over
10km from the main operation database,
where a back-up copy of all the data is
stored. If there is any problem with the main
database the back-up copy can be opera-
tional (for read only purposes) in 5 days.
Looking after data from a traditional
data management point of view is a complex
process, particularly when moving it from
one storage media to another one, especially
if older media look like they will become ob-
solete.
“You have to reformat data – it’s an ex-
pensive business,” he said. “The main issue
is the ability to read media. We need to keep
data for at least 10 years and hopefully a lot
longer. You need durable systems that can
withstand change.”
“Putting data into a managed solution
such as Diskos solves all of these problems
as the data sets are continually being re-
freshed onto new media through an agree-
ment with the service provider. The current
approach is to have a mix of technologies
where both tape and disc based solutions
work in concert, giving the best of both
worlds.”
The database has about 120 terabytes
in it, with 16 people employed to manage it.
The data is passed through quality control
checks as it is entered into the database. It is
normally in SEG-Y format for seismic data
and a number of standard formats for well
and production data, he said.
In the past the NPD had physical data
stored on paper, sepia, film, microfilm and
tape, which is the typical situation facing
many companies worldwide today. One key
task is often in digitising paper well logs. “It
is time consuming but enables us to do more
with the data,” he said.
“We think we’ve set up a high quality
database. We’ve had a lot of members, I
think they’re getting value for money,” he
said.
The DISKOS members typically down-
load around 3.5 terabytes of data per month
out of the database, he said.
This article is based on a speech given by
Mr Toogood at the SMI E&P Information
and Data Management conference in Lon-
don on Feb 10-11 2009
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 7
Improvements with broadband
networked drill string
Networked drill pipe transmits data from downhole MWD/LWD tools at 57,000 - bps – far more than the
6 bits per second commonly available using mud pulse. We asked National Oilwell Varco how it works.
National Oilwell Varco reports that its Intel-
liServ Broadband Network service delivered
high-definition subsurface information in
more than 60 wells since its commercializa-
tion early 2006, drilling over 610,000 feet in
four continents in onshore and offshore envi-
ronments, in vertical, deviated and horizon-
tal wells.
The abilities with a broadband network
and data acquisition all along the drill string
is enormously helpful in making operational
decisions in real time, and placing the well-
bore in the right place while continuously
monitoring what is happening downhole.
The broadband network carries data at
speeds of 57,000 bits per second – far more
than 1 to 20 bits per second typically avail-
able with other technologies for communica-
tions from the drill bit, such as mud pulse,
electromagnetic or acoustics.
Further, the broadband network has a
constant signal strength with increasing well
depth, while the data-rate typically degrades
from 20 bps at shallow depths to as little as
1bps at extreme depths with mudpulse.
Many people have tried to develop
wired drill pipe over the years, but they could
not find a way of getting around the problem
on how to establish connections between
lengths of drill pipe allowing data flow across
that would not be affected by dirt or mud on
the connections. For example, a typical met-
al to metal connection (such as the cables that
plug into your computer) would not work.
GrantPrideco developed a double shoul-
dered premium connection (subsequently ac-
quired by National Oilwell Varco in Decem-
ber 2007) that helped solve the problem: In-
stead of having a live metal to metal data con-
nection at the pipe joints, an inductive coil
was placed on the secondary shoulder.
The inductive coil generates a magnetic
field from the current supplied on a coaxial
cable, which runs through each length of drill
pipe, connecting with the inductive coil on
the other end of it.
The data therefore is communicated
through the magnetic field at the connection
and not from metal to metal contact, so coils
covered in dirt do not affect data communi-
cation.
Still, it is important to keep the coils as
close together as possible: The further they
Exploration and drilling
are apart, the more signal at-
tenuation. Electronic re-
peaters, running on batteries
are installed every 450m of
drill pipe – to boost the sig-
nal.
Although the concept
of a broadband network
looks very simple “it took a
long time to figure out how
to do it,” says Monte John-
son, R&D Manager software
and electronics, with Intel-
liServ, the division of NOV
which developed the net-
work.
The broadband net-
IntelliServ's networked drill pipe can carry data at 57,000 bits
work provides full range of per second from measurement tools in the bottomhole
benefits. For example, “10% assembly and for the first time all along the drillstring. In the
time savings has been real- photo - the electronics in the link subs get checked before being
ized simply through the abil- assembled into the pipe
ity to quickly downlink in-
structions to the rotary steerable tools instead properly cleaned. Pack-offs - a build-up of
of the normal communications using the mud cutting beds in the wellbore that resulted
pumps for downlink communications,” he from insufficient hole cleaning – can be pin-
says. pointed, as well as the location of a forma-
“This result in better borehole manage- tion fluid influx as they happen.
ment as the rotary steerable commands can “All major MWD/LWD service
be sent more frequently.” providers can connect to the bottom end of
our network with successful deployments in
All service companies connect four continents,” he says. You can also to
Daan Veeningen, business development man- send instructions to, and diagnose problems
ager, Intelliserv, emphasizes that NOV pro- with, downhole tools without having to pull
vides the oil industry a network, not just a da- the tools out of the hole.
ta communication link from the bottom of the “We can actuate tools, diagnose in case
drill pipe to surface. of problems, we update their settings. We
Sensors placed at network nodes all have seen cases where we reprogrammed
along the drill string at discrete intervals take tools downhole, while without the connectiv-
measurements of the annular pressure and ity of the broadband network this would have
temperature. This high-definition informa- required to trip the tools to surface to perform
tion in real time helps ensuring the hole is this task.”
“When the tools are used on a broad-
band network, you have the bidirectional
communication with the ability to fine-tune
the settings of the downhole measurement
tools and have the ability to diagnose tool
problems while the tools are still downhole.”
Mr Veeningen says that the technology
could also be used in completions and well
Intelliserv's wired drill pipe - an inductive coil on tests.
the end of each pipe section communicates “The next generation downhole tools
data to the next length of pipe, without could be actuated with a click of a mouse, as
needing a direct metal to metal connection opposed to running slick line,” he says.
April - May 2009 - digital energy journal 7
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 8
Exploration and drilling
Communicating from downhole with a chirp
Calgary company XACT Downhole Teleme-
try Inc. has developed a way of transmit 20
bits per second (bps) uncompressed data from
downhole to surface that is independent of the
drilling fluid and formation properties.
This impressive data rate is a big im-
provement on the typical 0.5 to 3 bps for mud
Pulse and the 3 to 6 bps for EM telemetries.
XACT predicts it will increase this rate to 40
bps this year.
To date XACT has drilled more than 125
wells using acoustic technology, including a
vertical well of more than 3,000m measured
depth.
Many companies have tried using sound
energy to carry drilling data from the bottom
hole assembly (BHA) in a live drilling envi-
ronment, but have not been successful.
“The trick”, says Dr. Paul Camwell,
XACT’s CTO, “is to understand the acoustic
channel – i.e. work within the constraints of
how the acoustic energy moves up the drill
pipe, and the optimum way it should be de-
coded at the surface.”
The original work was carried out at San-
dia National Labs (New Mexico) under the di-
rection of Dr. Doug Drumheller in the 80s and
90s, and today XACT leads the industry in
carrying out the R&D necessary to protect and
commercialize the technology for drilling ap-
plications.
The acoustic wave utilized by XACT
travels through the drill string independently
Schlumberger – new drilling telemetry
Schlumberger has launched the Orion II*
telemetry platform to increase the rate of data
transmission to surface from their downhole
logging-while-drilling (LWD) and measure-
ment-while-drilling (MWD) services. It also
cancels drilling and rig noise that adversely af-
fects data quality.
Downhole, new compression algorithms
increase the quantity of data transmitted at a
given physical telemetry rate, and new signal
modulation methods push mud pulse signals
further.
At the surface, new signal detection and
noise cancellation methods demodulate ex-
tremely weak signals at high physical teleme-
try rates to enhance data quality.
In fact, the system can send 12 bits per
second of actual data through the mud - called
physical telemetry.
The system also possesses new data com-
pression technologies that can compress a data
8 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
of drilling fluid and formation properties, de-
pending only on the presence of metal drill
pipe. Thus underbalanced drilling is a natural
application for their tool.
The telemetry signal is carried in the drill
pipe and comprises data bits that are encoded
via a series of chirps - a sweep of frequencies
in the 650Hz range. The energy source that
generates the chirps is a piezoelectric stack
that transforms high voltage electrical waves
into mechanical waves, these being introduced
into the surrounding steel of the acoustic
telemetry tool and hence into the drill string
where they propagate at speeds of approxi-
mately 5,000m/sec.
XACT is also presently commercializing
distributed sensor nodes that can be placed at
appropriate distances along the drill string.
These, like the primary tool in the BHA, are
able to measure drilling parameters such as
pressure, temperature, shock and vibration. XACT clamps an Electronic Acoustic Receiver
The distributed nodes can also detect and de- (EAR) around the kelly saver sub to receive
code the acoustic signals received from below acoustic data sent from near the drill bit to
surface via the drill pipe walls, and hence by
and relay them on to the surface at higher pow- radio to the driller.
er, thus providing greatly extended telemetry
range.
The major investor in XACT is Shell
Technology Ventures Fund 1 BV. The fund is provide complementary technologies. For in-
managed by the independently-owned compa- stance, XACT’s through-bore tool aides the
ny Kenda Capital BV. The Fund specializes in deployment of the ThruBitTM suite of Surel-
funding companies that provide ‘step-change’ ogTM logging tools, and XACT’s high data
technologies primarily in the upstream oil and rate and third-party interface enables a lower
gas sector, particularly when such companies cost drilling and logging solution for clients.
stream as high as 120 bps -
known as effective telemetry.
When a service runs the Orion
II telemetry platform 120 bps
are effective on a 9 bps physical
telemetry rate.
Log curves can be com-
pressed instead of compressing
individual pieces of data. “This
enables an excellent compres-
sion ratio with no deviation from
recorded data,” says Gilles Vie,
Schlumberger product champi-
on for Orion II.
The system was used on
the longest well ever drilled, at
40,320 ft well for Maersk Oil Qatar. ect, Maersk Oil Qatar also ran the Schlumberg-
During the project, 3 bps were sent while er PowerDrive* rotary steerable system, geo-
drilling at depths up to 35,000 feet where the VISION* imaging-while-drilling service and
MWD was downlinked to 1.5 bps telemetry, adnVISION* azimuthal density neutron tool.
which was used to total depth. During the proj- *Mark of Schlumberger
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 9

Exploration and drilling

Geotrace introduces ray-traced

anisotropic PSTM
Seismic data processing and data management company Geotrace has announced its new KirchMig tool
for anisotropic ray traced prestack time imaging.
The new technique is particularly useful
when imaging seismic data with long off-
sets (close to the horizontal), including seis-
mic that is being used before horizontal
drilling. Additionally, the inclusion of
anisotropy provides more accurate imaging
in the presence of rocks in which the veloc-
ity varies as a function of direction.
data and in the presence of anisotropy. It in-
corporates the geology and other known
properties of the areas and allows us to
work closely with our clients to tie together
all of the available information. Ray trac-
ing, combined with the inclusion of
anisotropy, gives us a more accurate time
image,” Weigant added.

