novdec07.

qxp 29/10/2007 17:59 Page 1

Statoil's
Integrated
Operations

Virtual reality for

training

Halliburton's
Digital Asset
November - December 2007 Issue 9

Electronic purchasing strategies

Wi-fi on offshore platforms

Media supporter Associate Member
™
novdec07.qxp 29/10/2007 18:00 Page 2

WHAT
YOU
SEE
IS
WHAT
YOU
GET
Vision for Energy
> Strategic consulting
> Seismic imaging
> Velocity analysis
> Structural interpretation
> Stratigraphic delineation
> Formation evaluation
> Reservoir modeling
> Pore pressure prediction
> Well planning

Vision is Certainty
Leading science, breakthrough innovation and exceptional people.
Providing customers with the intelligence to minimise risk and optimise
subsurface asset management. Paradigm. Unconflicted, unsurpassed. www.pdgm.com

Digital_Energy_Journal_1007.indd 1 9/12/07 8:53:59 AM

 novdec07.qxp 29/10/2007 18:01 Page 1

November/December 2007
Digital Energy Journal
213 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9FJ, UK
www.digitalenergyjournal.com
Tel +44 (0)207 510 4935
Fax +44 (0)207 510 2344
Editor
Karl Jeffery
jeffery@d-e-j.com
Contents
Integrated operations at Kristin
Statoil made use of organisational experts when working out the best way to bring
workers from its Kristen asset onshore, but working closely with platform personnel. It
reduced the number of people required to be on the rig, and also gained
improvements in safety, uptime and production 2
Exploration and drilling
Halliburton and enabling the Digital Double North Sea oil with rock physics?
Asset Martyn Millwood Hargrave, managing direc-
Issue 9 Halliburton new range of services under tor of Ikon Science, believes that rock
the label ‘Digital Asset,’ highlighting how it physics based technologies could help find
offers the people processes and technology and access a further 4 billion barrels of oil in
the North Sea.
to help customers make best use of the
latest digital tools. 10
6 New Online GIS system
Analyse geology as 3D structures rather UK company Interactive Net Mapping has
than layers - ffA launched a new system for oil and gas com-
UK company Foster Findlay Associates (ffA) panies to view their wells, seismic surveys

Technical editor/ IT manager

Keith Forward
provides software for analysing seismic data
to find and describe 3D geological structures,
and related information online.
11
forward@d-e-j.com
SPE’s IT subcommitte update 7 ATCE preview
We asked some of the exhibitors at the
Consultant writer We spoke to section chairman Mehrzad forthcoming SPE ATCE event in November
Tracey Dancy, Paras Consulting Mahdavi about how plans for the Society of 11-14 what new and exciting digital tech-
Petroleum Engineers (SPE's) IT technical sec- nologies they will be showing this year
Subsciptions
Karl Jeffery
jeffery@d-e-j.com
tion are progressing.
8 12
Oil and gas production
Advertising sales
Alec Egan IQPC Houston oil & Gas Intelligent Energy Conference
Tel +44 (0)207 510 4944
aegan@onlymedia.co.uk Discussion at IQPC's Oil and Gas Exchange Plans are moving ahead for the Society of
in Houston on Sept 12-13, delegates dis- Petroleum Engineers / Reed Exhibitions 'In-
Digital Energy Journal is your one stop in- cussed ways to implement IT systems in oil telligent Energy Conference,' planned for
formation source for new trends, technical and gas. By Tracey Dancy of Paras Consult- this Feb 25-27 in Amsterdam.
developments, opinion, new products and ing.
15 28
best practise with digital technology in the Offshore Europe
upstream oil and gas industry. Managing your growing data Some of the highlights at the Offshore Eu-
As oil companies' data stores grow expo- rope exhibition in Aberdeen
Each issue of Digital Energy Journal print nentially, we asked EMC about their tools to 29
magazine is mailed to 2,000 oil and gas ex- assist. Phenomatics - training in virtual
ecutives, with a further 500-1000 copies 17 reality
distributed at trade shows, as well as be- Roxar 190 to 800 employees Phenomatics of Austria is pushing out the
ing downloaded approx 2,000 times as Roxar has more than quadrupled its staff boundaries of what is possible with simula-
pdf. count from 190 to 800 people in 5 years. We tor training, by creating a system where peo-
asked group marketing director Svenn Hau- ple see the virtual world on a 3D headset,
Subscriptions: £GBP 195 a year for 6 is- gen how they did it rather than looking at a screen.
sues. To subscribe, please contact Karl Jef- 18 31
fery on jeffery@d-e-j.com. Alternatively Integrated Operations Electronic purchasing
you can subscribe online at A new ‘embrace variability' approach to To make an electronic purchasing strategy
www.d-e-j.com safety, and how BG avoids standardised work, you have to segment your suppliers in
processes - some of the highlights from the the right way. Chris Welsh of Eiro Consulting,
Front cover:
screen shot Integrated Operations conference in Trond- writing on behalf of oil and gas e-commerce
from
Paradigm's
heim, Norway, on October 2-3.
20 company OFS-Portal, explains.
32
new
Common Communications
Reflection satellite communications technology on
Angle Wi-fi on offshore platforms
display at Offshore Communications event
Migration The time is right for wi-fi on offshore oil
in Houston
(CRAM) solution, a new high-resolution
subsurface imaging solution designed to
platforms, believes automation giant
Invensys
38 Adjust your satcom power on the fly
39
improve the quality of information
obtained from seismic data processing Hughes Network Solutions has launched a
Offshore communications preview
new satellite communications technology,
Printed in the UK by THE MAGAZINE PRINTING COMPANY There will be some exciting offshore
www.magprint.co.uk
DVB-S2.
40
November - December 2007- digital energy journal 1

8:53:59 AM
novdec07.qxp 29/10/2007 18:01 Page 2

Exploration and Drilling

Integrated Operations at Kristin

Statoil made use of organisational experts when working out the best way to bring workers from its
Kristen asset onshore, but working closely with platform personnel. It reduced the number of people
required to be on the rig, and also gaining improvements in safety, uptime and production

The Kristen platform is 240 km offshore

from Trondheim, Norway, and is a conden-
sate gas field with 12 wells. It is a high pres-
sure (910 bar), high temperature (170 de-
grees C) reservoir at 4,500m depth, below
water of between 240 and 320m depth.
Production started in November 2005.
NOK 20bn ($3.5bn) has been invested in the
platform.
Statoil estimates that NOK 200m (USD
$36.5m) has been saved in operating costs
over the first year from integrated opera-
tions, said Arne Bye, asset manager / plat-
form manager at Kristin. "The first year of
operation is normally costly."
"Half of the savings was due to the way
we work. The other half was due to having
better quality plant," he said. "We had a goal Pleased with the progress - Arne S Bye, platform manager with Statoil's Kristin asset. Photo
of no gas leakage, and managed it." Harald Pettersen StatoilHydro.
Statoil wanted to use Integrated Opera-
tions methods to be able to operate the plat- Work and play test program, we would get text messages.
form with the minimum number of people The two teams even held a joint spinning When we received them, we would go to our
onboard for safety reasons, maximise pro- (exercise bike) session (see picture). computers, and have a ten minute discussion
duction and operational efficiency, and keep Traditional distinctions between work about what to do. That would conclude the
the platform in optimum technical condition. and play are being lost, said Mr Bye. time required for the interaction."
Currently there are 31 people on the "We had a problem with a completion - "I could do the work and prepare the
platform at any time. The minimum allowed a leak - as you can imagine it happened at dinner at the same time. This is a vast im-
number (for emergency preparedness) is 27 ten to four on Friday afternoon," he said. provement."
people. "So we are close to the absolute min- "We had to collect a group of special- Mr Bye said that the platform had
imum," said Mr Bye. ists to decide what to do. We worked until achieved 98 to 99 per cent uptime (known as
The platform has two management 6pm, started tests and agreed to meet sat am 'regularity'), compared to 90 per cent on oth-
teams, one onshore and one offshore, each at 7am to look at the results. We discussed er comparable North Sea platforms.
located in a collaboration room, and there different options to do full test." The drilling was tricky, with wells at up
are continuous video links from one room to "At 4pm on Saturday, I should have to 87 degrees deviation (from vertical), in
another so both management teams can see been making dinner for friends at home." high pressure / high temperature reservoirs,
each other at all times. "So we decided, at certain steps in the from a floating drill rig.

the first ever integrated operations spinning

(exercise bike) session - simultaneously on the
platform (left) and the operations support
centre (right), monitored on big screens. The
Operation room for managers offshore, which is continuously online with the onshore participants would like us to note that it was
operations room. Photo Øyvind Hagen StatoilHydro held ten minutes before the shift started (ie
not during working hours)

2 digital energy journal - November - December 2007

novdec07.qxp 29/10/2007 18:01 Page 3

Exploration and Drilling

"We had no well control situation," he
said. "Statistically - the industry gets a well
control situation from every second well
drilled in high pressures and high tempera-
tures."
Now Statoil would like more middle
managers, supervisors and technicians to be
brought into the collaborative working sys-
tem. "The next step is to involve technical
and discipline engineers and vendors," said
Mr Bye.
It also wants to develop a tie-in to the
platform from the neighbouring Tyrihans
field, without any additional personnel.
Computer tools also proved very useful
in managing maintenance tasks. "Normally
the backlog on maintenance is quite a chal-
lenge to control," he said.
The project team was able to do its own
recruitment, and so make sure that all the The Kristin platform.
people were suited to this kind of working.
"They need to like to work with people," said has to be understanding of goals, and a agers," he said.
Mr Bye. shared situational awareness, and a high de- "We have parallel and concurrent tasks
gree of available information," said Mr Hep- being planned and executed by onshore and
Social engineers sø. "Trust is very important." offshore teams in continuous communica-
"We realised we needed some social engi- "We need co-ordination but also have tion, with shared situational awareness."
neers - anthropologists," said Mr Bye. "All to facilitate for self synchronisation." "We have an increasingly demanding
of us engineers have a belief we can fix This led to a change in atmosphere on work-force that want work challenges and
everything. It is good advice to bring in some the platform. "You go from being instructed improved learning opportunities."
people from other lines of work." to more participating," he said. "We had a "We have a hands-on offshore and on-
Statoil put in a lot of effort to make sure successful integration of operation and main- shore management that is expected to spend
that the organisation would work. "The so- tenance teams." time and attention in developing the work-
cial interactions between people is very im- So Statoil wanted to create the tools and force," he said. "We can enable professional
portant because it allows the shared under- invite offshore staff to use them, rather than support to the offshore work-force."
standing," said Vidar Hepsø, principal re- force the situation. "In such an organisation, everything be-
searcher and project manager with Statoil re- "The platform maintenance teams comes very visible," said Mr Hepsø. "You
search and technology. wanted more management support," said Mr can't walk away. The peer pressure becomes
Statoil used the term 'self-synchronisa- Hepsø. "They wanted to use IO to improve extremely strong. There is a lot of peer pres-
tion' to refer to the way people were encour- collaboration with onshore experts." sure.
aged to work autonomously / freely, finding Mr Hepsø said that many new things As far as resilience, Mr Hepsø said,
their own ways to solve problems, rather are happening on the platform. "We haven't had a crisis bust we've had chal-
than wait for instructions. "The personnel have a peak compe- lenges. I'm impressed by the team's ability
For self synchronisation to work, "there tence not necessarily possessed by man- to solve surprising problems. There is cer-
tain robustness to this organisation."
One delegate suggested that perhaps
the project had worked very well because Mr
Bye was a "charming, tough guy," able to get
the job done but have people still liking him.

This article is based on a presentation

given by Arne S Bye, platform manager
for Statoil's Kristin asset, and Vidar
Hepso, principal researcher and project
manager with Statoil Research and
Technology, at the Integrated Operations
conference in Trondheim, Norway, on
October 2-3. Further reports from the
conference is on pages 20-26 of this
magazine. Original presentations can be
downloaded at http://www.ioconf.no

Morning meeting at Kristin's coffee bar offshore. Photo Øyvind Hagen StatoilHydro