Figure 1: The synthetic isotropic gather on the Figure 2: The synthetic anisotropic gather on
left has been prestack migrated using a sixth the left has been prestack migrated using an
order curved ray algorithm in the center and isotropic ray traced algorithm in the center
“It is particularly good for long offset data
a ray traced algorithm on the right and an anisotropic ray traced algorithm on
and in the presence of anisotropy” - John
the right
Weigant, vice president of geotechnical
applications with Geotrace
Geotrace’s Anisotropic Ray-traced Geotrace’s implementation of state-of-
PSTM goes beyond the fourth and sixth or- the-art interactive velocity analysis tools al-
der Taylor Series used for most “curved ray lows for fast analysis and picking of both
PSTM” implementations and uses one-di- velocities and the anisotropic parameter eta. events as well as deep subtle faulting that
mensional ray tracing to more accurately Figure 3 shows the results of using this is so critical in unconventional resource
image data with longer offsets and/or more workflow in a very difficult imaging area. plays.
complicated velocity models. The follow- The technique helps with both dipping
ing synthetic test illustrates the superiority
of the ray-traced method over curved ray in
an isotropic medium where long offset data
needs to be flattened.
The addition of the time anisotropy
parameter, eta, further complicates the im-
aging challenges. It becomes necessary to
include this parameter in the ray-traced im-
aging to properly flatten gathers when
anisotropy is present. This is illustrated in
figure 2.
Development of the product began in
2008, and it has been in production for sev-
eral months.
“We’ve used this in a very complicat-
ed area in Oklahoma in the over thrust re-
gion—a particularly challenging area for
time imaging," says John Weigant, vice
president of geotechnical applications with
Geotrace.
Figure 3: Anisotropic analysis and Ray Traced PSTM (right) have improved the more
“We've seen some very nice results, conventional sixth Order Curved Ray PSTM result on the left. The dipping events in the upper
specifically better results than we got in the left of the section as well as the subtle faulting in the lower right have both been improved
past. It is particularly good for long offset throughout the 3D volume