November - December 2007 - digital energy journal 3

novdec07.qxp 29/10/2007 18:01 Page 4
Exploration and Drilling
Ikon Science awarded $10m Oilexco
project
www.ikonscience.com
Ikon Science has won a $10m, 30 month
contract from oil company Oilexco, to pro-
vide rock physics directed prospect evalua-
tion, geomodelling and reservoir characteri-
sation for Oilexco's exploration, appraisal
and development drilling in the UK North
Sea.
The two companies have worked to-
gether since 2003. Working together the
companies helped to discover the Brenda
field and its satellite field Nicol, which are
both on production at 30,000 barrels of oil
per day.
Schlumberger acquires InnerLogix
www.slb.com
Schlumberger has acquired data quality
management company InnerLogix, a com-
pany with 20 employees, based in Houston
and Stavanger, Norway. InnerLogix makes
software to automatically clean up data (see
article in September 2007 Digital Energy
Journal).
In connection with the acquisition,
Schlumberger has founded a Data Quality
Centre of Excellence in Houston, with sup-
port from Schlumberger domain experts and
InnerLogix personnel.
Schlumberger's stake in PetroMarker
www.slb.com
Schlumberger has acquired a minority inter-
est in PetroMarker, a Norwegian company
that specialises in marine electromagnetic
measurement technologies. PetroMarker
claims to have developed a unique method
of electromagnetics measurement and inter-
pretation.
Schlumberger believes that marine
electromagnetic information, combined with
seismic data, can provide a 'step change' in
reservoir definition. It provides electromag-
netics services through its WesternGeco
Electromagnetics business.
Paradigm's Venezuela data process
contract
www.pdgm.com
SCAN Geofisica (part of SCAN Geophysi-
cal) has awarded Paradigm a contract to
process and interpret data acquired for
PDVSA's Cardon II exploration project. Par-
adigm will assist with quality assurance and
control during the marine data acquisition,
and process the data at its technical centre in
Caracas.
The overall project includes collection,
processing and interpretation of 2D and 3D
data in a 400 km2 previously unexplored
area off Northwest Venezuela.
4 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
Paradigm's new subsurface modelling
software
www.pdgm.com
Paradigm has launched a Geologic Driven
Modelling Solution, designed to speed up
subsurface modelling workflow, by eliminat-
Paradigm’s SKUA geologic modelling solution
ing many repetitive tasks and making other
tasks less complicated, including construc-
tion of multi-faulted models and pillar / ex-
trusion technology.
The software is the first component of
Paradigm's new suite of subsurface model-
ling solutions called "Subsurface Knowledge
Unified Approach" (SKUA).
Paradigm believes that the new soft-
ware can help reduce the amount of time tak-
en to build a subsurface model from weeks
to days.
The system can be re-modelled quickly
when additional field and production data is
added. It can handle both reservoir property
modelling and flow simulation.
OHM acquires Rock Solid Images
www.ohmsurveys.com
Offshore Hydrocarbon Mapping (OHM) has
completed the acquisition of Houston-based
Rock Solid Images (RSI), a company spe-
cialising in using rock physics together with
well data and surface seismic, to get a better
idea about rock lithology, porosity and satu-
ration.
Following the acquisition, OHM plans
to invest further in RSI, and work on inte-
grating its Controlled Source Electromagnet-
ic (CSEM) imaging technology with RSI's
software. CSEM can be used to try to detect
hydrocarbons using electromagnetic waves.
OHM believes that highly valuable in-
formation can be gained from using seismic
data together with CSEM, calibrated with
well log information.
ARKeX acquires Ark Geophysics
www.arkex.com
ARKeX has acquired ARK Geophysics, cre-
ating what it claims to be the world's only
independent service company specializing in
both Gravity Gradient Imaging and conven-
tional gravity and magnetics. The combined
company employs 60 people worldwide.
The acquisition will see ARKeX's ca-
pacity in data processing and interpretation
double, as well as bringing a non-exclusive
data library and brokerage business.
Paradigm improves GOCAD interface
www.pdgm.com
Paradigm has released a new version of its
reservoir engineering software GOCAD,
with an improved user interface.
The new interface is designed to improve
quality control and knowledge management
and provides for a fully configurable work-
space, better data management tools and a
multi-viewer interface.
The new version also introduces new
products, including a Local Grid Refinement
(LGR) and Upscaler, Reservoir Data Analy-
sis, Reservoir Simulation Interface Work-
flow and Product Data Analysis.
Roxar launches new structural
modelling solution
www.roxar.com
Roxar has launched new software for struc-
tural modelling of reservoirs, with a more in-
tuitive user interface, new fault and horizon
modelling tools, and improved 3D and inte-
grated simulation gridding. It is integrated
with Roxar's reservoir modelling solution
IRAP RMS.
The improvements should lead to
quicker and more accurate characterizations
Improve your structural modelling of
reservoirs with Roxar's new software
of the reservoir and therefore better decision
making, Roxar says, reducing the time re-
quired to build a structural framework from
months to weeks.
novdec07.qxp 29/10/2007 18:01 Page 5
Landmark's 56-inch high resolution
monitor
www.halliburton.com/landmark
Landmark has introduced a 56 inch monitor,
M5600, with twice the resolution of today's
30 inch monitors, altogether 3840 x 2160
pixels.
The monitor enables uses users to view
a large amount of information at once, with-
out zooming, scrolling, or jumping from
screen to screen.
View your geological information on
Landmark's high resolution 56 inch monitor
In days gone by, geoscientists would
view lots of data at once by pinning sheets
of paper on the wall, and they can have a
similar experience with this large screen,
Landmark suggests.
The monitor costs much less than pro-
jection systems with a comparable resolu-
tion, the company claims, and does not re-
quire any set up, wiring, or professional
alignment, and works well in a room with
normal light.
TerraSpark / Transform software
licensing
www.terraspark.com
TerraSpark has signed a licensing deal with
Transform Software and Services of Denver,
so that Transform can offer TerraSpark's In-
teractive Drilling Planner (IDP) software to
its clients.
This means that customers can use Ter-
raSpark's drill planner software together
with Transform's visualization and interpre-
tation tools, which should help them plan
their wells better.
Ziebel's NOK 36.6 million investment
www.ziebel.biz
Reservoir optimisation company Ziebel has
announced funding of NOK 36.6m ($6.78m)
from a consortium of Energy Ventures,
Viking Venture and Kristian G Jebsen
Group, following its first round funding of
NOK 150m ($27.7m) announced in April
2006.
It will use the funding for product de-
velopment, building sales infrastructure and
further acquisitions.
Exploration and Drilling
Landmark's data compression
appliance
www.halliburton.com/landmark
Landmark has introduced a device, Storwize
STN 6000, which can compress data as it is
being stored, so up to three times more data
(and twice as much seismic data) can be
stored on the same size storage device as be-
fore.
Installation of the Storwize STN 6000
does not require any changes to existing in-
frastructure. It is manufactured by Storwize,
a San Jose company which is one of Land-
mark's strategic partners.
Patent for Petris Dynamic Model
www.petris.com
Oil and gas software company Petris has
been awarded a second US Patent for its Dy-
namic Common Model (DCM) data inter-
change approach, part of PetrisWINDS En-
terprise, which enables users to find and
manage data from a variety of different
sources, move the data reliably between ap-
plications and consolidate the information
into a single view.
The patent describes a loose coupling
of the system components, by extracting da-
ta from a datastore using XML, loading it in-
to a catalogue, and using the catalogue as a
basis for searching.
The first patent described a hub and
spoke approach for exchange of data be-
tween applications.
Input/Output changes name to ION
www.i-o.com
Input/Output has changed its company name
to ION Geophysical Corporation.
The name change will be accompanied
by a rebranding initiative that reflects the
company's evolution from its legacy as a
seismic equipment manufacturer to its pres-
ent position as a broad-based provider of im-
aging technologies, services, and solutions
for the global oil and gas industry.
The company will remain incorporated
in the state of Delaware and continue to trade
under the ticker symbol 'IO' on the New York
Stock Exchange.
PDF3D releases latest version
www.pdf3d.co.uk
PDF3D has released software development
kit (SDK) version 1.4.0 for its tools to create
three dimensional images that can be conve-
niently viewed using free Adobe PDF soft-
ware and incorporated into PDF documents.
The new version has tools for directly
injecting 3D view ports into existing PDF
template pages, updating and editing PDF
documents in-place.
A sample 3D PDF gallery is available
on the company's website.
November - December 2007 - digital energy journal
Landmark acquires GeoSmith
www.halliburton.com/landmark
Landmark has acquired GeoSmith Consult-
ing Group, a developer of software compo-
nents for 3D interpretation and geometric
modelling applications, including robust
topology engines capable of representing
subsurface geology.
GeoSmith's development team will
join Landmarks's geoscience interpretation
and modelling group.
Schlumberger opens 'Breakthrough
Performance Centre'
www.slb.com
Schlumberger has opened a 'Breakthrough
Performance Centre', an innovation lab and
executive briefing centre in Houston to
showcase, create and test the latest digital
technology innovations in the oil and gas in-
dustry.
Schlumberger is collaborating with
Barco, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Ne-
tApp, NVIDIA, Panoram Technologies and
The Whitlock Group.
At the centre, clients will be able to cre-
ate and test solutions bringing together dif-
ferent technologies and services from the
companies involved.There will also be regu-
lar client briefings about the technology.
Saft batteries in Weatherford's MWD
www.saftbatteries.com
Saft, a manufacturer of specialty batteries for
industrial applications, has signed a $3 mil-
lion contract with Weatherford International,
to supply its LSH
20 HTS lithium-
thionyl chloride
(Li-SOCl2) bat-
tery packs for
measurement
while drilling
(MWD) tools.
The batter-
ies must be able
to perform in
temperatures up
to +125°C and
endure very high
vibrations for a
lengthy period of
time, typically Saft's speciality batteries,
24-48 hours, used downhole in
maintaining full Weatherford's logging
power through- while drilling tools.
out. The batteries
were originally designed for use in space
probes.
We published an incorrect website address
for HRH Geological Services in our
September 2007 issue. The correct website
is www.hrhgeology.com.
5
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:03 Page 6
Exploration and Drilling
Halliburton and enabling the Digital Asset
Halliburton has launched a new range of workflow solutions to highlight how it offers the people,
processes and technology to help customers make best use of the latest digital tools when drilling and
producing their reservoirs, called the 'Digital Asset'.
On a fracturing job, Halliburton can offer
its ExacFrac service solution where the frac-
turing and wireline teams and technologies,
and Landmark reservoir modelling technol-
ogy, all work together. First the job is mod-
elled using the data provided by the client,
then the teams measure the effects of the job
and collaborate in real-time with each other
and with a real time centre when needed, to
optimize the impact of the frac.
If the task is drilling, Halliburton can
offer its Drill-to-the-Earth Model solution
that combines services of Sperry Drilling
Services, its Azimuthal Deep Resistivity
(ADR) tool, which provides resistivity infor-
mation about the rock ahead, Landmark soft-
ware, and its real time monitoring centres.
Halliburton's role in the Digital Asset
is to ally with its clients to connect the peo-
ple, processes and technology and make the
decision making process more efficient by
getting the right data to the right people at
the right time.
This entails focusing on customer prob-
lems and solutions that address them rather
than selling just technology.
The Digital Asset environment is, ef-
fectively, recognition that what clients want
is a service incorporating many different
technologies, the people who know how to
use them, and the people to be well co-ordi-
nated ('process'). They need more than just
to buy the technology.
For example, it's about clients wanting
to reduce uncertainty in a frac job, or min-
imising the drilling risk rather than just the
technologies individually - it's about having
the technologies working together within the
right processes and with collaboration across
all the people across various teams.
So as well as just the technology, Hal-
liburton will offer people who know how to
use the technology, and established work
processes, including co-ordinating the serv-
ice company staff with the oil and gas com-
pany staff.
Selling services which make good use
of IT makes a refreshing change from com-
panies which sell software but expect their
customers to figure out how to make it work.
As readers of this magazine will be
well aware, you need all three - people,
process and technology - in order to make
the best use out of the latest tools to do the
most with your reservoir, whatever task you
6 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
are doing.
"It's not a cookie cutter type of solu-
tion," says Bengisu Erenli, program manag-
er for the Digital Asset with Halliburton's
Drilling and Evaluation Division.
"We are addressing the business issues
rather than just the specific problems that
can be addressed with point products. You
have to keep the big picture in mind."
"A lot of companies operate in silos. It's
very hard to pass data from one part of the
company to the next," she says. "Our goal is
to turn silos into synchronised teamwork.
Our expertise can bring processes to clients
that are in need of this. It's about ensuring
any qualified person can to access any data,
any technology, any asset, anywhere, any-
time.
"This is the Holy Grail; when we talk
about this everybody's eyes light up."
Halliburton is developing 'workflows',
standard ways for staff from different depart-
ments to work together in the most effective
way. These staff could be working in the oil
company, in the service company, or both.
There is often not a definitive line
drawn between what processes the customer
wants to do themselves and keep internal and
what they might hand over to Halliburton to
do for them; this is the nature of the busi-
ness, Ms. Erenli says.
"The line between what the customer
does and what we do is always changing, and
it can change from asset to asset within the
same company."
"Every company does things different-
ly. But the key thing is getting the right data
to the right person at the right time."
The integrated workflow is often the
missing ingredient between the desired re-
sults (eg drilling in the right place), and the
existing software tools and IT infrastructure.
"It's not one workflow; there are lots of
different workflows. And we have the expe-
rience and the people in those areas," says
Ms Erenli.
The whole oilfield in one computer
Stan Cullick, senior technology fellow with
Halliburton, spoke at the Offshore Europe
conference about how Halliburton is work-
ing out ways to assess the different options
for producing a reservoir in a systematic
manner, essentially modelling the entire oil
and gas system at once, rather than have dif-
"Our goal is to turn silos into synchronised
teamwork," Bengisu Erenli, program manager
for the Digital Asset with Halliburton's Drilling
and Evaluation Division
ferent teams working on different aspects of
it.
For example, you can look at rig avail-
ability, expected reserves, oil price, subsur-
face equipment, necessary production facili-
ty size, pipeline diameter, all in the same cal-
culation.
The software looks at the entire produc-
tion system, including the wells, in one go.
This is much better than the conven-
tional way of doing this, where the oil com-
pany employs different teams specialising in
each area, who do some work, make some
decisions and then hand their work to the
next team. "These are major disconnects as
handoffs occur, we often lose a lot of infor-
mation," says Mr Cullick. The technical ex-
perts can now work as single team so all
have a common view of the system.
The inputs to the system could include
the field location, water depth, expected
reservoir size, number of wells to be drilled,
and maximum expected output.
From this data, the computer system
can calculate (for example) optimum costs,
schedules, cash flows, size / weight, draw-
ings.
The computer system can also take in-
to consideration uncertainties, such as rig
availability and subsurface uncertainty,
Alternatively, if there is a good under-
standing of other factors, such as the amount
of recoverable oil, the oil price, the rig rates,
the computer system can work out the best
number of wells, how big a production / pro-
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:03 Page 7
cessing facility should be built, and how
much oil and gas it should be designed to
handle.
The computer system can evaluate
many different scenarios, and assess them all
for different metrics, such as net present val-
ue or maximising reserves.
The tool is being developed and sold by
Halliburton as a software product.
Multivariable control
Another Digital Asset solution is the contin-
uous optimisation of production, where Hal-
liburton works together with WellDynamics,
a company which produces downhole pro-
Geology as 3D structures not layers
UK company Foster Findlay Associates (ffA) provides software for analysing seismic data to find and describe
3D geological structures, such as faults and sand bodies, important to finding and exploiting hydrocarbons.
ffA has just released a new version of its soft-
ware to enable core components to be avail-
able to every seismic interpreter.
ffA's software represents a very differ-
ent way of processing the seismic data to con-
ventional interpretation and reservoir model-
ling software and can bring significant im-
provements in accuracy and productivity.
The software uses a set of processing
tasks which enable it to identify and delineate
structures such as faults as 3D objects. In
comparison, conventional interpretation tech-
niques aim to understand geology as a series
of rock layers and leave it to trained geolo-
gists to try to work out the significance of
these layers.
"Most seismic interpretation gives you a
representation of geology as a set of surfaces,"
says Jonathan Henderson, managing director
of ffA. "We provide important additional in-
formation by creating a 3D representation of
geological entities that retain the very high
level of detail that is required to fully under-
Fault bounded bodies (Data Courtesy of
Hydro) - The image shows a composite
structural and stratigraphic volume which
allows the relationship between detected
faults and extracted high amplitude bodies to
be investigated.
Exploration and Drilling
duction control equipment.
Digital Energy Journal readers will, we
hope, be familiar with the concept of 'closed
loop control,' where you continually model
and control your wells, so they are optimum
all the time.
One difficulty with closed loop control
is the amount of data which needs to be
processed, particularly if there are many dif-
ferent variables, such as different production
rates from different wells, and a source of
gas lift which needs to be optimally routed
through different wells.
Even with today's computers, working
out optimum settings for the control valves
stand the subsurface."
The software processes the seismic da-
ta; it doesn't process a reservoir model built
on the seismic data (where a whole range of
possibly incorrect assumptions have already
been made). "You can find out objectively
what the seismic data on its own is telling
you," he says.
Mr Henderson suggests that oil compa-
nies should use the software as a supplement
to their current tools, to provide a new view
on their data.
It can provide them with extra insight,
completely independent of all of their other
geological modelling work, into what the da-
ta indicates about the subsurface.
The software is very flexible and can
handle seismic data sets of all sizes and work
at a wide range of different resolutions. For
example, it has been used to analyse more
than 3000km2 of seismic data in one go for a
US company, to provide initial indications
about where the company should be paying
the most attention.
The software has been used in over 160
different projects since 2002, when it first
started working in the industry. The company
has a high quality group of geoscientists at its
offices in Aberdeen and 10 full time software
developers at its offices in Newcastle.
The tools are very flexible and have
been used successfully in diamond and gold
mining applications as well as oil and gas. Mr
Henderson also envisages that they could
prove very valuable in carbon dioxide stor-
age, assessing the capability of a certain rock
structure to hold carbon dioxide securely.
ffA provides both software (if you want
to have a go at defining the geological struc-
November - December 2007 - digital energy journal
in 50-200 wells in a single reservoir can take
4-5 days to process.
Halliburton is developing what it calls
'proxy models' which do a simplified version
of the calculation, so they can work out the
optimum settings much more quickly
These models compare the relationship
between the expected output and the actual
output, so the model is continuously im-
proved.
The models can also be used to do fast
'what ifs' - see what would happen if you did
something. "We look at - what is the opti-