April - May 2009 - digital energy journal 9

DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 10
Exploration and drilling
Drilling technology - evolution or
revolution
The second plenary session of the IADC (International Association of Drilling Contractors) conference in
Amsterdam, March 17-19, had the theme “technology – evolution or revolution,” talking about how the
drilling industry develops new technology, and whether it is innovative enough to develop new
technologies and methods needed to help produce the oil which the world needs.
Lance Cook, global wells technology manag-
er with Shell, and chair of the session, stressed
that “we'll need all the innovation and innova-
tive people we can get to get the hydrocarbons
the global economy is projected to need in to
the pipelines.
“I feel that this industry is quite innova-
tive,” he said. “If our industry wasn’t as inno-
vative and capable of delivering, the prognos-
tications that peak oil would occur in the
1970s or 1980s would have been correct.”
“I believe the unprecedented economic
growth of the last century was enabled by the
cheap energy this industry provided,” he said.
“In 2005, we took 60 days to drill a
13,500 foot well in a tight gas field. Now it’s
a little over 3 weeks, with technologies like
rotary steerables and underbalanced drilling.”
“Meanwhile the wells are producing 3-4
times more than in 2005, due to technology
improvements in areas like fracturing. So a
drilling rig in 2009 can put 10 times as many
hydrocarbon molecules in the pipeline as it did
in 2005.
“If the auto industry did as well as that,
they'd be making 400 mpg cars.”
Mr Cook noted that in this economic en-
vironment, it can be easier to find manufac-
turing space to build new/prototype equip-
ment. “In the recent high activity times – get-
ting manufacturing space was nearly impossi-
“This industry is brilliant when we get into a
corner” - Lance Cook, global wells technology
manager with Shell
10 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
ble,” he said.
Mr Cook observed that many revolution-
ary steps are driven by a crisis. “This industry
is brilliant when we get into a corner,” he said.
One example is Shell's work to develop
expandable casing, which was pulled from the
lab to solve a tricky problem. “We couldn’t
reach our objectives even with a new genera-
tion drillship we had commissioned. If we did-
n’t deliver a new method for getting the wells
to their objectives,we would have had to ex-
plain how we spent $350m on this new gener-
ation drilling rig for nothing.
Bob Bloom, NOV
Bob Bloom, senior vice president of National
Oilwell Varco, emphasized that people operat-
ing modern drilling equipment have access to
a wide amount of information that wasn’t im-
mediately available in the past, and with to-
day’s advanced computerized controlled sys-
tems, we can combine human intelligence and
experience with the control software to “pro-
vide safer, more efficient, process oriented
drilling operations.”
Drilling companies have been focusing
on knowledge transfer utilizing advanced
computer based training systems combined
with detailed hands-on courses and on-the-job
training. “Training new personnel has certain-
ly been the most critical industry issue over
the last several years and we've done a great
job in that, and we're continuing to," he said.
"I don't worry about the 'great crew
change' - I think we'll get through it very well,"
he said. "There will be a big reserve of
boomers who will get tired of the golf course
and will come back. I have 3 associates 74
years old who came back to the industry."
One of the greatest breakthroughs in
drilling technology occurred in 1981 when the
top drive was developed, he said. "It revolu-
tionized our drilling performance and was one
of the most important changes in rig machin-
ery in 100 years."
With a top drive, it became possible to
drill down triples or quads (tie together three
or four lengths of drill pipe) and back ream
(drill backwards in the reverse direction) while
circulating drilling fluid.
Another important development was the
“I don't worry about the great crew change” -
Bob Bloom, senior vice president of National
Oilwell Varco
high pressure washpipe, which can operate at
pressures of up to 7,500 psi – where as con-
ventional washpipe systems can fail in under
50 hours of operation at high pump pressures
and elevated rotating speeds, he said.
High pressure wash pipe "has enabled
top drives to run over 1000 hours in high tem-
perature, high pressure and high speed appli-
cations without changing the washpipe," he
said. "That can save millions of dollars every
year in rig maintenance and unproductive
downtime."
One technology which didn't make it was
submarine drilling rigs (drilling from sub-
marines). "A project started in 1958 but it was
never built - the technical challenges were too
big," he said.
However those efforts led to the estab-
lishment of a company called " National Ad-
vanced Drilling Machines". This company de-
signed a 3000 HP land rig which could be op-
erated by one person - everything was mecha-
nized with little need for human involvement
on the drill floor.
This rig was also not successful - it had
a 16 per cent down time and was very diffi-
cult to move. It had one of the first computer
control systems, using vacuum tubes, which
were easily damaged and needed replacing
every time the rig was moved.
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 11
However, some of this mechanical tech-
nology ended up being incorporated in the
NOV top drive, he said.
NOV is developing a new modular
drilling concept called the SPRED Rig, which
can drill wells three times more quickly than
today's rigs, and do casing and concreting op-
erations simultaneously on different well cen-
ters.
Another exciting new technology is us-
ing hammer mill technology on offshore rigs,
which can thermally treat turnings allowing
them to be dumped safely overboard without
causing environmental damage. "This can
save millions of dollars annually from not hav-
ing to transport drilling wastes to shore for
cleaning and disposal," he said.
Moving into the future "we need the right
people in our companies – they need to be in-
novative, not afraid to fail, and enjoy collabo-
rating with others" he said.
Mr Bloom said that new ideas often
come from small groups of 1 or 2 people.
One example is the active heave draw-
works (the pipe hoisting mechanism on some
new offshore rigs). "It was conceived in the
1980’s in a relatively slow time," he said.
"One man championed that idea for 4-5 years
and there were a lot of naysayers, but eventu-
ally the idea was accepted and proved to be a
revolutionary product for the industry."
Luis Cortes Xavier Bastos, Petrobras
Luis Cortes Xavier Bastos, general Manager
of Well Construction Engineering, Petrobras,
said that “technology has added a lot of com-
plexity to our construction process – it added
to the risks,” he said.
“Drilling performance has not improved,
in how much power reaches the cutting edge.
Only a small fraction of power reaches the
drillbit – most is wasted in friction.”
“Non productive time has been constant
at 20-30 per cent for the past 20 years.”
“Lost time accident rates are high com-
pared to other areas of the oil business,” he
said.
An interesting trend for the future will be
niche intervention vessels – drilling rigs for
specific types of drilling jobs. “A rig is not a
swiss knife, you can’t use it for everything,”
he said.
“Are there any outsiders preparing a rev-
olution – eg in space, robotics, nanotech in-
dustry?” he asked. “I don’t know but we have
to be aware of them.”
“Innovative developments are often driv-
en by necessity – ie people invent new things
when they are forced to,” said Mr Bastos.
Tim Juran, Seadrill
Tim Juran, executive vice president, Seadrill,
noted that although the basic rig format hasn't
Exploration and drilling
changed in
30 years, the
specifica-
tions have
changed.
For ex-
ample, the
typical maxi-
mum depths
of water be-
ing drilled
through have
increased
from 1,500
feet in 1981 “Innovators often come when
to 10,000 they are forced” - Halvor
feet now; Kjørholt, chief researcher,
whilst typical drilling and wells,
well depths StatoilHydro
have in-
creased from 15,000 feet in 1981 to 35,000
feet now.
Hoisting capacity has increased from 500
tons in 1980 to 1250 tons now; drill rig power
has increased from 8,800 hp on 1981 to 56,000
hp now, and rotating power has increased from
35,000 lb ft (using a kelly drilling) to 105,000
lb feet (using a top drive).
In 1981, rigs were typically kept in posi-
tion using mooring lines, but now they usual-
ly use dynamic positioning, he said.
The number of data points has increased
from under 50 to over 10,000.
Pro-active formal risk assessment sys-
tems have evolved.
Drilling is planned around the technical
limits of the equipment.
The crew complement on platforms has
increased from 80 beds to 200 beds - “and
they’re all filled,” he said.
Troubleshooting has changed from “see
it / fix it” to remote diagnostics, he said.
Crew are given formal training, not just
“soak time” (time on the platforms where they
are expected to absorb everything).
The current generation of rigs, he said,
can be described as 6th generation – which he
described as having prominently dynamic po-
sitioning, ultra deep drilling capability, next
generation control systems.
They also have a turnkey shipyard deliv-
ery – where the entire rig is put together with
a shipyard, and the shipyard contracts directly
with the drilling equipment manufacturer to
provide the drilling system.
There is plenty more to be desired, he
said.
“We must compress the competency de-
velopment cycles for our people – that is ab-
solutely essential.”
Mr Juran said he would like to see a stan-
dard operating environment developed for
drillers, where they are provided with only es-
April - May 2009 - digital energy journal 11
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 12
Exploration and drilling
sential information.
“I’d like to see us improve integration of
the rig with third party services,” he said.
“I want to take remote diagnostics to the
next level – make predictions before down-
time occurs.”
“We have to continue to figure out how
to prevent hurting people and get to the point
where we’re not hurting anybody,” he said.
Halvor Kjørholt , StatoilHydro
Halvor Kjørholt, chief researcher, drilling and
wells, StatoilHydro, said that Statoil currently
gets 60 per cent of production from subsea
wells (wells with a Christmas tree on the
seabed). “The trend is to put more and more
advanced equipment on the seabed,” he said.
Average drilling performance in terms of
metres per day has been fairly constant over
the last decade. “There were some improve-
ments around the year 2000 but then it went
back again,” he observed.
Non productive time for rigs has stayed
at a fairly constant 20-30 per cent between
1998 and 2008, he said.
Improving this will probably require
more automation, he said.
“Drilling is almost 100 per cent manual-
ly controlled,” he said. “People make mis-
takes. We have very little room for mistakes –
there’s not much forgiving in an operation to-
day. People are slower than computers in re-
acting.”
Besides the official calculated non pro-
ductive time, there is also what Mr Kjørholt
terms the unofficial nonproductive time – the
difference between what is achieved and the
technical limit of what the drilling rig can do.
For example, on average a pipe connec-
tion takes over 2 minutes – but an automated
system could do it in half a minute. With a lot
of pipe connections this adds up to a large
amount of wasted rig time.
“I propose – a focus on automation and
control processes,” he said.
“It is less dependent on individual's skills
and interpretations. We can handle low mar-
gins. We can have fast detection and reaction,
and superb repeatability. You can get closer
to the technical limit.”
In future, Mr Kjørholt hopes to see a bet-
ter understanding of hole stability and hole
cleaning. “We can limit operations in the well
to what is necessary,” he said.
Mr Kjørholt said there is something of a
conundrum with the way the oil price encour-
ages innovation. “When the price is low you
can’t afford working on new ideas – when the
price is high you don’t have the time,” he said.
“Innovators often come when they are
forced,” he said.
One of the most exciting new technolo-
gies being supported by StatoilHydro is a 'bad-
12 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
ger' – a
drilling tool
which can be
used for ex-
ploration – it
literally
drills down
by itself and
clogs the
hole behind
it.
It is im-
portant that
oil compa-
nies make
the effort to David Reid, vice president, E&P
technology & business for
support
National Oilwell Varco,
small com- Chairing the IADC Advanced
panies, Rig Technology Committee
rather than
only work
with large service companies, as many are
tempted to do. “We make a lot of effort to sup-
port small companies,” he said. “Small com-
panies come up with good ideas but not a com-
plete product.”
IADC – advanced rig technology
committees
The International Association of Drilling Con-
tractors (IADC) has established an 'Advanced
Rig Technology Committee' to help imple-
ment new rig technologies, chaired by David
Reid, vice president, E&P technology & busi-
ness for National Oilwell Varco.
The Committee's mission is to improve
rig safety and efficiency with sound operating
procedures, good automation and standardised
automation. It will look at the control philoso-
phy, the communications protocols between
equipment, personnel competency, and find-
ing ways to implement a comprehensive au-
tomation of the complete drilling process, in-
cluding integrating surface and downhole
equipment, and completions systems.
It has subcommittees for oil and gas op-
erators , reliability (looking particularly on the
top drive), guidelines (application of technol-
ogy), control motions (looking at static and
non static motions in drilling control), soft-
ware interface group – communications be-
tween manufacturers, and future technology –
trying to understand future needs.
In particular, the subcommittee will be
encouraging drilling contractors to provide
more detailed reports of problems they are en-
countering with top drives, which can be
shared with equipment vendors. It will also
maintain a database about which technology
is being used where.
Further information is on the IADC web-
site www.iadc.org – click on the section at
the top 'committees'.
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 13
50 per cent faster drilling – with APS
active damper
APS Technology has developed a system to keep your drillbits in constant contact with the formation by
reducing bit bounce and stick slip– which could help you drill 50 per cent faster, and make your drill bits
last 25-30 per cent longer.
Connecticut company APS Technology Inc
has developed an Active Vibration Damper
(AVD™) for drilling, which can enable rate
of penetration to be increased by 50 per cent,
and make each drillbit last 25 to 30 per cent
longer, whilst helping to protect MWD/LWD
electronics.
It has already been used to drill 8 wells
in Texas and Wyoming.
The AVD uses a patented damping
valve section employing a proprietary fluid
containing micron sized magnetic particles,
which changes the tool’s damping character-
ictics when a magnetic field is applied.
This fluid technology, known as “mag-
netorheological”, was originally developed
over 100 years ago, and has been used as a
damper on Ferrari cars, but this is the first
time it has been used to stabilize drillbits.
Drill pipe is typically an inch or more
smaller in diameter than the drilled hole, so
there can be a lot of rattling about, also
known as “whirl”. Weight-on-bit (WOB) and
rotating speeds may vary from moment to
moment.
Stabilisers are commonly used to try to
stop the drillpipe from whirling, but some-
times the stabilizers and drill bit get stuck as
the drill pipe rotates and moves downwards,
and then periodically jerk, a phenomenon
known as “stick/ slip”. Another type of
harmful vibration is axial vibration or “bit
bounce”.
The force a drillbit makes against the
rock due to whirl, stick/slip and bit bounce
can exceed 50 times the acceleration due to
gravity (g), a force big enough to cause a lot
of damage to the drillstring components in-
cluding bits stabilizers and MWD instrumen-
tation..
The AVD is designed to detect and
adapt to the resulting vibrations within mil-
liseconds.
Normal dampening techniques (such as
springs) do not work as well for stabilizing
drillbits, because the level of vibration
damping is constant – and sometimes drillers
need a lighter or stronger damping coeffi-
cient to get the smoothest ride. Spring may
also oscillate at certain speeds.
The APS tool constantly measures the
Exploration and drilling
forces on the drill bit, and how viscous the
dampening fluid around the drill bit needs to
be, to keep the drillstring properly damped.
A magnetic field of appropriate strength is
applied around the MR fluid which causes it
to change viscosity. The MR fluid changes
from a free flowing oil to a extremely vis-
cous grease (with viscosity of cold peanut
butter) in milliseconds. The viscosity of the
MR fluid and therefore the damping charac-
teristics of the AVD tool can be continuous-
ly adjusted based on drilling conditions.
The magnetic field used to change vis-
cosity of the MR fluid is created by large
coils, which use up to 150 watts of direct
current electricity generated by a mud tur-
bine alternator -- also made by APS Tech-
nology -- within the AVD.
“I like to refer to it as a damper with a
programmable viscosity oil,” said Steve An-
dersen, vibration product line manager with
APS. If the drill bit is steadier, it can drill much
faster
The company won funding from the US
Department of Energy to develop the idea,
and it also partnered with a drilling compa-
ny for a certain period of time (under re- APS were previously employees of a com-
quirements for DoE funding that companies pany called Teleco Oilfield Services, which
must be in partnerships). was acquired and became Baker Hughes IN-
Dirk Bosman, regional manager for TEQ in 1992. Teleco was the first company
Middle East and North Africa with APS, be- to develop commercial measure while
lieves that the company has faced some ob- drilling (MWD) tools in the late 1970s.
stacles in AVD’s take-up, because it relies on
the support of drilling companies – who also
make a lot of money selling drillbits – and
are not so keen on any technology which
makes the drillbits last longer.
So it is important that oil and gas oper-
ators are well aware of the technology, so
they can demand that their drilling contrac-
tors use it and share in the cost savings de-
livered by longer bit runs and improved
ROP resulting from use of the AVD
tool.
The company is setting
the price of the tool so it
will be cost effective
when used both off-
shore and on- Drilling with APS Technology - a dampener
changes viscosity 10 times a second, to keep
shore. the drillbit as steady as possible on
Many of the rock.
the staff of
April - May 2009 - digital energy journal 13
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 14
Exploration and drilling
SPT Group launches new version of
Drillbench
Norwegian software and simulation company SPT Group has launched a new version of Drillbench, its
software for simulating and modeling drilling operations.
The biggest strength of the software, says
Agnes Scott, senior account manager –
Americas with SPT Group, is the ability to
model transient effects within any drilling
operation.
For example, the difference in mud
pressure while drill pipe is being pulled in
and out; the way mud expands as it goes
deeper underground and increases in temper-
ature; the way the well slowly returns to ge-
othermal conditions (the same as the rock
around it) if there is no drilling going on.
Most other drilling simulator packages
on the market only offer a steady state simu-
lator, she says.
By modelling transient aspects of the
drilling, the software can go a few per cent
further than most other drilling simulation
packages on the market, she says.
Drillbench is used primarily in narrow
margin (particularly difficult) drilling opera-
tions, such as high pressure/high tempera-
ture wells and deep water applications,
where you have to manage the drilling mud
carefully, taking into consideration both tem-
perature and pressure effects.
The new version of the software has
improved layout, reporting functions, and
easier exporting of data.
The new version has a tool to model the
gelling effect of your drilling fluid – the way
fluid will gradually thicken if drilling is
stopped, making it slightly harder to start
drilling again.
“It makes a huge difference to opera-
tional parameters,” says Ms Scott. “Mud
companies give you standard gelling param-
eters – everybody knows that – but it has not
been possible to visualize it before.”
The new software has tools to model
multlple fluids in one circulation – eg when
during a cementing operation, the well is
filled with a spacer, cement, spacer and then
mud. You can model the whole process in
one go.
Using Drillbench
The software is designed to be used both
while a drilling operation is being planned,
and also while it is running.
During drilling operations, by compar-
ing the drilling data with what is expected,
you get a quick indication if something
14 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
might be going wrong, she says.
And when an operation is completed,
you can run another simulation, to see if can
see if you can get the actual results in your
simulator, to get a judgement of how accu-
rate you data is.
The software is often used after a
drilling operation when people say “we saw
something strange, can you try to see what's
happening,” she says.
The software can be used for training
and preparation purposes, to get a better un-
derstanding of the well’s operational limita-
tions and to be better prepared for unplanned
events.
The software has been under develop-
ment for 11 years – this is the version 5.
Testimonials
BP Aberdeen uses Drillbench for well plan-
ning and follow up, and also crew training
on high pressure, high temperature wells in
the UK.
Shell USA says that it used Drillbench
to simulate its underbalanced drilling proj-
ect, and managed to discover underbalanced
drilling features it couldn’t have found using
steady state software.
Simulating and modelling drilling operations
using DrillBench
“Mud companies give you standard gelling
parameters – everybody knows that – but it
has not been possible to visualize it before” -
Agnes Scott, senior account manager –
Americas with SPT Group
Baker Hughes Inteq says it used Drill-
bench when planning drilling for its Marlin
A-5 well, and found the program made ac-
curate predictions of the downhole tempera-
ture and density profiles, as confirmed by the
downhole measurements.
StatoilHydro says it used Drillbench
when drilling its first deepwater exploration
well in Angola. It needed to drill the well
deeper than originally planned, and it used
the software to work out how it could safely
stretch the well design and saved one casing
string.
Wild Well Control Inc (USA) says it us-
es Drillbench to assist clients with critical
well planning and resolution of problems, in
particular analysing kicks and emergency re-
sponse operations.
StatoilHydro Zagros Oil & Gas, Iran
says it used Drillbench to plan wells of over
5000 total vertical depth in a remote area of
the Iranian desert, to identify limitations, op-
timize the casing program and cut costs, us-
ing the software both in planning and execu-
tion.
ConocoPhillips Scandinavian division
says it used Drillbench for decision making
in two difficult high temperature, high pres-
sure wells, and the software made a big con-
tribution to the company’s ability to reach its
planned targets.
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 15