mum set of well points," says Charles Hill,
technical adviser at Halliburton.
tures yourself) and services (if you want to let
ffAA do it all).
Many companies initially work with
ffAA as a service, to see what it can do with
their data. Mr Henderson claims that ffA has
an enviable success record in the projects it
has undertaken so far. Ultimately, however,
companies want to be self sufficient and buy
the software so their own staff can work on
it.
The software works either as a stand-
alone application or as a plugin to existing
seismic interpretation packages (including
Schlumberger's GeoViz and Landmark's Geo-
Probe). Schlumberger and Landmark also sell
the ffA software.
ffA has been working closely with Nor-
wegian oil and gas company Hydro for 5
years - Hydro now uses ffA software it
throughout the company. Gaz de France is al-
so a major client.
The technology was originally devel-
oped for use in medicine including analysis
of brain scans; medical imaging is still an im-
portant avenue for innovation for ffA.
The company found that by working in
the oil and gas industry it could find faster
practical applications for what it was doing.
"It's important to work with people who un-
derstand and use what you are doing," he
says. "In the oil and gas industry, we're solv-
ing someone's direct problem."
"ffA's success comes in part from our
ability to work hand in hand with exploration
and production companies," he says. "We get
access to expertise, data and credibility and
the exploration and production companies get
to ensure that our development programme is
really focused on their needs."
7
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:03 Page 8
Exploration and Drilling
SPE's IT subcommittee - update
The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) IT technical section has plenty of interesting projects, including
an IT distinguished lecturer program and making an IT in oil and gas video.
The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)'s
IT technical section has held a number of
physical and teleconference meetings so far
during 2007, and current projects include de-
veloping a distinguished lecturer program
for oil and gas IT, working on the 2008 Dig-
ital Energy conference in Houston (May 20-
21), and developing a video showing how IT
managers and geophysicists should working
together.
Broader aims include trying to identify
obstacles to connecting disparate IT systems
in light of the requirements for the digital
oilfield in our industry and figuring out how
to overcome barriers; working out what the
IT managers' role should or could be and
how much an IT manager needs to know
about geophysics; working out how IT man-
agers can be given improved status in the in-
dustry; and contributing to projects to im-
Keen to get more people involved in SPE's IT
Technical Section - Mehrzad Mahdavi, vice
president, Enterprise Security Services,
Schlumberger (SPE IT subcommitte
chairman)
prove IT security.
All of this comes down to one princi-
pal underlying motive, which is encouraging
the development of what is commonly
known as the 'digital oilfield', with all the
systems infrastructure, security, competence
and knowledge required to make that hap-
pen.
A recently added member to the sec-
8 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
tion's board is Herb Yuan IT manager for
high performance computing at Shell, and a
previous chairman of POSC (now Energis-
tics).
Other board members include Dr.
Mehrzad Mahdavi, vice president, Enterprise
Security Services, Schlumberger (chairman);
Patrick Hereng, chief information officer,
Total; Gary Masada, president IT, Chevron;
Don Moore, vice president and CIO, Occi-
dental Petroleum; and Washington Salles,
president IT, Petrobras; Richard Jackson,
chief information protection officer,
Chevron.
The next board meeting will be held at
the SPE offices in Houston on November 29.
There will also be IT Technical Section
members meetings at ATCE event in No-
vember. For more information on how to
join the IT technical Session, please contact
Holly Hargadine hhargadine@spe.org at
SPE and plan to attend the members meet-
ing at the ATCE. The time and room will be
announced shortly.
The idea for the Society of Petroleum
Engineers (SPE) IT technical section was
first mooted in December 2005, as a forum
to discuss issues around IT security in oil and
gas.
During 2006, the plan evolved into four
separate subcommittees, looking at IT infra-
structure, IT personnel, IT security and IT
events.
Join
The subcommittees are all holding regular
meetings, both face to face (mainly in Hous-
ton) and via teleconference.
Mehrzad Mahadavi, chairman of the
technical section, says he is very keen to get
more people involved.
"We need to go to the next step, get
more critical mass into our subcommittees,"
he says. "Others need to work with them to
share the load and make sure what they come
up with is more representative of the indus-
try."
The best way to join is to contact the
Holly Hargadine, senior manager of the
Technical Sections hhargadine@spe.org.
Oilfield integration subcommittee
The oilfield integration subcommittee works
on the development of what is commonly
known as the 'digital oilfield,' where all the
IT systems are properly integrated.
Most oil and gas companies have cor-
porate IT systems, surface IT systems and
subsurface systems, which do not talk to
each other very well. The subcommittee is
working out how this can be improved.
"There is no choice but to move into a
digital oilfield," says section chairman Dr.
Mehrzad Mahdavi. "As an industry we don't
have any other way to go. The efficiencies
required in the operation of the oilfields can
be achieved through implementation of the
processes and technologies that we collec-
tively call the digital oilfield."
"The group has been getting together
regularly and trying to define what are the
major pieces that need to be integrated to-
gether, and if there are any practises that can
help make this happen," he says. "We need
to take as much input as we can - to try to
really understand the full extent of the prob-
lem first."
"We have built all kinds of systems
based on silo mentality," he says. [The lack
of connectivity] "is a big problem. Until you
connect a good bit of these systems together
you really don't have a true digital oilfield
as we envision."
"Our job is to identify the business
needs - and put some flesh around it - from
the technical side - and from there identify
the standards that need to be put in place, to
make this idea work."
The subcommittee will not do any
work on data standards itself, but will work
closely with a standards body like Energis-
tics.
The subcommittee is chairman is Yan-
ni Charalambous, IT director for Occidental
petroleum.
New discipline subcommittee
The new discipline subcommittee addresses
what needs to be done to encourage the de-
velopment of the oil and gas specific IT pro-
fessional. This means a cross 'discipline',
between a geophysicist or a petroleum engi-
neer with IT. No longer can you create si-
los between a petroleum engineer and an IT
professional.
This cross discipline can be chosen as
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 9
a university curriculum. The advantage
would be that the IT savy petroleum engi-
neer or geophysicist can design a system
with all aspects of the technology in mind
therefore creating more efficiencies.
"IT and the geophysical science have
been operating in 2 separate silos," says Dr.
Mahdavi.
"Geophysical scientists have been do-
ing their own thing."
"An IT manager needs to understand
what a geoscientist does - and how they use
the digital information to not only do their
own jobs but also to collaborate."
"IT professionals need to know the
workflows and how the technical applica-
tions work together."
"Geophysicists know that they need to
talk to each other, they need to have an ef-
fective environment, they need to view
things in real time. But IT people are some-
times not in the loop with those requirements
as much as they should be. They don't un-
derstand what the geophysicists do on a day
to day basis."
Perhaps some of the current IT man-
agers could be trained to be geoscientists,
The key to the
digital Oilfield ...
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• Streamlining Workflows
• Linking Wellsite and Asset
• Improving Collaboration
• Enhancing Real Time Data Acquisition
• Swift, Accurate Reports, Logs and Charts
To find out more call our Specialist Software Team
on +44 (0) 1224 347070
or email gravitas@hrhgeology.com
Exploration and Drilling
and vice versa, so there are more people
around with an understanding of both
worlds, he suggests.
The subcommittee plans to make a
video showing how IT managers can work
together with people from other departments
in the company.
Digital security subcommittee
The digital security subcommittee will work
together with the LOGIIC (Linking the Oil
and Gas Industry to Improve Cyber Securi-
ty) program, which looks at making process
control systems more secure.
Organisations involved with LOGIIC
include US Department of Homeland Secu-
rity, Chevron, BP, CITGO, Honeywell, Er-
gon Refining and Sandia National Labs.
LOGIIC is "a vision of Don Paul, chief
technology officer of Chevron, and the man
that's behind it is Richard Jackson, Chevron's
chief information security officer," says Dr.
Mehrzad Mahdavi.
"What we are trying to do is reach out
and make sure that the project LOGIIC - gets
a good participation through our SPE tech-
nical section," he says.
...a step ahead
IT events subcommittee
The fourth subcommittee, chaired by Randy
Clark, CEO of Energistics, will work on oil
and gas IT events.
The subcommittee has already started
work on the 2008 Digital Energy conference
in Houston, to be held in May 20-21, 2008,
co-chaired by Don Paul, vice president and
chief technical officer of Chevron, and
Mehrzad Mahdavi.
It hopes to attract 1,000 attendees, com-
pared to 750 in 2007.
Dr. Mahdavi believes that the industry
could be served better by fewer, larger
events.
We want to bring some critical mass to-
gether and have more substantial programs
in place," he says. "Experts do not have to
make choices between smaller conferences."
This subcommittee is developing an oil
IT distinguished lecturer program, finding
experienced individuals who can talk pub-
licly about how IT can work best in oil and
gas, spread their enthusiasm and knowledge
about the subject, talking about projects
which worked well and ones which didn't
work well.
HRH Geological Services
19 Silverburn Place,
Aberdeen AB23 8EG, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1224 347070
www.hrhgeology.com
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 10
Exploration and Drilling
Double North Sea oil with rock physics?
Martyn Millwood Hargrave, managing director of London-based company Ikon Science, believes that
rock physics based technologies could help find and access a further 4 billion barrels of oil in the North
Sea, on top of the 4 billion barrels thought to be left to be recovered through normal means.
"In the North Sea there are about 4 billion
barrels left to be found with conventional
E&P methods but up to 8 billion barrels us-
ing rock physics based technologies", claims
Martyn Millwood Hargrave of Ikon Science.
"Properly applied these technologies can
double the amount of oil we can find in the
North Sea."
Mr Millwood Hargrave believes that by
using rock physics techniques, it is possible
to find oil which is stored in all kinds of rock
structures, not just the conventional structur-
al traps which geologists have predominant-
ly looked for to date.
But to reliably find oil which is stored
in more subtle structures and sedimentary
configurations (known as 'stratigraphic
traps'), you need to have much more insight
into rock properties. For example, you might
notice hydrocarbon effects in real data out-
side of obvious structural depth highs or up-
swept oil in depleted fields using time lapse
methods that depend on rock physics.
Ikon Science calls this 'quantitative' in-
terpretation, the ability to use, model and
predict specific physical properties of the
rocks remotely, rather than only looking for,
trends and patterns in seismic and other geo-
physical attributes.
Rock physics techniques can be used to
find new oilfields; they can also be used to
provide additional insight on current devel-
opments and producing fields, to get a more
reliable idea of the presence of oil and gas
before drilling.
Discoveries
While it's not possible, of course, to know
how much oil is available in stratigraphic
traps around the world, Ikon Science has al-
ready been involved in two major discover-
ies in the North Sea by using these tech-
niques.
One discovery, which was drilled and
is being produced by Canadian oil and gas
company Oilexco, was a 80 million barrel
oilfield now producing at over 30,000 bar-
rels per day.
On the original seismic information, the
existing oilfield was only visible as a small
and insignificant closure. But rock physics
analysis spotted an anomaly in the data,
which led to the discovery of the new field.
"It was a major transformation event
for them," claims a proud Mr Millwood Har-
10 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
grave, "and we were awarded a $10m con-
tract after that."
About Ikon Science
Established in 2001, backed by Enterprise
Oil and Tullow Oil, Ikon Science has already
expanded to 70 employees, with a head of-
fice in the UK, and offices in Durham, Hous-
ton, Delhi, Kuala Lumpur, Perth, and Bei-
jing.
The company does not claim any mo-
nopoly over rock physics - it is not promis-
ing access to any patented scientific tech-
niques - but it does claim to be making rock
physics accessible, easier to use and more
effective, particularly to smaller oil and gas
companies. It is also making rock physics
easier to integrate with other geoscience
methods and processes, such as electromag-
netics and reservoir modelling.
"Other service companies may have
their rock physics on spreadsheets, with bits
of code here and there," explains Mr Mill-
wood Hargrave. "But they haven't been able
to bring it all together. We're the only com-
pany in the world that's dedicated to pulling
it all together and helping interpreters work
out what the rock properties mean and can
do for their projects."
The company offers both the leading
software in its class - RokDoc and specialist
services including rock physics based analy-
sis and interpretation, helping oil and gas
companies integrate rock physics into their
geoexploration processes.
"We describe it as software and know
how," he says. "We've worked with oil com-
panies to integrate what they wanted into
their asset groups.
"We explain how to use this informa-
tion, plus what it means commercially. That's
our USP (unique sales proposition). Our
driver is the integration of this technology to
create success for our clients and ourselves,
that's what gets me up in the morning."
Modelling while picking
Ikon's latest software release typifies this in-
tegration. The 'Modelling While Picking -
The RokDoc-Petrel plug-in', enables users
to interpret seismic data using rock physics
(through the Ikon Science RokDoc soft-
ware), and draw predictive models (using
Schlumberger's Petrel software) at the same
time.
The
link enables
the same
data to be
viewed si-
multane-
ously in
both pack-
ages. The
interactive
Technologies to double the oil
link operat-
in the North Sea? - Martyn
ing between Millwood Hargrave, managing
RokDoc director, Ikon Science
and Petrel
means that any changes made by the user on
one model are instantly updated to the other
model.
Previously, these tasks were carried out
in two separate steps, now they can be com-
pleted as one seamless process. "It's an effi-
ciency improvement and an insight improve-
ment combined," claims Mr Millwood Har-
grave.
He also believes that the word 'integrat-
ed' is overused, or might imply that you were
able simply to import data from one applica-
tion to another. "If this is the definition of
'integration' then maybe we need another
word for when two pieces of software can
both update each other automatically be-
cause it is a much more creative fusion".
"The analogy I use is: model making is
currently like a 56k modem. Modelling
While Picking is like broadband - it's always
on. Any changes move through the model
straight away. This makes the model making
far more fluid and dynamic, and makes the
older systems look very static."
Future developments
Ikon Science is developing its technologies
so it can incorporate a greater range of data
sources into the model, creating a more ro-
bust and reliable result.
For example, it is working on ways to
include electromagnetic data in the rock
physics model. "Electromagnetics are be-
coming very important, but they don't work
well on their own.
What's required are rock physics en-
abled workflows which are linked to real-
time integrations via inversion and forward
modelling, that way you can really under-
stand what all the data types are telling you
together," he said.
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 11
More on rock physics
Rock physics is about discovering a lot more
information about the rock - which will help
you get much greater insight as to presence
of oil and gas and gain more understanding
from the subsurface data.
In the early years of oil and gas explo-
ration, explorers only had seismic data to go
on. But now most exploration data is being
generated from areas of the world which
have already been drilled.
There exists a large amount of well log
information that can be used together with
the seismic to provide greater insight into the
rock physics.
"There are not many areas of the world
where you don't have well information," says
Mr Millwood Hargrave. "The business needs
New online GIS system for oil and gas
UK company Interactive Net Mapping has launched a new system for oil and gas companies to view their
wells, seismic surveys and related information online.
UK company Interactive Net Mapping has
launched a new system for oil and gas compa-
nies to view their wells, seismic surveys and re-
lated information online.
The service, called Oilelefant, is aimed at
companies which do not want to spend money
on a fully comprehensive geographic informa-
tion system (GIS).
Costs range from £12,500 for 1-4 users to
£30,000 for 25-34 users, with the licence fee
including rights to use the map, and database
software.
You can see wells on the map using stan-
dard symbology, and areas covered with seis-
mic surveys and blocks acquired.
The system is used by exploration and
production company GB Petroleum, which has
been using the software to manage data about
license blocks purchased, seismic surveys com-
pleted and wells drilled for its operations in Eu-
rope and North Africa.
GB Petroleum says it could reduce the
amount of hard copy information it needed to
store as a result of having the system, and man-
aged to install it without external assistance.
The company is now working on its ver-
sion 2.0, which will include modules for
records and information management.
Software
The software can take input data in various dif-
ferent formats, and transfers them to a geo-
graphical projection in WGS-84 standard.
The software uses a map of the world with
water depths and mountain heights, and limited
civil infrastructure, such as roads, railways and
cities.
On the map, you can quickly see what
Exploration and Drilling
to make use of expensively collected infor-
mation that we've already got now."
Using knowledge of nearby rocks in or-
der to understand remote rocks you know lit-
tle about is one of the staples of rock physics.
"We say, rock physics is the DNA of
exploration," says Mr Millwood Hargrave.
"Rocks are quite complex things, aggrega-
tions of minerals and chemicals, with the
memory and overprint of the processes that
created them and reactive to their current
conditions."
Team
"Our staff comes to Ikon because of the flex-
ibility we provide, and because we give peo-
ple a bit of free space to think and work. We
also pay well," he says. "If the environment
kinds of data are available. You can zoom in
and see documents connected to the different
areas.
Oil companies can find out about nearby
relevant civil infrastructure, such as storage ter-
minals, refineries and ports.
Companies can connect their documents
to the map, for example seismic records and
well logs, so they can easily be found.
It uses PPDM Lite data model for the spa-
tial model component. The server runs in Win-
dows Server. It is delivered on 2 CDs and takes
about 2 hours to install
Using it
David Lloyd, managing director of Interactive
Net Mapping, has been working on develop-
ment of the system for the past 2 years.
Mr Lloyd has been working in oil and gas
data management for his entire career, includ-
ing working on large technical data projects for
oil companies, and believes he has a good idea
of what is required.
“The industry needs a simple system for
entering data on a world map,” he says.
“It’s cost effective, it’s not costing the high
end license fees that other companies charge.
People say, we don't need that, we've only 5
wells, we've only got 100 data seismic lines, we
only need a small little system - this will do it
for you,” he says.
“What I've tried to do - is keep things sim-
ple and straightforward,” he says.
Mr Lloyd studied geology / physical ge-
ography at university, and worked for Esso Eu-
rope and Africa division cataloguing maps for
them, then in technical data management for
Rockall Data Services (now part of Iron Moun-
November - December 2007 - digital energy journal
is fun, people tend to work better. We like to
live hard and work hard. Being in London is
also a bonus, because most people in the
world would like to spend some time of their
lives in the city."
Personal skills are ranked as highly as
academic skills in the recruiting process.
"You can almost take for granted their quali-
fications and intellect, but what's important
is their character and personality," he says.
"I look for some evidence that the peo-
ple we recruit are independent thinkers, en-
ergetic and enthusiastic," he says. "We don't
say, we're only taking people with a certain
qualification.
"I ask them, what got you interested in
the business, what makes you happy? That's
a very interesting question."
tain), then
with Kestrel
Ltd.
Mr
Lloyd envis-
ages that the
software
would be ideal
for independ-
ent oil and gas
companies,
who have as-
sets around the David Lloyd, managing
world and director of Interactive Net
Mapping,
need to keep
track of them, and do not want to pay large li-
cense fees for high end systems (nor employ
staff who know how to use them).
They want a system everybody in the
company can use to see what is available,
whether they are in the office, at home or trav-
eling.
It could also be useful for state oil compa-
nies and governments who want to manage
their licenses, particularly companies just start-
ing to try to attract oil companies, such as E.g.
Sri Lanka, Seychelles, Barbados, Jamaica.
Companies could use it internally or even
make it public facing, so anyone could see what
assets they have, he suggests.
Many oil companies publish static maps
of licenses they own on their website, wouldn’t
it be good if people could drill down to find out
more information?
The software can be easily used by trav-
eling staff. Some large companies have also
shown interest in using it in satellite offices.
www.oilelefant.com
11
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 12
Exploration and Drilling
Preview of ATCE
We asked some of the exhibitors at the forthcoming SPE ATCE event in November 11-14 what new and
exciting digital technologies they will be showing this year
The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE’s)
Annual Technical Conference and Exhibi-
tion (ATCE) will be held this year in Ana-
heim, California, on November 11-14.
People with an interest in ‘digital ener-
gy’ might enjoy some of the following con-
ference sessions.
Monday morning: change in profes-
sional generation; Monday afternoon:
reservoir characterisation;
Tuesday morning: real time monitor-
ing, field management, simulation or remote
monitoring sessions; Tuesday afternoon:
logging while drilling, reservoir monitoring,
or well optimisation sessions;
Wednesday morning: reservoir char-
acterisation or drilling automation; Wednes-
day afternoon: field case studies.
The event will have over 300 exhibitors
and over 8,000 stands. Here is our preview
of some of the exciting digital technology
which some of the exhibitors will have on
display.
Crystal Ball
www.crystalball.com
Risk analysis and optimisation software
company Crystal Ball (now owned by Ora-
cle) will exhibit its software which can be
used to solve “almost any problem involv-
ing uncertainty, variability and risk,” the
company claims, transforming spreadsheets
into dynamic risk models.
The software is particularly useful in
the oil and gas industry, because there are
plenty of different risks and uncertainties to
manage.
The software is used by ChevronTexa-
co, BPAmoco, Occidental, Shell, Saudi
Aramco, and Halliburton, among others.
It is used to do probabilistic reserves
analysis, plan capital projects, prepare
drilling Authorizations for Expenditure
(AFEs), evaluate exploration opportunities,
estimate reserves and predict petrochemical
prices.
The software is based on Microsoft Ex-
cel, and can do Monte Carlo simulation,
time-series forecasting, optimisation and re-
al options analysis.
"Crystal Ball has improved insight,
communication, and differentiation between
complex investment opportunities and is a
cornerstone of our decision analysis
process,” says ConocoPhilips’ Matt Fox.
12 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
Everyone's going to this year's Advanced Technology Conference andExhibition (ATCE) - the big
event of the Society of Petroleum Engineers,held in Anaheim this November. Photo of 2006
event by Barchfeld Photography.
Paradigm
Sensornet www.pdgm.com
www.sensornet.co.uk
UK company Sensornet will exhibit its digi-
tal flow profiling solution, which can pro-
vide continuous data about wells which is
normally only available from production
logging tests (PLT), but with no need to stop
production.
Sensornet provides the full service
from initial design, distributed temperature
system (DTS) hardware, installation, and da- Paradigm's improved GOCAD reservoir
engineering software
ta interpretation.
Oil and gas software company Paradigm will
Numerical Rocks release version 2.5 of its popular GOCAD
www.numericalrocks.com reservoir engineering software, which has an
Numerical improved user interface and better data man-
Rocks of agement tools.
Trondheim, “We know that a common user inter-
Norway, face and well-designed workflows lower the
will exhibit cost of training and maintenance,” says Jean-
its e-core Claude Dulac, executive vice president and
technology chief architect at Paradigm. “Paradigm now
for calculat- offers an interface to quickly navigate
ing the through both simple environments and com-
petrophysi- plex tasks that other industry packages can-
cal and mul- not duplicate.”
tiphase Numerical Rocks - model a Paradigm will demonstrate its Common
properties of large section of rock from a Reflection Angle Migration (CRAM) tool
small core
oil and gas which can be used to improve the quality of
reservoir rocks, from analyzing a small sam- information gained from seismic data pro-
ple of rock (either a core or drill cuttings). cessing.
“Feedback from existing clients has The tool is based on a new procedure
been very positive and we’re already cross- which maps recorded surface seismic data to
selling licences and technical services with- subsurface image points. It is designed to
in those major companies,” says Ivar Erdal, help resolve difficult subsurface illumination
CEO at Numerical Rocks. problems.
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 13
ABLE innovations
www.ableinnovations.com
Language services company ABLE Innova-
tions of Boston will exhibit its translation so-
lutions for oil and gas, which have been used
by GE Energy Services, Parker Drilling, Key
Energy, Xantrex.
It helps companies translate their web-
sites and corporate communications into oth-
er languages.
The service is a mixture of human
translation services, with IT systems which
can help you manage your website and other
company content in different languages.
Tigress
www.tigress.co.uk
Geotrace Tigress Software will exhibit its
new data integration suite for engineers,
which can be used to put together engineer-
ing work-
flows.
It is
an inte-
grated
database.
Using it,
cus-
tomers,
can obtain
the latest
data from
the field Manage your field data with
or other Geotrace Tigress software
software
systems; produce well performance indica-
tors in real time; integrate third party appli-
cations software; access Tigress reservoir
simulator software.
They can easily integrate engineering
data with well, seismic and mapping data.
They put together management reports.
Petris
www.petris.com
Petris will exhibit PetrisWINDS Enterprise,
a data management and integration platform.
It can be used to find and manage data from
different applications whether or not it is
structured. It can be used to automate work-
flows, integrate different data sources, cap-
ture data associations, and track where data
has come from. You can also search data by
text or geographical reference.
Petris will also exhibit PetrisWINDS
Operations Center, a tool which enables data
to be entered once in the field or the office,
and then made available to the whole com-
pany.
Petris will exhibit Recall, its database
solution for handling and storing well bore
data such as wireline data, mud logs, cores,
borehole images, waveforms (including
Exploration and Drilling
NMR) deviation surveys, attributes, docu-
ments, and history information. Recall in-
cludes a comprehensive suite of data editing,
visualisation and management tools for well
bore data analysis.
Roxar
www.roxar.com
Roxar will be demonstrating its new struc-
tural modeling software, which integrates
with its reservoir modeling software IRP
RMS.
The software has a new user interface,
new fault and horizon modeling tools, and
improved 3D simulation gridding.
Roxar claims that the new software
should enable the time required to build a
reservoir structural framework from months
to weeks, with higher quality grids.
“The ability to build or update structur-
al reservoir models accurately and rapidly is
one of the most significant productivity en-
hancement opportunities available in reser-
voir management today”, says Roxar’s CEO
Gunnar Hviding.
Roxar will also exhibit its FracPerm
fracture modeling package, which can be
used for reservoir risk assessment, and its
uncertainty management module, which can
be used to quantify uncertainties across the
entire reservoir characterization and devel-
opment workflow.
Microsoft
www.microsoft.com
Microsoft and its partners will be exhibiting
its high performance computing (HPC) so-
lutions, which can make HPC available to
more employees in the company, because it
can be run on people’s desktops and in their
workgroups, not just in specialized high per-
formance computing centres.
It will showcase reservoir simulation
software which can run over the high per-
formance computers.
Microsoft and its partners will also
demonstrate oilfield equipment design soft-
ware solutions, running on Windows Com-
pute Cluser Server 2003. This software
makes it easier for engineers and geoscien-
tists to deploy compute clusters, submit sim-
ulation jobs and monitor their status.
Halliburton
www.halliburton.com
The theme of Halliburton’s stand at ATCE is
“The Reservoir Delivered,” showing how
the company is offering a combination of
technical expertise, commitment to service
quality and proven technologies, to help cus-
tomers get what they want from their reser-
voirs.
Visitors will be able to see a live
November - December 2007 - digital energy journal
demonstration of Halliburton’s “Digital As-
set”, a collaborative environment for model-
ing, measuring and optimizing oil and gas
assets, connecting togtether people, technol-
ogy and processes.
At the stand, there will be presentations
on new technologies every day at 10.30am,
on DecisionSpace Production (Monday), the
Digital Asset (Tuesday) and Logging While
Drilling (LWD) sensors (Wednesday).
Spotfire
www.spotfire.com
Spotfire will exhibit its enterprise analytics
software, which helps oil and gas companies
manage their data much more powerfully
than they can do in Microsoft Excel.
“Traditional design and planning tools
are powerful, but are too inflexible and hard
to use for the new analytic challenges that
face the oil and gas industry,” says Spotfire.
“Only by unlocking the hidden value of
data and enabling experts to ask and answer
their own questions in real time, can the in-
dustry enable the best decisions in a timely
manner.
Knowledge Reservoir
www.knowledge-reservoir.com
Upstream geoscience and engineering con-
sulting services company Knowledge Reser-
voir will exhibit its subsurface asset consult-
ing services, production solutions and
knowledge management services.
The company is also a silver sponsor of
ATCE. The company’s Dr David Shaw, VP
of knowledge services, will be presenting a
paper “Constant reservoir evaluation through
real time data as a service” as a poster ses-
sion. The company will also do a presenta-
tion “RTAS services for production and
reservoir surveillance) at 12.00 on Monday
at stand 1111.
eLynx Technologies
www.elynxtech.com
eLynx Technologies will exhibit its oil and
gas production intelligence and field au-
tomation services.
Monitor field trends with ELynx Technologies
13
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 14
Oil and gas production
GRL launches DeepView and DeepLive
www.generalrobotics.co.uk
General Robotics Limited (GRL) has
launched version 2.0 of DeepView its sub-
sea visualisation software, and DeepLive, its
real-time data capture module.
The software can be used to visualize
live Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) opera-
tions, so you get a clear computer generated
view of what is happening, rather than rely-
ing on the murky picture from the ROV's
camera. The tool can also be used for train-
ing and planning ROV operations.
Invensys upgrades InFusion Condition
Manager
ips.invensys.com
Industrial software and automation company
Invensys has upgraded its InFusion Condi-
tion Manager software, which collects and
analyses diagnostic information from indus-
trial plant and works out what action is ap-
propriate, as part of InFusion's Enterprise
Control System (ECS).
The new version, 2.2, has enhance-
ments to enable equipment condition and
maintenance information to be displayed on
plant process control and engineering work-
stations.
About Digital Energy
Journal
Digital Energy Journal is your one stop in-
formation source for new trends, tech-
nical developments, opinion, new prod-
ucts and best practise with digital tech-
nology in the oil and gas industry.
Every other month we bring you a
highly readable colour print magazine
with the latest innovation and creativity
going on in the industry, with a mixture of
interviews with industry leaders, confer-
ence reports, news, new technology arti-
cles and industry contributed articles.
Best of all, the electronic version of
our magazine (which you print out your-
self or view onscreen) is free of charge,
our print magazine is available to paid sub-
scribers and we also have a free weekly
newsletter.
To receive it, you need to fill in the
registration form on our website
14 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
Wescorp Energy's gas management
solution
www.wescorpenergy.com
Wescorp Energy has launched new gas man-
agement software, for optimising field oper-
ations.
The software is part of the Navigator process
management services, developed by
Wescorp's sister company Strategic Decision
Sciences.
The software can be used to manage in-
formation from gas wells, including flow
rates, leak detection data, compliance
records and gas composition.
Wescorp offers a full service to clients
incorporating the software, to help them
manage their gas wells.
Donald Zmick joins Caesar Systems
www.caesarsystems.com
Oil and gas business simulation software
company Caesar Systems has appointed
Donald Zmick VP client services.
Mr Zmick was previously a principal at
Decision Strategies and also worked with
Chevron, Amoco and Murphy Oil.
At Caesar Systems, he will help with imple-
mentations of Caesar's software tools and
provide consulting services.
www.d-e-j.com.
Horizontally we cover everything from
seismic / geoexploration, through drilling, to
integrated operations, automation, produc-
tion monitoring, data communications (satel-
lite / wi fi / fibre), intelligent wells, optimi-
sation, maintenance and accounting.
Vertically we cover all the layers from
IT infrastructure (hard drive, storage, back-
up, networks) through software / applica-
tions, workflow tools and most importantly,
how the tools are being used to help the cus-
tomers get more out of their reservoirs.
We cover the people issues more than
the technical issues, because that is where
the biggest challenges and most interesting
developments are - most industry commen-
tators believe that the technical challenges
have now been solved.
We write a lot about how digital tech-
Invensys upgrades InFusion Condition
Manager
ips.invensys.com
Industrial software and automation company
Invensys has upgraded its InFusion Condi-
tion Manager software, which collects and
analyses diagnostic information from indus-
trial plant and works out what action is ap-
propriate, as part of InFusion's Enterprise
Control System (ECS).
The new version, 2.2, has enhance-
ments to enable equipment condition and
maintenance information to be displayed on
plant process control and engineering work-
stations.
AVEVA launches PDMS 12
www.aveva.net
AVEVA has released version 12 of its Plant
Design Management Software (PDMS).
The new version has enhanced tools for
designing equipment, piping, ducting, struc-
tural steel and supports. It has a new cable
and cableway design tool.
A new P&ID (Piping and instrumenta-
tion diagram) integration means P&IDs from
other software tools can be brought into the
PDMS model of the entire plant, and incor-
porated in its 3D plant visualization.
nology can improve (and maybe threaten)
safety / system resilience, which is perhaps
more important than the benefits digital
technology can provide in helping compa-
nies improve production.
We report on all the major oil and gas
IT conferences, including Intelligent En-
ergy, Digital Energy, IQPC, Offshore
Communications, ATCE and PNEC,
where we report on the latest industry
opinion and practise.
So to receive our free electronic mag-
azine and newsletter, and buy a print mag-
azine subscription, register with us now,
and encourage your colleagues and busi-
ness partners to do the same.
Keep up to speed with all the latest
developments in upstream oil and gas with
Digital Energy Journal.
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 15
Houston Oil and Gas Exchange
Discussion at IQPC's Oil and Gas Exchange in Houston on Sept 12-13, delegates discussed ways to
implement IT systems in oil and gas. By Tracey Dancy of Paras Consulting.
John Hanten, Chevron
John Hanten, venture executive for Chevron, gave
his advice about how to make the most out of new
technologies from start-up companies.
Mr Hanten's role is to find and invest in new
technologies, mainly through small start-up com-
panies, and to enhance business value for Chevron.
Many technologies that were in their infancy
twenty years ago have now become standard as a
result of investment and development, he said.
Mr Hanten posed the questions: How did
they get there, and how fast did your company
adopt new technologies? How do you seek, plan
and budget to take advantage of new innovations,
and future technologies?
Chevron makes decisions on which technol-
ogy to invest in using the following rules of thumb:
if it provides new capability, if it has a straightfor-
ward interface with existing systems, if there is a
low level change management required for imple-
mentation, if there is a clear value proposition, and
if there is no need for immediate corporate wide
scaling.
Conversely, it tries to avoid investing in new
technology if it replaces existing capability, it sits
in the critical path of major business processes, it
is difficult to install, major change management is
required, or there is a need for rapid scaling across
multiple geographies with global support.
Chevron adheres to classic programme man-
agement process from opportunity to execution.
Patrick Leach, Decision Strategies
Patrick Leach, engagement leader of Decision
Strategies and author of the book "Why Can't You
Just Give Me the Number?" gave the conference
attendees a new look at risk, and discussed the way
in which we choose projects based on the risk ele-
ment involved.
"A Risk-
Neutral Ap-
proach to Re-
source Alloca-
tion" looks at
analysing proj-
ects in terms of
how much value
is added by hav-
ing more infor-
mation prior to
starting the proj-
ect.
He stated Can you neutralise your
risks? Patrick Leach,
that "information Decision Strategies
adds value, only
if it has the potential to cause you to change a mon-
Oil and gas production
etary decision".
For example, if you have five projects with a
50/50 chance of success, information that does not
change that percentage is unlikely to change a de-
cision on whether to pursue the project.
Ultimately risk neutrality can only be based
on a portfolio of projects, some of which will fail,
but other s will succeed at a level which outweighs
the loss. "Uncertainty and risk at portfolio level is
acceptable".
Dr Alan Smith, OMV / Paras
Dr Alan Smith, currently acting head of Informa-
tion Systems at OMV (and also a consultant with
Paras Consulting) said that companies should con-
centrate on people rather than technology.
Dr Smith demonstrated that writing a manu-
al is not the answer to implementing new technol-
ogy.
Gaining commitment from personnel to new
technology involves investment in time and train-
ing, and what may appear to be a large expense at
the beginning of a project will result in long term,
sustainable results, while a lack of commitment
from senior staff in terms of change management
often leads to project failure, he said.
Jerry Hubbard, Energistics
Jerry Hubbard from Energistics explained how im-
portant it is for the oilfield to have a universal
("open") language for data exchange.
The use of open data exchange standards
could increase production by a surprising amount,
he claimed, because it makes it much easier to op-
timise production.
For example - to increase production in a
Gulf of Mexico field by only 5 per cent would re-
quire the building of two new platforms, with a de-
livery time of five years and at a cost of over $3bil-
lion.
The same 5 per cent increase can be realised
by using production optimisation techniques,
through the deployment of open industry stan-
dards.
Mr Hubbard talked about Energistics' open
data exchange standard PRODML for exchange
of production data.
PRODML is a freely available "plug and
play" set of industry standards. These enable in-
terchangeability, and accelerate and encourage in-
novation in the design and configuration of opti-
misation solutions, he said.
The initiative is driven by energy companies,
whose membership of Energistics enables the fur-
ther development of such standards, and is gaining
worldwide approval.
November - December 2007- digital energy journal
Jim Lee, AQPC
Jim Lee, KM
Practice Lead of
AQPC, a research
organisation that
serves NASA and
Rolls Royce
among others, pre-
sented strategies
and tactics for re-
taining today's
knowledge for to- How about a year overlap
morrow's work- between a retiree and his
replacement? Jim Lee,AQPC
force.
AQPC recently ran a benchmarking study
across different industries, to try to work out the
potential value and impact of knowledge loss as
older employees leave without passing on their
knowledge, identify what knowledge needs to be
retained, establish processes for capturing and
transferring it, work out how to align the strategy
to employee lifecycle strategies, and evaluate the
effectiveness.
The study found that knowledge is being lost
from increasing personnel movement across proj-
ects and jobs as well as staff retirement.
"On average, 1 in 5 people have worked for
their current organization for less than a year," he