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DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 16
Oil and gas production
Germanischer Lloyd and Noble Denton
merge to create largest oil and gas
engineering consultancy
Two engineering technical assurance companies, Germanischer Lloyd and Noble Denton, have merged
operations to form what is probably the world’s largest oil and gas technical services company, with 6,400
employees in 80 countries.
The company will provide a broad range of
technical services and consulting, to help oil
and gas companies make sure that what they
are doing is safe.
Both companies already have many
joint clients in the oil and gas industry, in-
cluding ConocoPhillips, Shell, BP, BG,
Chevron, Exxon, Total, ONGC, Saipem, Sta-
toilHydro, Transcocean.
Germanischer Lloyd clients include
Hess, Talisman, Wood Group, Saudi Aram-
co, Repsol, Gaz de France, Petronas, and
Noble Denton clients include Petrobras, Ak-
er, APL, Heerema Energy.
GL employs over 5,500 skilled engi-
neers. It was founded in 1867, and its 2008
revenues were Eur 544m.
Noble Denton employs around 900 em-
ployees. It was founded in 1904, and its 2008
revenues were GBP 100m (Eur 108m).
Pekka Paasivaara, member of the Ex-
ecutive Board Germanischer Lloyd, says that
many oil majors are looking for an engineer-
ing technical consultancy with a global
reach, and GL is keen to be that company.
“Oil companies are searching for a technical
services partner on a global scale,” he says.
This is particularly true for national oil
companies, which often do not have the in-
depth technical expertise in-house which in-
ternational oil companies have.
The combined company has offices in
all oil and gas centres, including Houston,
Mumbai, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore,
Doha, Abu Dhabi, London and Aberdeen.
“Most clients are asking for local presence,”
says Mr Paasivaara.
Services include technical and opera-
tional assurance (agreeing that plans are
technically and operationally OK), inspec-
tion, safety and risk consulting, engineering
design, software, testing, helping maintain
reliability, casualty investigation, as well as
project management.
The focus is on all areas of oil and gas
industry and energy – including renewables
and power.
Technical assurance is providing com-
panies with a second opinion that what they
16 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
are about to do will be safe. For example, if Gulf of Mexi-
a company is transporting a $500m topside co and
from South Korea to Africa, “you want more Venezuela,
than for one company to say ‘trust us, it will says Mr
be alright,’” says John Wishart, group man- Wishart.
aging director of Noble Denton, “There's
Both companies have undertaken a emerging
range of acquisitions over the past few years. technology -
Last year, GL bought Advantica Group, there's always
the former consulting arm of upstream gas a greater need
company BG, among a range of other acqui- for assurance
sitions, and Material Consulting Services, a and integrity,”
downhole consulting business in Houston. he says.
Over the past few years Noble Denton Carbon
has acquired Martech Unlimited, a company capture and “Oil companies are
specialising in tanker vetting services, Po- storage is searching for a technical
seidon Maritime, a dynamic positioning con- seen as an in- services partner on a global
sulting company, among other acquisitions. teresting busi- scale” - Pekka Paasivaara,
member of the Executive
Noble Denton has deep expertise in ness area. Board Germanischer Lloyd
deepwater oil and gas, including about dy- It would
namic positioning of platforms, complex also like to
mooring systems. It has expertise in the full expand further globally – including in Chi-
range of offshore equipment, including drill- na, Russia and Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Brazil,
ships, FPSOs, floating LNG, pipelines, plat- West Africa, India and Australia. It also
forms OSV, subsea systems. wants to build up the corporate knowledge.
It has a strong presence in Norway, Noble Denton is one of the few compa-
where it is able to get involved in a lot of the nies in the sector which is able to provide in-
technical development for offshore equip- dependent advice, says Mr Wishart. “In our
ment. case, we have no-one behind us pulling the
strings.”
Growth areas
The companies are
keen to provide more
services for the grow-
ing wind energy sector
– both onshore and off-
shore. Germanischer
Lloyd already has a
large consulting busi-
ness in wind power – it
is currently helping
Gaz de France install a
wind park in Mexico.
There is particu-
lar growth in demand
for technical expertise
in the deepwater envi-
ronment, including in Noble Denton is one of the world's largest offshore consultancy
West Africa, Brazil, companies
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 17
Lessons from the US Air Force
The oil and gas industry could learn a few lessons from the US Air Force in working out the best way to
implement and integrate new technology, says Houston oil and gas consultant Dutch Holland of Holland
& Davis.
New technologies can be powerful and mind-
bending, especially in digital energy (DE).
Ever stepped into a visualization (“viz”)
center and put on the 3D goggles to watch col-
orful strata spun upside down and inside out?
Technologies can fascinate, intrigue and, most
importantly, change how the world works in
ways often dramatically better than yester-
year.
New technology can also be perplexing
when being moved from scientists’ hands in
research and development to everyday appli-
cation within an organization, as companies
attempt tying new technologies into opera-
tions.
Although technology integration was
not invented just the other day, the results in-
variably make it seem as if that were the case.
Implementation scenarios still play out ad-
versely at too many companies trying to
bridge R&D and operations. Why is the tran-
sition still so difficult and what’s the solution?
Apples, oranges and test pilots
When executives attack problems within their
companies, the tendency is to draw upon
knowledge about their specific industry, their
experience within that industry and experi-
ences of colleagues and customers within that
same industry.
Looking outside oil and gas, therefore,
seems to be comparing apples and oranges.
In other words, management is advised to
stick to the business they are in when brain-
storming for answers.
But the real-world tells a different story:
“Look anywhere for solutions and find them
in seemingly unlikely places.”
For example, who would guess that a
world-class solution for complex technology
integration for the oil industry might actually
come from the United States Air Force (US-
AF)?
The USAF invented the box, referred to
as an “intelligent interface” (Figure one), be-
tween R&D and operations to not only sup-
port technology integration but to actively
participate in product and mission innovation.
Since its formation in 1947, the USAF’s
mission has called for continually improving
technology. Therefore, being technically-ori-
ented thinkers and overachievers, they devel-
oped an intelligent interface which has been
the key to innovating and integrating every
new aircraft into operations for more than half
Oil and gas production
a century. Further, although bravery and flying
So, to skills are requirements, much more is de-
get inside the manded. This includes scientific and engi-
world’s most neering knowledge, critical and reasoned
effective inte- judgment and managerial skills of the first or-
gration of new der.
technology, They must also have an affinity for me-
temporarily chanical systems, an ability to “feel” the air-
suspend the plane, a well-honed sense of what is happen-
whole idea of ing at all times and mature, reasoned judg-
working at an ment. Upon acceptance, applicants undergo a
oil company, 40-week intensive training program directed
don the test pi- at taking day-to-day operational opportunities
lot gear and and turning them into real technology proj-
get ready to “Look anywhere for ects that come back as airplanes.
see how ex- solutions and find them in
seemingly unlikely places” -
cellence is
Dutch Holland, CEO, Applying this to digital energy
routinely Holland & Davis In the ongoing goal to make new technology
achieved. “work” for a company’s greater good, simply
Home to the USAF intelligent interface linking an innovation to operations is not
is Edwards Air Force Base, where the Test enough.
and Evaluation Squadron and the USAF Test The use of an intelligent interface helps
Pilot School are located. ensure that the power of DE technology is
The test squadron ensures that all new used to enhance daily business operations,
technology meets mission requirements and a now and in the future.
pivotal part of the process focuses on using The technology integration problem
operational personnel who have completed stands out when people try to take complex
test pilot school. In other words, the interface and sophisticated DE innovations and tie
includes people from both operations and them into a complex and sophistical opera-
R&D sides. tions system … without the use of an intelli-
However, not just anybody can be air- gent interface.
borne at Edwards AFB; only the best and In place of an intelligent interface, how-
brightest are selected for this prestigious ever, is often a very unsophisticated integra-
school, with some applying several times be- tion approach staffed by transaction-oriented
fore acceptance. personnel, frequently with little or no opera-
Ten years of pilot experience is required, tional experience.. A passive, transaction in-
of which five years must be in a command po- terface just is no substitute for an intelligent
sition. interface that can analyze, modify and im-
prove the both operations and the technology.
Depending on one’s perspective that
may seem doable or difficult but, whichever
applies, the DE/intelligent interface must op-
erate with a set of attributes. If not, once
again the necessary integration either will not
happen or will be exceptionally bumpy and
ultimately unsatisfactory.
One, a DE Intelligent Interface must be
a formally chartered function, not a set of in-
formal practices that may or may not have
worked in the past.
Two, it must have leadership backing
and assigned responsibility to do this inter-
Figure 1 - the US Air Force likes to see research face, backed both by operations and the R&D
and development well integrated with or IT side.
operations Three, the Intelligent Interface must
April - May 2009 - digital energy journal 17
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:58 Page 18
Oil and gas production
have a mission focus, not a technology focus.
Four, the interface should have functions
shown inside Figure 2.
Essentially, the DE/Intelligent Interface
is powered by the disciplines and principles
of systems and change engineering.
Staffed by the highly qualified opera-
tions personnel, these people should have
some of the key attributes as those in the AF
test pilot school. That includes ten years in
operations, five years with bottom-line re-
sponsibility and high credibility with opera-
tions personnel.
Additionally, they are marked and des-
ignated as “comers” in the organization and
known as Operations Stars, or proactive lead-
ers who are “consciously competent.” The lat-
ter refers to being able to articulate what op-
erations needs, wants and is doing.
They are anchored in “what we do in op-
erations and the way we do it,” not in the the-
oretical way it “ought to be done.” More vis-
cerally, these individuals have business oper-
ations “in their bones.” They have a general
understanding of the IT environment rather
than knowing the “nuts & bolts” of DE tech-
nology and they must keep conversations fo-
cused on the mission first.
Reaping the benefits
The idea of figuring out how to best make DE
pay off, using the context of the USAF, is to
challenge readers to take some or all the ideas
and evaluate their own DE implementation
effectiveness, competence, horsepower and
future potential.
Even though DE was not unveiled the
other day, it is still relatively new and person-
nel at companies throughout the world are
continuing to determine how to best get their
collective arms around both DE technology
and its integration problems.
How new? Consider that the Society of
Petroleum Engineers (SPE) in April is hold-
ing its seventh annual conference on DE. In
contrast, the USAF would have already held
its sixtieth conference.
That means that the entire interfacing
process, no matter how far it has come, is still
in its infancy compared not only with what it
is and could be but with what it should be.
The upside for USAF test pilots is that
by completing the school, they get an impor-
tant career boost; some become astronauts.
On the oil and gas side, leaders in the energy
business of tomorrow are those who will be
able to harness technologies, including DE,
for their operations.
And who are the leaders? They are the
ones who actively and aggressively find tech-
nologies that enhance operations in the first
place, then getting these technologies inte-
grated. They will lead technology innovation
18 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
Figure 2 - the functions of the intelligent
interface
and insertion, not have “technology done to
them.”
On the downside of not getting the po-
tential of technology due to not interacting
and innovating around it, again an AF simi-
larity exists.
Not achieving technology integration
would be like the AF commissioning Boeing
to build an airplane, but never having the op-
portunity to test it and see if it could fly new
and different types of missions.
This causes them to miss out on a huge
element of both innovation and integration
since many innovations come from the Ed-
wards AFB test environment and go back to
Boeing for airplane improvement.
What’s happening right now is that the
best and brightest still work very hard to get
into test pilot school because they know it is
the critical link between R&D and the flying
world. This is precisely not where the DE
world currently is.
In other words, more operations people
need to figuratively stand on stage and reach
out for the opportunities continually emerg-
ing from DE. The DE culture really needs
people who want to make things happen.
In order to do this, there must be a for-
mal organization spin, perhaps taking
“lessons learned” from the USAF. Not de-
pending on informally touching base across
the interface between R&D and flying, the
USAF employs a carefully planned DE intel-
ligent interface.
Today, this same kind of interface, while
only existing in some oilfield companies, is
something to which all companies can realis-
tically aspire and benefit from.
Tell us about your experiences
We’re always looking for digital oilfield
implementation stories, cases (good and
bad) and good ideas to feature. Send your
input to dutch at hdinc.com
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:59 Page 19
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:59 Page 20
Oil and gas production
The company that monitors 20,000 gas
wells
Oklahoma company Universal Well Site Solutions has implemented its remote monitoring and control system
at 20,000 coal bed methane wells – including technology to switch your pump and on off remotely.
www.universalwellsite.com
Universal Well Site Solutions of Oklahoma
reports that its wireless well remote monitor-
ing system has now been installed on over
20,000 coal bed methane wells – across the
US, and also in China and Australia.
All of the equipment to be installed at
the well head is supplied as a single unit,
called a UniSkid, which includes electricity
cleaning filters, pressure sensors, flow me-
ters, and radio data communications equip-
ment. The unit is supplied on a skid.
Once the skid has been delivered to the
well head, installation includes connecting it
to any water or gas inflow, and to the water
and gas outflow from the well.
A pressure sensor is installed in the
well, just above the downhole pump, if there
is one. By comparing downhole pressures
with surface pressures, you can identify if
anything is blocking the flow.
The system can be running within an
hour or two of completing the well, says
Cathy Conner, CEO of Universal Well Site
Solutions. “We try to make it as easy as we
can.” Universal Well Site Solutions prides it-
self as being a total solutions provider, offer-
ing technology, training, software support,
consulting and other services to its clients.
The company also produces web soft-
ware which can be used to view the data over
the internet, giving you a 'dashboard' view of
what is happening, including production,
pressures, pump operations and water pro-
duction.
You can also send new controls to the
SpecTec – new asset management
software for oil and gas
Cypriot oil and gas asset management com-
pany SpecTec has launched version 9 of its
Amos Business Suite software, for asset
management on offshore vessels and plat-
forms, including managing maintenance and
purchasing.
The company’s software is used on
20 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
pump over the internet – one of the examples
of plant equipment which can be controlled
over the internet (most companies use the in-
ternet for communications related to moni-
toring only).
The system is probably most useful with
low pressure gas fields, which benefit from
continual monitoring and adjustment to keep
the flow optimised.
Ms. Conner originally got involved with
the company as a customer in 2002 – she
owns a number of coal bed methane gas wells
in Alabama, and wanted a way to monitor
them from her home in Oklahoma. She was
consequently involved in the acquisition of
the company in 2005, and still uses the tech-
nology. “I manage my Alabama wells here
in Oklahoma,” she says.
Since it started using the technology,
Ms. Connor's company managed to increase
the life of its rod pumps from 6 months to 38
months, because the pump was only operat-
ed when it was needed.
“It saved the wear and tear on downhole
equipment,” she says. “You’re only utilising
the unit when necessary. Normally, you run
the pumps 24/7 or have them on some kind
of a timer – so you’re basically guessing how
long they are needed for.”
The company has trained its support
staff so they can fix problems with all of the
equipment in the unit, including meters, sen-
sors and communications equipment.
“You don’t have to have specialists
from all of those different vendors to try to
make everything work,” she says. “That
around 650 drilling sites, and a number of
Floating Storage and Offloading units
(FSOs) and Floating Production Storage and
Offloading Units (FPSOs). SpecTec is also
the largest software company for the deep
sea maritime industry.
Customers include ENI, which uses the
Universal Well Site Solutions - supplies a
single unit on a skid which can be installed at
the well head, to enable remote monitoring
and control
seems to be the biggest problem we see in the
field.”
The company spends 25 per cent of its
gross revenue on research and development.
“For a small company we do a lot of R+D,”
she says.
Last year, the company made improve-
ments to its downhole sensor, to make it eas-
ier to calibrate and test.
The company normally uses spread
spectrum radio for the data communications,
which it has found to be the most reliable
communications method.
The company is working on the best
way to add a camera to the system so you can
have a view of the wellsite, which can often
help solve problems, particularly when some-
thing breaks. “If you wanted to restart a pump
unit and you could see that a pony rod was
sticking out of the well, you wouldn’t restart
it,” she says.
software on 150 sites; Ocean Vanguard;
MODEC International; Frontier Drilling;
Jindal Drilling; Saipem and Lukoil. It has
software on offshore vessels in Libya and
Kazakhstan. The company estimates that its
business in the oil and gas industry is grow-
ing by 20 per cent a year.
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:59 Page 21