said. "Knowledge through experience is being lost
before it is learned.
The Aerospace Corporation has dealt with
the challenges of retaining and transferring key
knowledge through a variety of solutions, includ-
ing intensive content and document management;
storytelling and oral histories; acculturation of new
employees and training; a retiree casual program;
and knowledge-stewarding communities of prac-
tise (CoPs).
Michelin has a formal knowledge retention
and transfer strategy, he said. The company has a
robust human capital management process, and
has created the concept of "a Michelin employee
for life".
Structured interviews are video taped and
processed to be fully text indexed and searchable,
and the use of transverse networks to bring people
together with common area of expertise has proved
to be invaluable.
Mr Lee commented that we are looking to
the "iPod generation" for the future of exploration
and production.
They are used to virtual working, Commu-
nities of Practise and a much more informal way
of working, that does not encourage a mentoring
process.
However, mentoring is one way in which
15
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 16
Oil and gas production
knowledge can be retained for future generations -
overlap between a retiree and his replacement of
up to a year is a way of enabling a great deal of
knowledge transfer.
Mr Lee noted that it is often the failures that
are remembered more than the successes.
Effectively, we learn more from failed proj-
ects than we do from best practice, and "tolerated
failure" is perhaps something that should be built
into any effective knowledge management project,
he said.
Dave Snowden, Cognitive Edge
Dave Snowden,
founder and
chief scientific
officer of
knowledge
management
consultancy
Cognitive Edge,
spoke on more
abstract views
of knowledge Tacit Knowledge is the most
management, unstructured data we work
such as how we with - Dave Snowden,
gain and pass on Cognitive Edge
knowledge, and what the challenges are.
Three rules of knowledge management, he
said, are that knowledge can only be volunteered,
it can never be conscripted; we only know what
we know when we need to know it; and we always
know more than we can tell and we will always
tell more than we can write down.
Tacit knowledge is by far the most unstruc-
tured data we will work with, in whatever indus-
try.
Mr Snowden felt that formalised knowledge
capture is inherently flawed, and we must there-
fore look to less structured means for passing on
knowledge.
New personnel should be encouraged to seek
out employees with experience and shadow them,
asking questions and enabling stories to be told, he
said.
Knowledge projects must have a direct im-
pact on business processes, and allow for organi-
sational change where necessary, he said.
They should be narrative based and focused
on decisions and innovation, and have buy-in at all
levels of the company - top down enabled, bottom
up created.
Daniel Schwab, Petrobras
Daniel Schwab, associate professor, with the de-
partment of computer Science with the Pontifícia
Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, and IT
Consultant for Petrobras, presented Petrobras' ex-
perience with developing software IT solutions for
knowledge management.
Petrobras has an aging workforce, exacer-
bated by a hiring ban in Brazil, with a widespread
16 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
oral knowledge sharing tradition over a large geo-
graphical area, he said.
The existing technical discussion forums are
perceived to be ineffective, particularly from a
quality control perspective, while there is an in-
creasing time pressure on experts - the more ex-
pert you are, the less physical time you have to pass
on that knowledge, he said.
Meanwhile, there are increased client/user
expectations - the "now" generation, encouraged
by faster and faster internet access, causes prob-
lems of scaleability and quality control. "We want
everything on time and on budget - we want to live
in paradise!", he said.
Currently the solution to such a complex
problem as knowledge management is a man/ma-
chine team, he said, allowing both formal
(processed by computer) and informal (human) in-
formation processing (the boundary between for-
mal and informal is arbitrary and can be moved).
Any approach to the challenge of knowledge
management should be model based, and allow
abstractions to control the complexity, he said.
As we are very much aware in many areas
of the E&P industry, there is no one model that
solves all the issues, and any new applications must
support any number of possible software architec-
tures, and be vendor neutral, able to integrate data
from a variety of sources.
The knowledge management approach at
Petrobras is technology based, supported by com-
munities of practise and organisational change
management.
The advantages to Petrobras are several -
easy customisation and integration with other cor-
porate applications, as well as a separation of con-
cerns - software engineers work with domain ex-
perts and interface designers.
Model based interface generation is a viable
option, with suitable abstractions able to leverage
reuse and adaptation, he said.
Walter Palen, BP
Walter Palen, operations knowledge management
consultant for BP, spoke on the role of technology
in a knowledge management framework.
Historically, knowledge management has
had a rocky ride, he said.
In the late 90's BP had a common operating
environment, but complacency at its success meant
a halt to further developments.
Drilling operations effectively kept the de-
sire for effective knowledge management on the
agenda - hard facts lead to tangible business value,
and drilling has to be based on reliable informa-
tion.
A major project group within BP looked
again at knowledge management, and felt it was
vital to take lessons learned from existing projects,
and apply them to new projects.
Mr Palen noted that when asked, only 30 per
cent of people would willingly share their knowl-
edge. Models for knowledge management within
BP were therefore based on knowledge from this
30 per cent, he said.
Mr Palen noted that there were 5 critical suc-
cess factors:
First direction and context - management
steer. Without this, nobody sees the need.
Second, people - otherwise its nobody's job.
Third process - otherwise no-one knows
how to do it.
Fourth, technology - otherwise people are
unable to share information quickly.
Fifth, performance management and ongo-
ing support - otherwise it is impossible to sustain a
project.
A successful and sustainable knowledge
management solution is therefore based on a com-
bination of these five key elements.
E&P leaders' panel
In addition to the workshops, IQPC presented an
exploration and production leaders' panel debate
on linking knowledge to your own business im-
provements in oil and gas.
Facilitated by James Kochan, managing
director of Vitesse Solutions and leading knowl-
edge management consultant to Cono-
coPhillips, the panel comprised Dan Ranta, di-
rector of upstream knowledge sharing, Cono-
cophillips Management; Walter Palen, Paula
Hansen from research and development in
Chevron, and David Smith from Halliburton.
Each of the panellists shared their experience
of knowledge management in their own working
cultures, and it was clear from the discussion that
there are many ways of looking at the challenge
that KM represents.
Knowledge management was a buzzword in
the 90's -possibly ahead of its time - and now with
a big crew change on the horizon, the need to share
knowledge has become a must to survive going
forward in the industry.
There are a variety of issues - time for exam-
ple. Halliburton has a "knowledge broker" to
match the problem with the solution, while
Chevron insists that knowledge sharing is an inte-
gral part of any position.
Business unit managers within BP have an
accountability towards knowledge management,
and their solution is to empower individuals to be
"knowledge champions".
Motivation is a key theme that has to be ad-
dressed. The pressure of other projects and time
constraints means that "storytelling" takes a back
seat.
All agreed that Communities of Practise aid
and abet knowledge sharing, but there has to be a
certain element of trust in the information given. `
It is clear that managing knowledge is not
something that can be achieved through technolo-
gy alone, people, and trust in people, is vital.
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 17
Managing your growing data
As oil companies' data stores grow exponentially, managing it - including backing it up, making sure
important information is readily available and archiving it - gets harder and harder. We asked EMC about
their tools to assist.
We all know about the massive growth in the
amount of data that oil and gas companies need to
manage.
There's no problem with storing the data, as
storage media gets cheaper and larger. The prob-
lem is with data backups, archiving and ensuring
fast access.
You know you've got a problem when your
knowledge workers spend upwards of 40 per cent
of their time looking for data, or your backups take
longer than the allotted window.
Meanwhile, moving data around the differ-
ent storage systems is becoming a headache.
Many companies have manual processes for
moving and managing data, which were fine when
the company's total storage was a few gigabytes,
but start getting very tedious and time consuming
as the data repository grows.
Information infrastructure company EMC is
developing solutions which can help store, protect,
optimize and leverage your investments in infor-
mation management.
Tiered Storage
EMC suggests segmenting your data into storage
tiers, e.g. primary (data that people are currently
using and need very fast access and reliable, regu-
lar backups), secondary (data which people use in-
termittently and need to access), and tertiary (inac-
tive data that may become critical again, and there-
fore needs to be archived).
Most people are familiar with a two tier sys-
tem (online and archive), but three-level data tier-
ing is a relatively new idea.
The point is, it is very important that the sys-
tems that supply the data that people are currently
using work as fast as possible, so you don't want to
clog these systems up with data which needs to be
available but isn't used every day.
You also want to keep faster primary storage
available for your large data processing jobs, when
the speed limiting factor is often the speed with
which data can be pulled off the disk drives through
the storage network.
For example, data for reservoir models prob-
ably should be kept in primary storage, because
there is a lot of it, it needs to be accessed quickly
and is changed regularly.
For each tier, your performance and accessi-
bility requirements dictate the underlying storage
media you employ, e.g. non-changing content and
stale data should not be stored on primary storage.
EMC has special software which goes
through all the files on your storage system and
tells you how recently they have been accessed, or
Oil and gas production
if it is non-changing content, to
work out how they should be la-
belled and stored.
"We perform a File System
Assessment, look at your systems,
look at the data, and basically tell
you what's there," says EMC's oil
and gas marketing manager Peter
Hodge.
"Often we find that between
60 and 70 percent of data is not
changing- its fixed content. So why
is that sitting on primary storage?
"We have software that lets
you set policies - e.g. if a file has a Managing corporate data storage - not tedious if you use the
particular suffix, or if it has not latest tools
been changed in 6, 9 months, it can automatically
go to secondary storage. We call it an active
archive because it is accessible at disk speed." he
says.
Centera
EMC's Centera system is designed for active
archiving, including fixed data stores, information
which needs to be accessed but not changed after
it has been stored, or secondary data (using the def-
initions above).
One European geophysical company uses
the system to store all of their seismic data. They
store it onboard the ships on tape media, and then
offload it all into EMC Centera when they get to
shore.
The system is self-healing, constantly moni-
toring the health of all the different disk drives be-
ing used. If one of them looks like it is about to
fail, it will automatically move the data onto a new-
er disk drive, and alert a technician to replace the
old one.
Archives / tertiary data
For long-term archiving of inactive data that you
may use in the future, disk storage is much better
than tape, because you can find and retrieve the
data you are looking for much more quickly.
But IT departments have a strange addiction
to tape for backups - they have been using it for
many years,
To try to get the tape fans to switch to disk, tive archive and used EMC Rainfinity software to
EMC has developed what it calls a 'virtual tape li-
brary' - a disk storage system that looks like a tape
storage system to host systems. "It looks and feels
like tape, but it's disk, with all the advantages of
disk," says Mr Hodge.
Virtual tape has proven very popular in the
oil and gas industry - EMC customers have bought
November - December 2007- digital energy journal
over 1 petabyte of it since it was launched 2 years
ago.
"There's always going to be a place for some
tape - because it's just still used by so many peo-
ple," he says. "Seismic data is still recorded on tape
in some places, so the data originates on tape. But
many oil companies are realizing the benefit of
backing up their valuable data assets to disk after
they implement an active archive, decreasing the
volume of backups and enjoying more reliable re-
covery from disk."
Oil and gas companies are increasingly like-
ly to be asked to retrieve data from their archives,
for example if a regulator asks them how they
made their reserves calculations. Companies will
appreciate the speed with which they can retrieve
data from disk storage, Mr Hodge says.
Latin American company
One large petrochemical exploration, production
and refining company based in Latin America
asked EMC to assist after it realised it had out-
grown its backup processes.
EMC was asked to perform a File System
Assessment, and found that the company was
backing up a lot of the same data every night, even
though nothing about it has changed.
So EMC ran a software tool which scanned
through all of the files to identify which ones have
been changed, and only back those ones up.
Based on this assessment, they built an ac-
migrate files to lower tier storage.
As a result, the company has much shorter
backups and more reliable recoveries. Plus the
backups are more manageable.
For the active archive, the customer chose
EMC Centera due to its reliability and security -
each file is unique and cannot be changed. The
17
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 18
Oil and gas production
company moved the data from primary storage to
Centera, saving time and money.
Strategic view of data
It is important that IT managers take a strategic
view about the best ways to manage data, and not
just focus on their day jobs of keeping the systems
running, says Mr Hodge.
"IT shops can't afford to be reactive. IT has
got to think more strategically and want to get out
from under all this administration."
Sometimes the challenge of keeping data
backed up, and maintaining archives of old data,
gets so enormous, IT managers start to question
whether the data should be backed up or stored at
all.
Roxar - 190 to 800 employees in 5 years
Roxar has more than quadrupled its staff count from 190 to 800 people in 5 years. We asked group
marketing director Svenn Haugen how they did it
Roxar, a Norwegian company which makes
flowmeters and reservoir modelling, simulation
and uncertainty management software, has in-
creased its staff count from 190 to 800 employees
since 2002, a growth most people would agree is
staggering.
CorrOcean, which 'acquired' Roxar earlier
this year (actually it was something of a financial
restructuring), added a further 70 employees to the
company. "We still have an aspiration to grow,"
says Mr Haugen.
Roxar has recently opened a new office in
Vietnam; the company says that one of the reasons
for opening it there was to help meet its hunger for
new employees and to meet growing customer de-
mand. "We could get some good folks there," says
Mr Haugen. "We found it easier to get very quali-
fied people."
The company is undergoing a transition from
what Mr Haugen describes as a 'technology fo-
cused company' to a more 'industrially focused
company'. But it continues to spend 15 per cent of
its revenue on research and development.
The company is focusing around 2 business
lines: software and flowmeters. Of these 2 busi-
ness lines, the company is probably best known
for its flowmeters. "Flow assurance is something
we're good at," says Mr Haugen.
About two thirds of the staff work in flowme-
ters and the rest in software (Roxar employs 40
software developers in Oslo).
Roxar believes that there is going to be plen-
ty of demand for its flowmeters for subsea wells,
with an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 subsea wells go-
ing to be drilled in the next 3-5 years, particularly
in West Africa and the North Sea.
Meanwhile many new meters will be re-
quired on mature fields, as operators start having
to deal with much more water production, and
monitoring flow becomes much more important.
18 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
"The CIO of one company said 'we don't
want to spend more money on storage. Delete
some data to make space'. When the geophysi-
cists heard this, they said 'no way'. and the CIO re-
versed his decision and bought Centera.”
File Server utilization
One important factor in keeping the network run-
ning smoothly is balancing the load on your file
servers.
Most oil and gas companies have growing
farms of file servers, but a lot of the load is improp-
erly distributed across these filers.
EMC's Rainfinity software analyses the load
on all file servers, regardless of vendor, and can
automatically move data around to balance the
Roxar claims to have 50 per cent market
share for flowmeters on topside / land, and 65 to
70 per cent of subsea flowmeters.
New meters
Last year, Roxar launched the Roxar Oil-in-water
monitor, which provides accurate, real-time infor-
mation on the amount of sand and oil in water.
Through its ultrasonic pulse-echo technolo-
gy, the Roxar Oil-in-water monitor will distinguish
between oil, sand and gas and provide detailed in-
formation on the size and amount of sand and oil
in the water flow.
The monitor is currently operating in a num-
ber of pilots, such as on Statoil's Sleipner A plat-
form in the North Sea. The pilot has confirmed the
Roxar Oil-in-water monitor's ability to provide ac-
curate information to Statoil on the size distribu-
tion and concentration of oil and is already playing
a key role in monitoring Statoil's overboard dis-
charge and separation process, Mr Haugen says.
Plans are also underway for the Roxar Oil-
in-water monitor to operate subsea and become an
integral part of operators' wider subsea processing
operations.
This will allow for water characterisation at
an earlier stage and enable the monitor to become
an important tool in subsea processing.
At the moment, the majority of oil water sep-
aration is being made onboard platforms, but a
great deal of research is going into subsea separa-
tors, which will enable an oil-water stream to be
separated on the seabed, rather than bringing the
water up to the platform, separating it out of the oil
there, and sending it back under the seabed.
"We have very high hopes for this meter,"
says Mr Haugen. "We want to put it subsea, for
when people do subsea oil - water separation.
At the end of 2006, Roxar launched a new
range of high pressure / high temperature gauges,
load.
"File servers loads are often not balanced,"
says Mr Hodge. "Let's say you have 10 file servers.
With this software, you can see, file servers A and
B are not being hit, and E and F are being com-
pletely slammed."
"If you were trying to be efficient about this,
you would distribute this load evenly."
Security
On the security side, EMC believes in what it calls
Information Centric Security and has technology
to automatically encrypt all data as it is being
stored, so you are protected from inside threats, not
just those outside firewalls. "You need to protect it
at the place it's stored," he says.
which could work at temperatures of up to 200 de-
grees C, or 20,000 psi.
The electronics on its downhole meters are
provided by Honeywell, which also makes aero-
space electronics and has a lot of experience mak-
ing systems which can stand 200 degrees Celsius
temperature.
"We say our products should last 6 years at
225 degrees. If you're at 160 degrees, it will last
much longer," says Mr Haugen.
Roxar recently launched a range of sand de-
tectors, which use sound waves to work out if sand
is entering the well. "We pumped considerable re-
search dollars into it," he says.
The detector is helping Anadarko, the lead
operator on the Independence Hub development
in the Gulf of Mexico, have an 'early warning' sys-
tem - an immediate response when sand is present,
and subsequently operate each well aggressively
'at the limit' of its capabilities.
The company has put a lot of development
into its multiphase (oil - gas - water) meter, which
can now operate at 3,500m depth.
All of the electronics in the meter are in one
removable canister. So if there is any problem, the
electronics can be replaced, rather than replace the
entire meter, and there does not need to be any halt
to production. The canister was developed follow-
ing extensive qualification testing with ExxonMo-
bil.
Roxar recently asked management consult-
ants McKinsey to examine every single compo-
nent of the multiphase meter, to work out which
ones were the most critical and how the reliability
could be improved.
Roxar also recently built a new test cham-
ber for its multiphase meters, where it could test
them out at high water pressures (up to 350 bars),
similar to what they would experience at 3,500m
depth, to check that all the parts work reliably.
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 19