Oil and gas production

The company is opening new offices in
Brazil and Argentina to service its oil and
gas clients.
The new version 9 of AMOS has a great
deal of improved functionality for reliability
centered maintenance, says Giampiero
Soncini, CEO.
“We have more statistics, more analy-
sis. We improved our dashboard – to basi-
cally cover every single possible KPI – its
completely configurable – so you can do any
KPI you want.”
“There’s been a tremendous surge in re-
quests for condition based maintenance ,” he
says.
In particular, the system can integrate
with sensors monitoring rotating equipment,
thermography (heat sensors) and ultrasound,
which is used to verify that seals are water-
tight.
The new version also has functionality
to move equipment from one vessel to an-
other, so if a company (for example) has
moved a piece of drilling apparatus from one
rig to another they can also move the data
and import it into the asset management sys-
tem on the new rig.
Many oil and gas companies instinc-
tively choose SAP or IBM (Maximo) soft-
ware for maintenance management on off-
shore platforms, because they use the same
software on shore.
Mr Soncini tries to explain to cus-
tomers that SpecTec’s software, because it
was originally designed for ships rather than
for large corporations, can be more appro-
priate for running on a drilling rig or offshore
vessel than SAP and Maximo.
“We are much smaller than IBM and
SAP. We offer a complete different approach
– much more flexibility, availability all over
the world,” he says.
The SpecTec software is no bandwidth
hog – it is designed to work well using the
9.8 kbps data connections which the mar-
itime industry has been forced to work with
for many years.
The SpecTec software is designed so it
can be installed as easily as possible, with-
out needing dedicated IT technicians or SAP “We have more statistics, more analysis. We
engineers, which are not normally available improved our dashboard – to basically cover
every single possible KPI” - Giampiero Soncini,
on vessels. “It installs by itself – we do a roll
CEO, SpecTec
out in less than 1 day – or 5 days is the max-
imum,” he says.
However SpecTec is not a small com-
pany, he stresses, with annual revenues of packages, including SAP, Oracle finance and
around $50m and 240 staff members, includ- JD Edwards. “We interface with anything,”
ing 44 people in product development. he says.
The version 9 is the biggest upgrade It has functionality to raise non-con-
SpecTec has ever made to its AMOS for formities if you have a maintenance break-
Windows software suite. down. “That is something even major com-
The software can integrate with all ERP petitors do not have,” he says.

Moblize –WITSML and PRODML data in

one database by one supplier
Houston company Moblize claims to be the first company in the world to be able to supply data streams
in WITSML and PRODML format together, so companies can easily store both in the same database, and
receive the data streams from a single supplier.

WITSML and PRODML are both data ex-
change standards established by the Energis-
tics organisation.
WITSML is used for data streams from
the well (such as data from MWD, LWD,
survey and well logs). PRODML is used for
data streams from production equipment
(such as SCADA systems, PLC, production
allocation and reporting applications).
“We can take data from a range of dif-
ferent hardware and software vendors and
convert it to WITSML or PRODML on the
fly,” says Amit Mehta, CEO of Moblize.
“We pull data from the field into our
servers, or drilling and production domain
software packages. We help seamlessly ex-
change the data between these applications
in both drilling and production domain.”
Mr Mehta likens a well planning, exe-
cution, completion and maintenance project
to a building project. “Say I hire 15 contrac-
tors to build it – a safety engineer, electri-
cians. They all do their work, but the owner
wants to see, how fast can I build the build-
ing because I’m paying them day rates,” he
says.
“It’s the same in oil and gas – all these
different engineers are involved in well life
cycle – they all want a subset of data in their
expert applications to make their expert de-
cisions with the data,” he says.
“That’s where WITSML and PRODML
plays a good role – you can combine all that
data and store it in one place, exchange a
subset of data between variety of applica-
tions in both drilling and production do-
mains, easily enabling integration and infor-
mation exchange,” he says.
It should be cheaper, faster and simpler
than doing lots of point to point integrations
– establishing new interfaces between all in-
dividual pieces of field equipment and all
different pieces of analysis software.
In the field, it installs a tiny portable
computer, sized a little larger than a hand-
held computer. The computer has solid state
hard drive and no fan, so there are no mov-
ing parts to fail. It is possible to attach a
monitor to the computer so field staff can
view and quality control data.
The tiny computer can be easily con-
nected to any wireless communications
equipment in the field, including RFID sys-
tems and mesh wireless sensors.