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novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 20
Oil and gas production
Integrated operations - Trondheim
The centre for Integrated Operations in the Petroleum Industry (NTNU) of Trondheim, Norway, organised
an excellence conference on October 2-3, showcasing how far Statoil, BG and others have come with their
projects to connect platforms with shore offices, and the latest academic thinking and new technology
The Integrated Operations Conference in
Trondheim, Norway, held on October 2-3
and organised by the Trondheim Centre for
Integrated Operations in the Petroleum In-
dustry, linked together the latest academic
work with the latest industry practise.
The Centre for Integrated Operations
was established by NTNU (Norwegian Uni-
versity of Science and Technology in Trond-
heim), SINTEF Group (the largest research
organisation in Scandinavia) and IFE (Insti-
tute for Energy Technology) in Kjeller, near
Lillestrøm. See http://www.ntnu.no/iocenter/
for further information.
Adolfo Henriquez, Statoil
Adolfo Henriquez, director of Integrated Op-
erations at Statoil, who originally launched
Statoil's Integrated Operations concept, said
he was very pleased at the company's
progress
with Inte-
grated Op-
erations so
far.
"Sta-
toil sees
this as a
way of re-
juvenating
the Nor-
wegian
Continen- 6 per cent more production for
tal Shelf," practically no cost - Adolfo
he said. Henriquesz, director of
"We integrated operations, Statoil
have seen the removal of boundaries and dis-
ciplines between companies. We want to
reach safer and better decisions faster."
To communicate its vision, Statoil pro-
duces a number of company 'Integrated Op-
erations' newsletters. "You can never com-
municate enough," he said.
The company recently completed its
first pilot project, and decided to do Integrat-
ed Operations across the whole company.
"We started very early in 2001, standar-
dising work processes and developing ways
of working in each asset," he said.
In the Heidrun Field, "we got 6 per cent
more production in one year from Integrated
Operations and the cost is practically noth-
ing," he said. "It has been a revolution in our
way of working."
For example, with Integrated Opera-
20 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
tions to monitor rotating equipment in the
Snorre Field, Statoil increased 'effective op-
erational time' from 81 to 95 per cent, and
created NOK 100m ($18.5m) of value.
For Well E-1 BH in the Heidrun Field,
Statoil estimates that through Integrated Op-
erations it has increased reserves from 280
MNOK ($51.8m), and reduced costs by 10
MNOK ($1.8m).
"It is not yet business as usual," he said.
"There is still a lot of work to do. We are de-
signing new work processes and new
changes.
"In some cases, we have several pro-
duction units, boats, platforms; we try to op-
timise production across them all. We opti-
mise across fields and across reservoirs."
John Henderson, Boston University
John Henderson, Professor of Management
and Faculty Director in the Information Sys-
tems Department, Boston University School
of Management, explained that statistically,
80 per cent of large change projects fail,
mainly because people do not do good
enough change management.
"Even though the new process is right,
people do not absorb it," he said.
"Start by asking, what are you trying to
achieve?"
"If Integrated Operations is a capabili-
ty, you should start with the question, how
do you increase barrels of oil from the field
in a sustained way. Then work out how peo-
ple process and technology must be com-
bined to achieve that," he said.
"To see if you are capability driven, not
process driven, go onto the platform, talk to
an operator, and ask them what the objective
is. If they
say, it's to
produce
more oil,
they are ca-
pability
driven.
Mr
Henderson
spoke
about the
control
points of a The energy industry has new
business, control points - John
and how Henderson, Boston University
the Apple School of Management
iPod had been a success, not because of the
design of the product, but how Apple under-
stood the way the control points of the mu-
sic industry were changing, looking for new
approaches to licensing music downloads.
"In the energy sector, the architectural
control points are changing," he said. "Ask
yourself, how will energy companies com-
pete in the 21st century?"
"You'll still have to find oil to make
money, but there will be emerging sources
of control."
What is integrated operations?
The term "Integrated Operations" means
getting the different departments in up-
stream oil and gas working more closely
together, particularly teams on offshore
oil platforms working more closely with
teams onshore.
This means that many staff members
previously working onshore can be
brought onshore, leading to safety bene-
fits (it is safer onshore) and more people
spending time after work with their fami-
lies rather than their co-workers.
It also means improved productivity
and efficiency, because the reservoirs and
equipment can usually be run much better
with more information available to differ-
ent people and more experts able to get in-
volved.
An Integrated Operations project is
not without its challenges. It is a major
change, and studies have estimated that 80
per cent of large change projects fail.
Oil and gas companies can see the
benefits, but they are also worried about
possible increases in risk as people's
working practises are changed.
The presentation by Arne Bye, platform
manager for Statoil's Kristin asset, and
Vidar Hepso, principal researcher and
project manager with Statoil Research
and Technology, is on pages 2-3 of this
issue of Digital Energy Journal
All the presentations from this conference
can be downloaded free of charge from
www.ioconf.no
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 21