April - May 2009 - digital energy journal 21

DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:59 Page 22
Oil and gas production
Sword – developments with electronic
documentation
European business software and applications company Sword Group is aiming to take oil and gas
engineering document management to a new level – where documentation systems can really be used
to help maintain safety and efficiency.
Sword Group, a business software group with
HQ in Lyon (France) but with offices around the
world, is taking oil and gas documentation man-
agement to a new level, ensuring that everybody
gets the documents they need, all versions are
managed, all tasks are completed and everybody
knows if someone is getting behind.
Oil and gas clients include AMEC Oil &
Gas, BP, Chevron, Husky Energy, Marathon,
Murphy Oil, PetroChina, Petrobras, Qatar Gas,
Santos and Talisman.
The company has done over 13,000 proj-
ects in over 26 countries. In 2008 Sword Group
achieved $266m revenue on a growth of 13% and
made about 18 per cent profit on it.
Sword’s oil and gas documentation busi-
ness unit, Sword CTSpace, supplies systems to
ensure the right documents are sent to the right
people and actually opened and checked (some-
thing you can never be sure about when you just
e-mail them).
It delivers document management systems
which are good enough that people actually use
them before and during safety critical work.
It can help manage large volumes of differ-
ent types of documentation; and it can create sys-
tems which show which of your partners is keep-
ing up with their documents and who is behind.
Documentation systems can make a big
contribution to safety – but only if people com-
plete the right documents, and check the right
documents, before doing a job.
“You have to make sure people don’t rely
on printed data (for safety),” says Jeremy Ander-
son, VP Product Marketing for Sword Group.
“You have to say, look on the system if you want
something.”
Documents can still be printed out for use
when doing work, but the master document stays
on the computer system.
The management and distribution of docu-
mentation is getting more and more complex all
the time, making it more important to have a sys-
tem to manage it.
For example, more companies are working
with subcontractors; project timescales are get-
ting tighter; regulations are getting more complex
and the number and complexity of claims is in-
creasing.
Sword does not advocate replacing docu-
ments entirely with live data – as many other
companies have done – because a document, as a
specific version of the truth at a specific time
22 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
which everybody agreed upon, is very important
in engineering.
“Data in a database is live – people change
it all the time,” says Mr Anderson. “But docu-
ments get signed off and as approved versions of
the data.”
Complex document systems
The software tools can manage the complex doc-
uments often found in engineering, for example a
well log supplied as a 20 foot roll of paper. “The
conventional document management system
can’t do that very well,” he says.
The software can do printing in batches –
for example if you need a print out a folder of
electronic documents with 5 different sizes of pa-
per in it.
It can manage the versioning / revisions of
documents - it is common in engineering to man-
age documents with a series of versions and revi-
sions (where a ‘version’ of a document is one
which everybody agrees on, and a ‘revision’ is a
change made by individual people which are not
necessary agreed by everyone). The document
gradually moves up from version 0 revision 1, re-
visions 2, 3 etc, when it is approved by every-
body it becomes version 1 revision 0.
The software can also be used when a large
amount of documents need to be transmitted to-
gether at one point – for example when a project
is being handed over from one company to an-
other.
Document transmittal
The company can set up systems for document
routing, when documents need to take structured
routes through the company with certain people
assigned roles to do certain things (such as give
their approval or confirm that something has been
done).
People are given a list of all the documents
they have to approve or go through as a list of
tasks.
“We build a transmittal matrix showing
which document / drawing goes to which peo-
ple,” he says. “You define document types and
who it goes to internally and externally.”
“We agree how many days people have to
make comments, and the process it takes to be a
‘approved document’.”
In connection to the document transmittal
system, it can set up dashboards, where you can
monitor how documents are progressing. You can
easily spot
vendors or in-
dividuals who
are taking a
long time to
respond or
complete their
paperwork.
“Engi-
neers are great
at building
things and get-
ting behind on “You have to make sure
people don’t rely on printed
the paper-
data (for safety),” - Jeremy
work,” he Anderson, VP Product
says. “Some- Marketing for Sword Group
times the con-
struction is finished 3 weeks before the paper-
work is finished. If you know where problems
are you can do something about it.”
Integration with financials
Sword provides project and program manage-
ment system integrated with corporate financial
systems.
Financial systems often have a large
amount of data which would be useful for engi-
neering and project management, such as orders
placed and payments made against invoices.
Sword takes this information and by managing
the budgets of the project provides expenditure to
date, forecast expenditure, cash flow projections
and financial risk metrics.
Sometimes financial data is even more
closely integrated with the project management –
for example a project plan might stipulate that a
certain amount of money is released at a certain
stage of the project.
Fusion Share
Sword recently launched a new tool to manage
engineering documents which are stored in Mi-
crosoft SharePoint, which many companies have
adopted as a corporate collaboration system
On its own, Microsoft SharePoint is not en-
tirely suitable for managing engineering docu-
mentation, Sword believes, so it provides addi-
tional functionality to bridge the gap.
The product was developed jointly with
Zachry Engineering, Texas, USA. It was
launched at the Daratech Plant 2009 conference
in Houston in February. The first implementation
will be made in Spring 2009.
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:59 Page 23
Oil and gas industry ‘teenagers’ with
data management
The oil and gas industry is like ‘teenagers with data management – getting there slowly, but still needing
some prodding, cajoling and forcing to get them to do it properly, delegates to SMI’s E&P Information and
Data Management conference in London on Feb 10-11 heard.
When it comes to data management people
in the oil and gas industry are like teenagers,
said Alan Smith, managing consultant with
RPS Paras Consulting, speaking at the recent
SMI conference on E&P Information and
Data Management (London, Feb 10-11
2009).
“People may be in their 50s but they
don’t understand they need to be helped and
worked on to get them to manage data and
information properly,” he said.
What data managers have to do is
“about guiding, cajoling, setting the bound-
aries, grounding them if they do something
wrong, helping them get on their feet.”
And just like trying to get your
teenagers to keep their rooms tidy, you can
try many different methods to encourage
staff to keep their data tidy. Some will work
better than others, but there is no magical so-
lution which will solve the problem.
Oil and gas industry people often don’t
have a clear enough idea of the effort they
need to put into data management, their re-
sponsibilities, and how to get the most out
of it, he said.
Data is very important to the oil and gas
industry. As Paul Gregory of Petris (previ-
ously president of Intervera) put it, the oil
industry can’t see its oil physically, the way
an aeroplane company can see its aeroplanes
or a manufacturer can see its factories. In this
sense - data is all the industry has.
Progress
The painful question was raised by some del-
egates to the conference – is there actually
any progress being made on data manage-
ment?
Attitudes in the industry are changing,
said Alan Smith, managing consultant with
RPS Paras Consulting. “People used to say -
I don’t want to spend $5m doing data – I can
drill a well for that amount of money.
“Now we have many managers going
into industry who have grown up using digi-
tal systems – they’ve grown up with the data
and they know it needs sorting. There is a
move towards companies recognising DM is
essential, not a cost they want to avoid.”
One delegate observed that the indus-
try is doing things that it wasn’t doing be-
Oil and gas production
fore – such as geosteering drillbits using re-
al time seismic data.
Dag Heggelund, data quality manager
with Schlumberger Information Solutions
(SIS) observed that conversations in compa-
nies are changing – instead of just “where’s
my data,” it is moving to “you loaded up the
wrong survey – why did you do that?”
Martin Turner, GIS co-ordinator with
Hess Ltd, said that the questions he is receiv-
ing around the company change from people
asking where their data is, to people asking
questions about their data. “That’s how we
monitor DM improvement,” he said. “My
method of tracking is the number of com-
plaints I get walking around the building. I
used to get a complaint from somebody
every day. Today I get a complaint once
every 3 months.”
“Data management is more unified
now,” he said. “We have a single system, not
silos.”
There are simple questions you can ask
to assess your progress. Are people finding
their data from the corporate repository – or
getting it from the person who was working
on it last, asked Flemming Rolle, manager
of information and application systems with
Dong E&P Norge.
Another good question is, are people
developing their own data management sys-
tems and databases – or working with the
corporate ones, suggested Mario Fiorani,
manager of the data and corporate database
with ENI’s E&P Division.
“We always overestimate the change
that will occur in the next two years and un-
derestimate the change that will occur in the
next ten,” said Paul Gregory, quoting Bill
Gates, founder of Microsoft. “9 years ago,
people were fighting data accessibility is-
sues,” he said. Now [all the challenges are
about] people,” he said.
Tarun Chandrasekhar, product manager
with Neuralog, said that people should not
anticipate radical fast changes to data man-
agement. “It’s all incremental, like software
upgrades.” he said.
Clay Harter, chief technology officer
with OpenSpirit corporation, observed that
ironically, demands for data management
have increased a great deal over the past few
April - May 2009 - digital energy journal
“There is a move towards companies
recognising DM is essential, not a cost they
want to avoid.” - Alan Smith, managing
consultant with RPS Paras Consulting
years, which means that people are more
aware of the limitations of their data man-
agement system. “5 years ago, people were
happy enough to have to go and find some-
thing,” he said. “Now people recognise there
are problems.”
Meanwhile, Janet Hicks, senior prod-
uct manager with Landmark, observed that
people’s expectations are expanding rapidly.
“An explosion of data makes it much harder
to quality control it,” she said.
Ms Hicks questioned the regularly re-
peated figures about how much of an oil and
gas person’s day is spent looking for data.
“Is it an old wives’ tale?” she asked.
Some companies are doing data man-
agement audits similar to their financial au-
dits, said Clay Harter of OpenSpirit. “They
are looking at how they exchange and man-
age data,” he said. “Audits aren’t easy to do.
But it can be a way of measuring changes.
There is still a lot more things which
people would like to do. “Combining geo-
logical fluid models with reservoir models is
impossible today,” said one delegate. “We
have reservoir engineers who say they have
given up asking for these solutions because
they’ve been asking for 10 years. That’s a
massive challenge ahead of us.”
23
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:59 Page 24
Oil and gas production
Making people feel inclined
As we struggle with the challenge of trying to
persuade our colleagues to leave their data in
good condition for the next person, it is worth
bearing in mind that this was something peo-
ple were very good at in the past.
“25 years ago, we had more of a culture
of finishing a project with proper ‘closure’,
with all the relevant documents completed,”
said Clay Harter, chief technology officer of
OpenSpirit Corporation.
“We’ve gotten away from having clo-
sure. We need to change the value we place
on properly documenting what we’ve done.”
Dr Sandy Smith, project manager of
Landmark, explained (from his experience
working as a geologist) how difficult it is to
finish projects off properly when you are un-
der pressure to get started on the next one.
“When I was working as a geologist – there’s
always the rush at the end [of a project],” he
said. “You get your manager’s requirements
for your part of the project.
“When your boss is on your back to start
the next project, the easiest thing is to forget
about the close down work.
There are soft approaches and hard ap-
proaches to encouraging people to look after
their data better.
Soft approaches
One obstacle to data management the lack of
trust – particularly between oil industry tech-
nical people and their data managers. “The
geologist is reluctant to hand his data to the
data management group because they poten-
tially don’t fully understand the data,” said Dr
Sandy Smith, project manager with Land-
mark.
David Holmes, information manage-
ment practise manager at Halliburton Land-
mark, said that of the many knowledge man-
agement initiatives the company has imple-
mented over the years, the one which has
stuck the most is the “knowledge broker,”
where someone is appointed the role of shar-
ing knowledge around the organisation, en-
couraging people to use the system, and con-
necting the right people together.
“Trying to get people to help [with data
management] is hard,” said Martin Turner,
GIS co-ordinator with Hess Ltd. “We spent
years and years trying to get people to do it.
At the end of the day, you have to change peo-
ple’s minds. So ultimately you have to do
something that affects them personally and di-
rectly. We use every stick known to mankind
to get people to fill in the forms. It is part of
their performance related pay to do this.
However the best way to encourage peo-
ple to use the system is to ‘promote’ it, he said
– gently explain the benefits and get the word
out, but not force people. “Make it easy, ex-
24 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
plain why people have to do it, avoid techno
speak,” he said. “The worst thing is to wait
for someone to ask you where the data is.”
The company recently held an internal
GIS conference, which was attended by 150
geophysics and geology professionals.
Mr Rolle agreed that the past traditions
of finishing off all the documentation on a
project are not as strong now. “In the early
days, you didn’t complete a project without
having a written full report and ensured all
seismic lines were explained,” he said.
“Today we make decisions on the basis
of a 45 minute PowerPoint which is useless 6
months later, no-one can remember why a
particular slide was important.
But that’s not to say that the problem
can’t be solved. “In future we will have data
audits at stage gates – a peer review of a proj-
ect before it goes to the next stage,” he said.
“Data cleanup should be done along the proj-
ect as a natural part of the project.”
Hard approaches
One way to get people to improve data man-
agement is to force them - by regulation, such
as Sarbanes-Oxley, or by making their jobs or
bonuses depend on how well they do it.
“In the nuclear industry you have to
keep absolute records of what you’re done –
when you changed a valve – or you get closed
down,” said Bjarte Ravndal, associate profes-
sor in information management at the Univer-
sity of Stavanger. “In pharmaceuticals – you
keep records of every test. The regulator is
putting very strict requirements on you.”
“In the real world people have their own
agenda,” said one delegate. “The best way to
make people comply is make asset managers’
bonus depend on capturing all the data.
You probably can’t get someone sacked
if they are not very good at data management,
because they are probably fairly good at
something else said Martin Turner from
HESS. “So the head of exploration decided to
make it part of someone’s pay packet” –
where people get additional bonuses depend-
ing on their contribution to data management.
One delegate in the audience pointed out
that executive support – ie force from top
management, is what is necessary to get proj-
ects completed.
Achim Kamelger, global manager – da-
ta and information with E&P Information
Systems, OMV Exploration, said that the
company has introduced data audits for
branch offices, to check that data is being kept
in suitable condition.
However in order to make sure that peo-
ple do what they are supposed to do, any sys-
tem needs to have some kind of punishment
if the work isn’t done. “At a certain point
there must be pain if they do not do their job,”
“The knowledge management initiative at
Halliburton Landmark which stuck the most
was to appoint "knowledge brokers" - David
Holmes, information management practise
manager at Halliburton Landmark
he said.
Alan Smith, managing consultant with
RPS Paras Consulting, made comparisons
with health and safety initiatives over the past
few decades – where companies really had to
make health and safety part of everyone’s job
in order to improve things. “People only real-
ly took HSE seriously when it is part of their
objectives,” he said.
Don’t feel that you have to give the data
users everything they ask for either. Some-
times the data manager needs to ask some
tricky questions of the users, said one dele-
gate from StatoilHydro.
“We had an internal project – I found we
had 38 ways of reporting gas. Some of these
were similar, some were different. We had to
challenge the end user - do you need all 38
volumes? They didn’t. The solution is not the
technology, it’s how we are implementing it.”
“When we spend $20m on a well or seis-
mic survey, and can’t spend $500 to enter the
data properly afterwards, then we have prob-
lems,” said Achim Kamelger, global manager
– data and information with E&P Information
Systems, OMV Exploration.
Search vs indexing
There was interesting discussion about the
comparative advantages of looking for the
documents you want by search (eg for a doc-
ument containing certain words) or trying to
find the document you want because it is filed
in the right place.
The difference is perhaps well illustrat-
ed to people who have made the switch from
Outlook 2003 (where you searched for your
e-mails mainly by looking for a message from
a certain person, sent on a certain date) to Out-
look 2007 (where you mainly search for mes-
sages based on words in it).
Probably the right answer is that you
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:59 Page 25
will need both – text based search is good
when finding a document in a large pile, but
you can't be sure if getting the exact document
you are looking for quickly – whereas a clas-
sification system can quickly take you to the
right document, such as a well report for a
certain well in a certain year.
“If a geologist wants the well comple-
tion report from well 1/3-11, that has to be
available immediately,” said Flemming Rolle,
from Dong. “If you want to know, what does
the company know about the West Greenland
Basin, you need a different search.”
The challenge, as Al Kok, group lead for
the well data management group in the explo-
ration data management division of Saudi
Aramco, said, is “getting the right documents
to users in the right number of searches and
the right number of hits.”
One delegate said that it was important
to have both classification and search tools.
“We are creating so many documents – we’ll
never get to a stage where everything can be
categorised properly,” he said.
There was a suggestion that oil compa-
nies could separate very important informa-
tion (eg official reports) from everything else.
“There’s some information we can’t lose,” he
said.
Google for oil and gas
However many of us have had satisfactory ex-
periences searching for documents using
Google, and wonder why the same kind of
search based tools (which a few added meth-
ods of getting a good guess at the right docu-
ment) can’t work in oil and gas.
Alan Smith, managing director of RPS
Paras Consulting, said he did not believe that
the oil and gas industry had any special re-
quirements for the type of data search it
needs, which are not shared with other indus-
tries. “It is just different search terms,” he
said.
The more a search engine knows about
the user, the better it is at bringing up useful
results, said Eric Abecassis, Houston Tech-
nology Center Manager for Schlumberger In-
formation Solutions. Google was successful
because it was so good at bringing people in-
formation which they wanted. “We need in-
formation about you to make your search
more relevant,” he said.
For example, if the search engine knows
the geographical location of the person
searching, what their job role is, and what as-
set they are working on, it might be better
placed to serve up the right information. . The
search engine can also know much more
about whose opinion and work the person
searching values the most.
Although we are all very familiar with
Google, there are other search engine tech-
Oil and gas production
nologies which can be purchased – for exam-
ple the Autonomy software, which is used by
the search engine on the BBC website, he
said. “IT can find videos. You can find things
in Arabic from an English search phrase,” said
Alan Smith, managing director of RPS Paras
Consulting.
Granularity of classification
Eric Abecassis, Houston Technology Center
Manager for Schlumberger Information Solu-
tions, tackled the difficult question of how
granular your classification should be. “My
suggestion is just to classify at a high level –
where you classify the big world in big
chunks,” he said.
The problem with a classification sys-
tem which is too granular (or detailed) is that
the classification system itself has to be kept
updated as things change, and this requires a
lot of work. “If you get a more fine grain clas-
sification, you have to maintain it. With broad
classification you don’t have to maintain it. I
suggest moving away from high level classi-
fication.”
An alternative method of classification
is to ‘tag’ the data, and then you can search
for data based on its tags, he suggested (eg
well number, region). The tag architecture can
then evolve. Google has a similar system for
e-mail archives on Gmail – where e-mails are
tagged rather than sorted into folders.
Not all the audience agreed with this.
Alan Smith from RPS Paras Consulting point-
ed out that tags are not useful if people mis-
spell them because you still don’t find what
you’re looking for. “They can be a burden as
well as a help. Someone has to keep track of
them,” he said.
There is also the risk that if data is too
organised, its context can get lost – for exam-
ple, you just see the well log in a bucket to-
gether with other well logs, rather than seeing
it together with all of the other data about the
well.
Bringing up the best document
One big challenge - unsolved, it seems - is en-
suring that a search tool can bring up the best
available data on a subject – or the final ver-
sion.
Dag Heggelund, data quality manager
with Schlumberger Information Solutions
(SIS), told a story of how, after working on a
data management project, a geologist was not
very happy to find he now had 500 LAS files
for a certain well, rather than just one. “He
had to spend Saturday looking through them
all to see which one was the best,” he said.
This is a tool which the internet search-
es are very good at – because we normally on-
ly upload the final version of a document to
the internet, even if we have several older ver-
April - May 2009 - digital energy journal
sions of it on our computers.
Clay Harter, of OpenSpirit, suggested
that geoscientists should be encouraged to
provide information about the quality of data.
“The only people who know data quality is
the people who use it – geologists – not data
managers,” he said. “We have to make it eas-
ier for them to provide input on the quality of
data.”
Fleming Rolle, Dong
Fleming Rolle, manager of Information and
Application Systems with Dong E&P Norge
(Norway), talked about the challenges his
company has faced managing its data and im-
plementing new systems.
Dong Energy is an integrated utility
company that has around 6,000 employees, of
which 450-500 work in Exploration and Pro-
duction Business Unit. It is active in oilfields
in Denmark, Norway, UK (West of Shetland),
Faeroes, Greenland, with main E&P offices
in Denmark, Norway and the UK. More than
half of production is gas, mainly sent to the
UK. The Corporate IT Group of Dong Ener-
gy looks after IT strategy, IT infrastructure
and desktops while each Business Unit has re-
sponsibility for its technical applications and
data.
“Everybody needs to understand their
rights and obligations with data,” he said.
“Data is the foundation for everything we are
doing.”
One particular challenge is managing
the different rights people have to the data,
when sending it to outside experts for analy-
sis and processing.
“We send well logs to consultants for
analysis, send seismic datasets to contrac-
tors,” he said.
“We have, for example, full user rights
to a seismic survey we paid for. But if we
lease it from a contractor and send it to a part-
ner, the partner has to pay a subscription fee
for the same data,” he said. “We can’t expect
individual users to keep track of these rights
– but we in data management can keep track
of it for them.”
“We have to be a lot more strict – to
make sure we and they understand what they
can do with the data. Can they share it with
others, for example.”
“Do we have a legal framework to say –
you will delete the data when you’ve finished
and confirm to us that it’s been done.”
“If they are not well informed about the
issues, people will happily copy information
onto a portable hard drive and send it to a
partner without checking – did we have an
agreement to do this?”
These rules tend to create obstacles to
people’s work, and this means people are
strongly tempted to try to find ways around
25
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Oil and gas production
them. “They are technically savvy and will
find ways around it – unless we provide them
with guidelines and the right tools,” he said.
“We have to find the right balance between
security and efficiency.”
For example, encryption is a good secu-
rity tool, but will lead to a reduction in flexi-
bility. “Encrypting certain data makes it hope-
lessly slow to use in any workstation environ-
ment.”
“Our IT security policy and rules is 45
pages long – and we expect our IT and data
management people to have read and under-
stood it. There are elements in IT security
about data security and access control,” he
said. “We must ensure ownership and IP
rights are well understood.”
“Individual users will not be allowed to
send and receive data; it will have to go
through the data management function.”
“You can never get 100 per cent securi-
ty of data – that is utopia – but technology can
get us a long way,” he said. “Good processes
can minimise the risk.”
It is always possible to monitor what
people are doing with data, but very time con-
suming for the data management team in
practise – and intrusive for employees. “We
log transactions, and if we have a suspicion
someone is doing something they shouldn’t –
we can go through the logs,” he said.
“But we don’t police everything – we re-
ly on employees being loyal to the company.
Our employees are responsible people, but
they have to know what their obligations are.”
The company is developing data man-
agement processes, including a Data Owner-
ship Model, and the main roles will have peo-
ple’s names on them, he said – which means
that the person is responsible for ensuring that
it is done.
Dag Heggelund, SIS
Dag Heggelund, data quality manager with
Schlumberger Information Solutions (SIS),
suggests that data quality is looked at its im-
pact on people’s productivity.
Using terminology developed for the
‘six sigma’ business strategy, he suggested
that if your data is 2-3 sigma (meaning it has
around 300,000 defects per million opportu-
nities), then people who work with it will
need to spend 35 per cent of their time just
sorting out the data – cleaning it up as they
go along, finding what they want.
You could say it has a 35 per cent tax,
he suggested.
“Over the last few years – the data qual-
ity has increased but the amount of useful da-
ta has decreased,” he said. “There is missing
data, incorrect data and incompatible data,
and multiple versions of the truth.”
Rather than just try to organise every-
26 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
thing, companies might be better off trying to
identify where people’s pain points are (where
they often run into problems with the data)
and fixing, or alleviating those.
One challenge is that the same data can
be of adequate quality for one person’s pur-
poses, but riddled with errors when you try to
use it for another purpose, where more preci-
sion is required.
Data needs to be viewed in a workflow
centric manner. Data in master databases
should be "workflow neutral", he said - ie, it
can be used for anybody's purposes - but this
requires that the accuracy, precision and the
dimensionality is large enough to support all
workflows.
“Data suited to a particular workflow
might be 5-6 Sigma”, he said. “The same da-
ta seen workflow neutral can be 2-3 Sigma.”
When trying to improve data, first you
can fix the obvious problems, but after that
you are better off trying to fix the problems
which cause people pain, not embark on a
project to make all of the data perfect, which
is very hard to achieve.
“You have to find out, what are the top
10 things that stop geologists doing their
jobs? Then translate the friction points to the
assessment rules,” he said.
“Don’t focus on quality – saying just ‘ I
want the best data’ – but focus on removing
friction points, so end users have the highest
productivity,” he said.
Dr Heggelund advocated the use of au-
tomated data correction tools, which are avail-
able from Schlumberger (since it acquired a
company Dr Heggelund founded, called In-
nerlogix), as well as from Petris (which re-
cently acquired a company called Intervera).
“We have some examples where [these
systems] did such as good job of data cleanup
that end users are demanding (our service),”
Dr Heggelund said.
Automated data correction might be the
only way forward when you consider the
scale of the task. “If you have 10,000 well
bores, you could have 3m pieces of data,” he
said. “If the quality is 1-2 sigma, that could
mean you have 1m items that need correct-
ing.”
If you make 10 corrections per hour, it
will take 100,000 hours, (or 2,500 40-hour
weeks, or 52 48-week man years). “Manual
corrections are not practical,” he said.
“If you say ‘I will correct all the data I
have, “it will fail. You’re trying to boil the
ocean. It will take a lot of effort to reduce the
entropy.”
Achim Kamelger
Achim Kamelger, global manager – data and
information with E&P Information Systems,
OMV Exploration, said that a lot of the drive
for better data comes from the top. “Our CEO
says he wants cleaned data, trusted and reli-
able,” he said.
“We had too many databases around the
world. We have too many versions of the
same (or, worse) almost the same data. Ma-
nipulation of the data can be very time con-
suming,” he said.
The company has two datastores in Bu-
dapest and Vienna, which it is synchronising
together.
The biggest headaches continue to come
from people, rather than the technology. “We
underestimate the resistance from people,” he
said. “It’s much worse dealing with people
than you thought in your worst nightmare.”
OMV has identified one unexpected
source of problems – people’s secretaries –
who often do the work of filing data for their
boss. “If a secretary is not supporting you, the
boss with never use it,” he said.
Martin Turner, Hess
As software gets easier to use, the number of
people who use it rises exponentially, pointed
out Martin Turner, GIS co-ordinator with
Hess.
Hess makes large amounts of its GIS da-
ta available within the company on a read on-
ly basis; people can access the data through
their internet browsers. Only three staff run
the GIS system, which has about 2,000 users.
The data is stored on ESRI ArcGIS
servers.
“We decided to open up everything to
everybody on a read only basis,” he said. “Do
you need so much security for your oil and
gas data within the organisation?”
Raw data is first cleaned and quality
controlled, and organised to fit business area
requirements. In a second stage, it is incorpo-
rated into the Hess geodatabase model, and
maintained on a corporate basis and made
available to everyone.
The GIS data is organised into ‘nodes’,
which are “loose bucket folders” of GIS data,
he said. Each node has an appointed ‘node
keeper’, who is the only person with data
writing access.
The data has metadata (data describing
the data) – this has quality controls on it – for
example, when saying which part of the world
the data is about, you can only choose places
which actually exist.
The company currently spends $20m a
year on discovering data. “We think we can
reduce it to $2m year,” he said.
Employees often raise the question of
why can’t we do it on Google Earth, he said.
“People always want things that look nice.
But we say – what’s the advantage of having
it on a 3D globe instead of a 2D map?” he
said.
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Oil and gas production