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Oil and gas production

Tony Edwards, BG "The initial temptation was to build not going to work."
Tony Ed- rooms with nice screens, say if we build it "We took the approach of putting peo-
wards, head of they will come," he said. "But a lot of ap- ple in a room and telling them to get on with
iValue with proaches didn't get past building the rooms." it," he said.
BG Group, "The technologies are already avail- "Do strategic experiments - don't put
said that his able, there's nothing new about it," he said. together a 5 year plan," he said.
experience Mr Edwards cautioned against trying to "Say we'll learn as we go along, this is
with integrat- get the whole company to follow standard a generic approach. You need to adjust your
ed operations processes. "You can't go in with a fixed vision and learn."
is that "you al- process, unless perhaps you're Exxon," he "The companies that have been most
ways get more said. successful have focused on the people," he
value than you you always get more value "A lot of people have tried this and got said. "People either allow you to move for-
anticipated, than you anticipated - Tony stuck. Fixing the process can be a barrier to ward or stop you dead. In our industry, we
and the value Edwards, head of iValue, BG innovation and improvement. How a process often talk about people but don't do much
you get, you Group will be done in Azerbaijan, Norway, about it.
wouldn't have anticipated." Trinidad, is very different." "We define 'people' as looking at the
An important driver for integrated op- "What works in one part of the world soft behavioural changes," he said.
erations at BG is the need to provide better doesn't work in another," he said. "If you do the people bit well and the
support to far flung locations like Sakhalin, "For example, white Anglo Saxons other bits badly, you'll get partial success."
he said. want to keep away from cameras. In some "When you're bringing communities to-
The important questions to answer other parts of the world, they'll practically gether offshore / onshore, you need to focus
when implementing a system are: What are dance in front of the cameras." on the communities."
you trying to do? What technologies do you "The costs of standards is enormous, it One tricky issue was that office staff
need? What skill, technologies and behav- takes so much time and so much cost to do did not like to see how relaxed the platform
iours do you need? What organisation fac- it. And what's the value to the frontline op- staff were in office hours, he said.
tors - structures, incentive relationships do erator? None. He doesn't care if its version "If drillers onshore have their feet up
you need? 5.5 or 5.6," he said. reading the paper in the middle of the day,
"The integration of these elements is "Doing it like an engineering model - that's unacceptable behaviour in an office.
what gives you the platform," he said. analyse it to death and blueprint it - that is "What emerged - in office hours, it was

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 novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 23
office norms, in weekends, it was platform
norms," he said.
There are plenty of other problems in
bringing different groups of people togeth-
er. "You have problems of people in differ-
ent teams with different leaders, different
KPIs, different bonus schemes," he said.
"If you want to monitor all the rotat-
ing equipment for the whole company in
one room, you have to have the rotating en-
gineer for each rig in that room, and the op-
erations managers don't like that very
much."
"We were putting HSE first and put
people last, in a management meeting, and
the people issues often drop off. I appeal to
you to put people at the top of your agenda
after HSSE. We find it very difficult to do
this touchy feely stuff."
"It is important to build shared situa-
tional awareness - you need real time data
and shared understanding," he stressed.
"Many times, as an operations manag-
er, I would get a phone call ‘where's my well
test data, don't you know the well will col-
lapse next week.’ I would have to say some-
thing like, didn't you know the compressor
is in bits."
"The key thing is trust," he said. "Peo-
ple say - why can't you do this by e-mail. The
answer is, you don't get the trust."
One large possible benefit, he said,
might be "integrating midstream and the
downstream - involving the traders."
"Intuitively I feel there is huge value in
that. I don't know if anyone knows the an-
swer - but I think the opportunity is enor-
mous and the value to be gained absolutely
huge."
Jean Richard Sagli, Statoil
Jean Richard Sagli, project manager at Sta-
toil (who has a Phd in cybernetics), talked
about work Statoil has done to try to improve
the water alternating gas (WAG) cycle at
Snorre B field.
In WAG, water and gas are injected in-
 to the reservoir alternately (water, then gas,
then water, then gas) to drive oil out of the
reservoir.
The aim was to try to achieve 'smarter'
injection, that is to say, injecting the right
amount of injection fluids at the right pres-
N sures at the right time, to successfully push
the maximum oil out of the reservoir into the
production well with least energy consump-
tion.
T To achieve this, Statoil wanted to cre-
ate a comprehensive computer system,
which would have knowledge about every-
thing which was going on both subsurface
(from reservoir models) and topside, and
Oil and gas production
Statoil created a 'coarse' reservoir model
which would run much more quickly than the
full reservoir model (2-5 minutes compared to
18 hours), but would still create a high
resolution model around the wells.
would also actually be able to control the op-
eration.
"We wanted to extend the advanced
process control from topside to pipeline,
wells and reservoirs," he said.
The computer system could be used by
everybody working on the WAG cycle, in-
cluding 40-50 people working around the
world, from Houston to Minsk.
Mr Sagli believes that the project was
successful. "We believe we achieved a 10 per
cent increase in net present value (NPV)
from the additional production we achieved
from smarter injection," he said.
The system continues to improve over
time. "We believe optimisation tools im-
prove as time goes on," he said.
The computer system maintains consis-
tent, updated and integrated models of the
subsurface and topside facilities, to enable
production to be optimised in real time.
"We have a field performance analyser
to go into specific problems," he said.
The control variables are anything that
is possible to control, such as the injection
flowrates and production choke settings.
The computer system can help people
work better together, he said.
"We wanted a workflow approach.
Workflows that can be automated should be
automated," he said. "We developed differ-
ent tools for different workflows."
Data from the field, such as pressures
and flowrates, is stored in a database. "If the
data is good enough, it can go straight into
the process control systems," he said. "Oth-
erwise it goes through visualisation, analy-
sis, integrated models, and then to the
process control system."
One problem is the long time it typical-
ly takes to run a reservoir model. "Reservoir
models can be too time consuming and
sometimes clumsy. It is not possible to use
models which take 12-18 hours," he said.
To reduce the amount of time, the 18
November - December 2007- digital energy journal
hour reservoir model was run through a
'coarsening filter', which could create a mod-
el with a close match to the 18 hour one, but
which would take between 2 and 5 minutes
to run.
The 'coarse' model would still provide
high resolution reservoir models around the
wells.
Statoil created a 'coarse' reservoir mod-
el which would run much more quickly than
the full reservoir model (2-5 minutes com-
pared to 18 hours), but would still create a
high resolution model around the wells.
Arne Helge Anderson, ConocoPhillips
Arne Helge Anderson, senior health, safety
and environment engineer with Cono-
coPhillips, presented his view on how Inte-
grated Operations systems could impact
health and safety.
The driving forces for Integrated Oper-
ations are "regulatory requirements, extend-
ed operation of old platforms, increasing
reservoir exploitation and reducing cost," he
said.
The average manning level on Cono-
coPhillips platforms is 130 men, he said.
"We want to give them technology
which connect them, informs them and en-
ables them to collaborate and succeed," he
said. "People work more safely together than
on their own."
ConocoPhillips only sends crew to
work when they have the procedures, tools,
team members and materials they need, he
said. "If something is missing, they get frus-
trated and it's a safety hazard."
To ensure that the onshore team were
accepted by the offshore team, Cono-
coPhillips took experienced offshore fore-
men and asked them to work on the onshore
offices.
"We needed to have people onshore
who understood the challenges they were
facing," he said.
Now, engineers on shore go to onshore
foreman to ask for the status, not go to off-
shore foreman, he said.
ConocoPhillips aims to mix experi-
enced crews with inexperienced crews, he
said.
It maintains a system of yellow cards
for safety infractions. "When someone
breaks the rules, he has a conversation with
his foreman, it's not registered anywhere, but
they both know they had that conversation,"
he said.
Erik Hollnagel, Paris School of Mines
Erik Hollnagel, Industrial Safety Chair, Paris
School of Mines, presented many of the
weaknesses with the conventional approach
23
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 24
Oil and gas production
Around 250 delegates attended the conference organised by the centre for Integrated
Operations in the Petroleum Industry (NTNU), in Trondheim, Norway
to industrial safety.
People try to understand how accidents
happen as a sequence of events, like one
domino which falls over and knocks over the
next one.
"The traditional view is that accidents
are due to failures, malfunctions, perform-
ance deviations," he said. "People draw an
event tree and a fault tree. You assume
events develop along a path of predefined re-
lations."
"Accidents are often due to unexpected
combination of conditions that are not in
themselves unusual," he said. "Many adverse
events can be linked to breakdowns, but
many cannot."
This approach to safety also assumes
that things are bimodal (either on or off, ei-
ther working or not working). Many things
in an industrial system are bimodal (eg does
the pump work or not), but many things are
not.
"Humans and social system are not bi-
modal," he said. "Humans are not machines,
we get tired. "We are smart, creative and
adaptive and find new ways of doing things,
which are often improvements."
Mr Hollnagel called the traditional ap-
proach to safety a "closed system perspec-
tive."
"We say, things go right because sys-
tems are well maintained, procedures are
correct; people behave as we told them to,
and that's why systems work," he said.
"If you buy this view, variability in hu-
man performance is bad. According to this
logic, to avoid failure, avoid malfunction.
Force the system to remain within bound-
aries. This only works if you believe in this
closed system perspective."
Safety managers create procedures
which they expect staff to follow to the let-
24 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
ter, because they have worked out that many
risks can be avoided if the procedures are
followed closely.
Don't they realise that things never
work when people follow procedures too
closely? We all know that when unions say
they will 'work to rule' everything will fall
apart, he pointed out.
In any case, it is very difficult, if not
impossible, to create and implement com-
pletely comprehensive procedures, because
it takes too much time. "It will be underspec-
ified, because you don't have time to do it
properly," he says.
"It's an illusion to think that perform-
ance will be stable," he said. "We have to try
to understand the nature of the performance
variability."
Mr Hollnagel criticised conventional
'feedback' control systems as being like
walking backwards through a room full of
conference delegates on a coffee break. You
change the direction you are going in, based
on your experience in the past. "You only in-
vest in the things which have happened."
Instead, he suggested 'feedforward con-
trol', where you are trying to work out what
will happen and how well prepared you are
for it.
"Do you see variability as a threat, or
say it is ubiquitous but is both a risk and a
resource," he asked.
We all recognise variability is unavoid-
able for any working system - for example,
with public services. "Sometimes they are
very efficient, sometimes they are very
slow," he said.
In any case, variability (people doing
things slightly differently each time) can be
desirable for safety, if it means that people
work out ways of doing things safer.
"The alternative view is to say, things
go right because people learn to overcome
design flaws and fundamental glitches, and
they can adapt their performance, detect and
correct when things go wrong."
"We understand systems are underspec-
ified and unpredictable," he said. "If we take
any performance variability, we take away
the successes."
One positive variability is when people
feel that they have to work hard to meet the
expectations of their workmates. Mr Holl-
nagel called this "socially induced variabili-
ty."
People normally think of the word
'safety' to mean an absence of negative
things, he said. A more positive way to ap-
proach risk management might be to think
of it in terms of resilience.
Resilient systems should be able to
monitor threats in a flexible manner; it
should be able to anticipate potential threats.
Resilience is the state of being con-
stantly aware of possible dangers. "You
should always have a sense of unease. Its
like Bill Gates saying, Microsoft is always 3
years away from a disaster," he said.
"Resilience is used to characterise chil-
dren and politicians, but not industrial sys-
tems," he said. "It could be a quality of a ma-
chine or organisation."
Eliot Rich, New York State University
Eliot Rich, assistant professor, management
science and information systems, with the
School of Business at the State University of
New York, presented the results of his work
with an undisclosed oil major, into how im-
plementing integrated operations would im-
pact overall risk, and how long it would take
to get risk levels back to normal.
"We built a formal situation model, to
try to quantify what we're talking about, a
“New integrated operations processes could
mean increased vulnerability for 6 years after
being introduced” - Eliot Rich, New York State
University
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:04 Page 25
series of scenarios," he said.
Mr Rich developed computer models
which would simulate the knowledge gap
over the years after introducing a new inte-
grated operations system.
The simulator showed that the vulnera-
bility of a system would steadily increase for
6 years after introducing integrated opera-
tions, and would steadily decline after that.
However, with more "knowledge inte-
gration," ie making efforts to help people
gain knowledge of how to use new process-
es quickly, the maximum vulnerability
would not be so much, and would decline ap-
prox 28 months after the new systems were
introduced.
When a new process is introduced, peo-
ple need to know how to work with it, and it
takes time for this knowledge to be assimi-
lated, he said. In the interim time, there is a
knowledge gap, which can lead to increased
risk.
"The presence of a knowledge gap
changes the vulnerability of the platform,"
he said. "It may be that something happens
and you don't know what to do.
"But as our processes mature we expect
resilience to go up again."
"Your vulnerability will grow for years
during your move to integrated operations,"
he said. "Vulnerability only starts to fall
when you start to iron out the bugs."
"If you try to compress the time [to in-
troduce new working processes], you've got
more chance of a bad outcome," he said.
"If problems aren't happening, it does-
n't mean you are not vulnerable," he warned.
One delegate commented that it is im-
portant to emphasise the possible safety up-
side of integrated operations. "When we had
problems of gas coming up on the Gulfaks
platform, we had access to the best person
in the company within minutes," he said.
Hiroshi Shimoda, Kyoto University
Hiroshi Shimoda, from the Kyoto Universi-
ty Graduate School of Energy Science,
talked about research he has done into tech-
nology which could enable people to see
computer generated information superim-
posed on the things they are looking at.
This is similar to the 'heads up display'
used on aeroplanes (and being introduced on
cars), where text is shown on the wind-
screen, so the driver can see the information
while they are looking through the wind-
screen, rather than having to look down at
the dials.
Mr Shimoda takes this concept a step
further, and suggests that the computer in-
formation can track the actual real life ob-
jects.
For example, a computer pointer could
Oil and gas production
“Can we use computer generated
information to supplement people's actual
view?,” Hiroshi Shimoda, Kyoto University
show which (real world) nut an operator
needs to turn, or point out an area with dan-
gerous radiation.
Mr Shimoda suggests that users could
wear special glasses (known as 'head mount-
ed displays'), where the computer informa-
tion is superimposed on the person's view.
The technology with headmount dis-
plays is not yet ready for use in this kind of
application, he said, because they are not yet
suitable for use in a hazardous environment,
and because the field of view is not wide
enough. "It needs to be safer and lighter
weight," he said.
An alternative approach could be for
the operator to carry around a tablet comput-
er with a camera pointing forward. A video
image from the camera would be displayed
on the tablet computer's screen, with the
computer generated text or images superim-
posed on it.
If a tablet computer was used (rather
than a head mounted display), people found
that the lightest computers currently on the
market (weighing 492g) were too heavy,
when you have to hold it in front of you for
an hour. However for shorter tasks (eg 5
minutes), it could be plausible for someone
to hold a 492g tablet computer in front of
them, he said.
The system can be used to record work
completed and make sure procedures have
been followed. The systems can be used for
design, procedure planning, training, and
tele (remote) operation, he said.
A principal challenge with this technol-
ogy is 'tracking', ie, making the computer
generated image (ie the arrow pointing to the
right nut) sit properly on the item it connects
with (ie the nut).
To accurately track an object in real life
against a computer generated image, the
camera cannot be more than 1m away from
the object, which is very difficult to do.
"There are many objects in the plant and the
November - December 2007- digital energy journal
surface is not flat," he said.
Tracking objects is easier if they are
lines, such as pipelines, rather than pin-
points.
Mr Shimoda called this 'augmented re-
ality', because it is a mixture of reality and
'virtual reality' (when the person views
something entirely in a computer generated
world).
The Kyoto University did tests where
subjects were asked to complete a specific
task using 'augmented reality', and the re-
searchers recorded their performance in
completing the task, their mental workload,
and their eye fatigue.
Virtual reality applications have al-
ready been developed for nuclear power, Mr
Shimoda said. "It is used for procedure plan-
ning and decommissioning."
The virtual world can be constructed
from data in the maintenance systems, and
from the computer aided design (CAD) sys-
tems used to create it.
Børge Kolstad, Kongsberg Intellifield
Børge Kolstad, CEO of Kongsberg Intelli-
field, explained how his company is putting
together visualisation systems which can en-
able people to see what is happening on the
platform in real time (see screenshot on fol-
lowing page).
The system can take data from a range
of sources. For example, it can receive data
on the location of vessels and helicopters
from their radio transponders ('Automatic
Identification Systems' / AIS).
A 3D system has been developed for
ConocoPhillips' Ekofisk platform, where it
is used for logistics management.
The system will shortly be also used as
an aid for inspections, he said.
Intellifield has created a similar system
for the port in Stavanger, so people on the
platforms
can watch
a comput-
er created
view of
their sup-
ply ves-
sels being
loaded
and un-
loaded in
real time.
"We
say, if you
“Computer generated
can visu-
visualisations reveal things you
alise it, can't see with your eye,” Børge
you can Kolstad, Kongsberg Intellifield
optimise
it," he said. "You can see things instead of
just talk about numbers."
25
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 26