Monitoring your VSAT

Uplogix, a company based in Austin, Texas,
reports growing interest in the oil and gas
industry for its services to monitor all the
equipment involved in VSAT operations, so
more faults can be fixed remotely.
A large amount of equipment is in-
volved in VSAT communications—these
hybrid networks contain both satellite de-
vices like antennas, amplifiers, and
modems, as well as traditional terrestrial IP
network devices like servers, routers, and
switches. A problem with any individual
piece of equipment can cause the communi-
cations link to go down.
The problem is compounded by the ex-
tra complexity many people are adding to
their systems as they try to send more and
more data between their platforms and ves-
sels to shore—such as tools which give one
data packet priority over another one, or
tools which send data over the cheapest
communications link, when there are a num- Uplogix creates an appliance which can
ber of links available. monitor and diagnose problesm with all of
the amplifiers and modems typically involved
“It makes it infinitely more complicat- in a VSAT communication system (pictured)
ed, and more likely that it won’t work the
way you want,” says Andy Harris from Up-
logix.
The Uplogix solution is to provide an
appliance (costing around $2,500, plus $200 rig, for example re-pointing the antenna at a
a year license fee) which can monitor and different satellite, then a warning can be giv-
control all of the VSAT and IP networking en well in advance (the Uplogix appliance
equipment, and also communicate with also connects to a GPS unit, so it knows the
shore engineers via an out-of-band link, or current location).
a communications method independent of In some situations, a vessel might have
the main VSAT, such as Iridium. more than one option for communications
Rules can also determine at which available (for example, a GPRS service
stage a human being gets involved. “We can when it is near a port or the option of Ku or
be fully automatic, or fully manual or some- C band satellite services). In this case, the
thing in between,” says Tom Goldman, Uplogix appliance can be programmed to
CEO. “We can react in 30 seconds of an is- automatically choose the least expensive
sue.” communications option available.
Nearly all equipment can be communi- Mr. Goldman observes that satellite
cated with via a ‘command line interface’ – communications users are getting more de-
sending short text message code commands manding of their suppliers in the breadth of
and getting one line codes back. service they provide to fix problems.
If there is any problem, the appliance In the past, a satellite company might
can firstly follow a programmed series of have typically said that the service only goes
steps, asking questions of the equipment and as a far as the satellite modem, for any oth-
getting responses – in exactly the same way er problems with shipboard equipment you
as a (human) IT manager would. need to phone someone else.
If necessary, the appliance can then “But customers say no, I want my
send data to and from home over the out-of- phone to work. So operators are forced to
band link, enabling a remote engineer to di- go deeper into the stack,” he says.
agnose any problems with the equipment. The company provides similar servic-
If the solution is to reboot all of the es managing SCADA systems linked by
equipment (a very common solution), Up- VSAT and microwave radio links for back-
logix can ensure all of the equipment is haul on pipelines running from Houston to
switched on in the correct order. Canada with thousands of data cap-
If input is required by personnel on the ture points.
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:59 Page 28
Oil and gas production
Using live 3D drawings instead of technical
documentation
Silicon Valley company Right Hemisphere has a new vision for technical manuals of the future – replacing
them with live 3D images of the equipment.
Imagine – what if people could use view 3D
images of equipment onboard rigs, on their
i-Phones, instead of using paper or pdf man-
uals?
Instead of having to find out about
equipment using a paper or pdf manual – you
can open your portable computer and imme-
diately access a 3D model of the item, with
all relevant information immediately avail-
able by clicking on the parts? You can look
at it from any angle, from any position, and
at any scale?
It should be much easier for people to
find what they are looking for, and under-
stand their equipment and access mainte-
nance instructions. It would also be much
easier to keep updated, with the 3D image
on your computer exactly matching the piece
of equipment you are currently working on.
It would also be easier to provide a manual
which people who speak different languages
could use.
This is the vision of Right Hempishere,
a Silicon Valley (USA) company founded in
1997, currently growing at 200 per cent a
year. The company is is backed by Sequoia
Capital, which also provided critical venture
capital to Apple, Google, YouTube, Yahoo,
Cisco and Oracle.
Right Hemisphere makes software
called Deep Server, which can read CAD da-
ta and translate it into a lightweight 3D ver-
sion which can be viewed in Adobe reader.
This also makes the data much lighter – so it
can be comfortably delivered to platforms
over low speed satellite data connections.
“Deepserver” can pump from and pump to
any CAD format,” says David Chisholm,
Right Hemisphere’s energy group manager.
The software is used by 5 of the world's
top 6 automobile manufacturers, and 9 of the
top 10 US aerospace and defence companies,
and it hopes to do the same for the oil and
gas industry.
Oil and gas industry companies already
using the software include Halliburton,
Schlumberger, Cooper Cameron,
Transocean, Smith International.
The technology to view the graphics is
also used in videogames, to provide large 3D
imagery using computing power available on
a low cost computer.
To get an idea of how it works, imag-
ine that instead of having a paper manual of
28 digital energy journal - April - May 2009
your car, you would have a 3D model of your
car (with the exact same parts as you have
in your car, not a generic manual).
If you needed to understand anything
in detail, you could zoom in, look at it in dif-
ferent angles, and click to bring up instruc-
tions of how to maintain that particular part.
If part of the car was replaced at any time,
the manual could be automatically updated.
Better than paper
Many complex pieces of oil and gas equip-
ment, such as as a Christmas tree, typically
go though several stages of revision before
reaching the final design. It is very hard for
the paper manual to keep up with the
changes (if it is updated at all). Engineering
change orders can happen even as the prod-
uct is being sent to the rig.
But most oil and gas documentation is
still kept on paper, with 2D drawings, cov-
ered with notes and is not updated to keep
up with frequent changes, says George Earl,
head of global services with Right Hemi-
sphere.
An electronic manual can be created di-
rectly from the final CAD drawings, will be
completely up to date and can be produced
very quickly.
It is much easier to add notes to a 3D
model makes it much easier to add notes –
because they can be tagged in the computer
next to the specific items they concern. The
notes stay in the database together with the
information about the part.
Mr Chisholm believes that this technol-
ogy can make a big contribution to reducing
equipment breakdowns – one of the biggest
areas of focus for the industry, and a factor
which can have a big influence in whether
or not a drilling company wins a contract.
Having fast access to the right informa-
tion is getting more important, as equipment
becomes more complex, and the average ex-
perience of industry staff is reducing,” he
says.
Working with live data
The 3D visualisation could also be used to-
gether with live data, so you can understand
what is happening to pieces of equipment
you can’t actually see.
For example, live data from a drill bit
could be used with a 3D visualisation of the
Imagine - replacing typical paper manuals
with an online view of all equipment, which
you can view at any angle, and click to view
the associated documentation? Right
Hemisphere makes softare which can
produce a view like this one from the CAD
data of the equipment
drillbit, to create an image of what is actual-
ly happening underground.
The visualisation could be used to run
simulation models before doing a complex
job – to get an idea of what is going to hap-
pen, and also to spot any mistakes which
have been made with the data – such as us-
ing different units of measure (inches and
metres) in the programming codes (mistakes
made all too often which can lead to cata-
strophic results).
The visualisation could be used togeth-
er with a variety of different services equip-
ment manufacturers could offer their clients,
to help them look after equipment they have
already bought (the ‘aftermarket’) – and this
is where equipment manufacturers often earn
the bulk of their revenues.
Security
Many companies have been reluctant to use
the technology, due to concerns that the in-
formation could be used to reverse engineer
the equipment.
To allay these concerns, Right Hemi-
sphere adds a 'wobble' to the data – too small
to be seen on a screen, but too big to make it
possible to build another part using just the
data provided on the system.
“We can randomly jiggle the geometry
– it would look a little wavy – but it means
you are unable to measure it – the tolerance
backup would be ridiculous. You can’t build
it because the lines aren’t straight,” says Mr
Earl.
DEJ18:Layout 1 09/04/2009 12:59 Page 29

Freely Available
The Energistics collaborative technologies, WITSML and PRODML, are universally
applicable, plug-and-play and proven. Adoption of these open standards will assist your
organization or customers with:

Production Optimization
Operational Efficiency
Safety and Regulatory Compliance
Reserves Replacement

And they are free.

FREE FREE FREE FREE

of use of proprietary of political or of prohibitive
restrictions code or geographical pricing model
anti-competitive constraints constraints
constraints

To download Energistics standards or for more details about participating with the upstream industry in
the collaborative development and deployment efforts, please visit www.energistics.org.

© 2007, Energistics. All rights reserved.

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