Oil and gas production

The tool can be used to augment the re-
al view. For example, if the platform has
shallow pipelines which vessels must not an-
chor on top of, the computer can show the
location of the pipelines and the real time lo-
cation of vessels in the same view.
Most companies have their logistics in-
formation held in many different databases,
which makes it hard for people to get the full
picture, he said. It can be brought together
on a system like this.
Mr Kolstad hopes that systems like
these can enable engineers to focus on more
value added work, rather than spending time
looking at screens.
"Supervisors onshore can spend 70 per
cent of their time writing reports to tell peo-
ple onshore what is happening," he said.
"With this system, people on shore can
watch what is happening on a screen, all in Kongsberg’s visualisation systems enable people to see what is happening on the platform in
one system that can be navigated in 3D." real time and see things you can't see with your eye, like underwater pipelines

Torbjørn Johansson, IBM people. Your representation in the virtual We could create a virtual world which they
Torbjørn Johansson, technical assistant to world is an 'avatar'. can walk through first."
IBM's VP technical strategy and innovation, People normally create avatars accord- Virtual worlds are already being used
talked about how IBMers are starting to use ing to their fantasies, for example, if they to train fire fighters how to deal with real
tools such as Second Life for their internal have a private wish to be a teddy bear, skele- fires, he said.
meetings and discussions with customers, ton, or attractive over exposed female Mr Johansson also talked about how
rather than teleconferences. teenager. the role of new IT tools has changed from
"It's not a slightly enhanced teleconfer- "Second Life is the most well known helping people automate repetitive tasks to
ence; it's a slightly less efficient face to face virtual world, although it's not the best be- enhancing what people can do and improv-
meeting," he said. "Over 4,000 IBM people cause we want to hold some meetings pri- ing co-operation. "We are focused on help-
use it to conduct internal meetings and meet vately," said Mr Johansson. ing the individual become better," he said.
with customers." There are plenty of other applications Mr Johansson said that multiplayer
One indication of the success of a for virtual worlds, for example, they could computer games could provide surprisingly
(physical) meeting is whether people are in- be used to help people get familiar (and com- good leadership training. "If we are as harsh
clined to stay and chat to each other after the fortable) with a certain place before they in evaluating and sacking managers, as some
meeting, rather than get out of the door as have to physically go there, he said. "People of the games are in evaluating and sacking
fast as possible, he said. get nervous about doing things the first time. leaders, we would end up in court," he said.
After a teleconference, people general-
ly want to put the phone down as fast as pos-
sible. But with Second Life meetings, peo-
ple often linger afterwards to chat to each
other, he said.
"People can interact in richer ways with
their avatars, as opposed to teleconferences,"
he said.
"You get vastly different behaviour
than with a teleconference," he said. "It hu-
manises the meeting."
People tend to pay more attention in a
virtual world conference than a teleconfer-
ence, he said.
"In a teleconference you find that
someone said your name and you don't know
what they asked for," he said. "It happens to
me at least once a week. It's hard to even
know who's in the teleconference."
For those who don't know, Second Life
is an online world which people can spend
time in, walking around and talking to other
Some companies are starting to hold business meetings using Avatars in Second Life, because it
is more immersive experience than a teleconference

26 digital energy journal - November - December 2007

novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 27

One good decision leads to another

Every day brings fresh challenges. Responding to them is part of the job. Whether you want to boost
production, enhance field operations or optimize maintenance schedules, you will encounter both
opportunities and obstacles. To succeed, your team will have to share knowledge and apply it in new
situations. How can you help your colleagues reach the right decisions?

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novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 28
Oil and gas production
Intelligent Energy Conference
Plans are moving ahead for the Society of Petroleum Engineers / Reed Exhibitions 'Intelligent Energy
Conference,' planned for this Feb 25-27 in Amsterdam.
The event attracted 1300 people when it was
last held in March 2006. For the Feb 2008
event, the organisers are hoping for 2,000.
Industry stars set to speak include Sta-
toil's chief executive officer Helge Lund,
Schlumberger's chief executive officer An-
drew Gould, and Malcolm Brinded, execu-
tive director E&P for Royal Dutch Shell.
Satish Pai, president Europe, Africa
and Caspian at Schlumberger (and previous-
ly head of Schlumberger Information Solu-
tions), is co-chairman of the executive commit-
tee.
"We have an image of our industry all of
us try to propagate," says Mr Pai. "This confer-
ence is an opportunity to show our industry us-
es technology at the cutting edge."
Although the whole industry is in theory
agreed that "intelligent energy" systems are a
good thing, there are still plenty of obstacles,
notably people who didn't grow up with this
level of technology, Mr Pai says.
"Take up is slow in the beginning, then
reaches a tipping point and takes off," he pre-
dicts. "But we have not reached that tipping
point yet."
The future, Mr Pai says, will be about
making better decisions faster. The future will
also be about lower weight equipment (for ex-
ample, smaller equipment on the subsea instead
of on platforms), but communicating with a
high data bandwidth. "The whole development
concept changes," he says.
Mr Pai says that one of his biggest chal-
lenges is meeting oil major demands for expe-
rienced staff to supervise their drilling jobs.
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28 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
This is a particular problem for drilling
operations in West Africa, where it is hardest to
find senior employees prepared to go to work
on the platforms.
"Every oil company says, I want a 15 year
experience person," he says. "But when you're
55 years old, you're not so excited about going
to Luanda."
Schlumberger's remote collaboration
technology enables staff to supervise the
drilling job from a shore office, they don't need
to go to the platform. This enables Schlumberg-
er to meet the oil major demands.
It also makes it possible for one senior
staff member to supervise a number of projects
(each being run by junior staff members) at
once. "We'll get them to work for another 10
years," he says. "We're making more use of ex-
perienced professionals."
If this technology wasn't available,
Schlumberger would have problems, because it
is not possible to suddenly find more drilling
supervisors with 15 years of experience. "You
can't compress 5, 6 years in 1 years of training,"
he says.
Conference
The conference will kick off with a 'vision ses-
sion', with star speakers Malcolm Brinded,
Helge Lund and Andrew Gould, and a senior
vice president of Saudi Aramco is promised.
There will be a session with live connec-
tions to platforms in Brazil, Azerbaijan, Hol-
land and the North Sea, so staff can see the sys-
tems at work.
There will be speakers from the IT and oil
and gas industry
explaining what
they believe is
possible; and al-
so a young pro-
fessionals ses-
sion, where
'young people'
from the Nin-
tendo genera-
tion can explain “We're making more use of
what they might experienced professionals”.-
expect the oil Satish Pai,Schlumberger
and gas industry to be doing right now.
"They will say what they think about our
use of technology," says Tony Edwards, chair
of the program committee and head of iVal-
ue at BG Group.
Themes of the technical program include
technology and data; people, processes and
management of change; and case studies. The
papers will cover technology enablers, integra-
tion and innovation.
"We've been oversubscribed in the num-
ber of papers and we've got a good spread,"
says Mr Edwards. "We have a lot of papers
from Europe, Middle East, North and South
America."
"It's not just about technology, if it was,
we would have done it a long time ago," says
Mr Edwards.
"There's still a lot of resistance to change
that has to be overcome, eg people who say, its
big brother watching me, you must be joking,"
he says. "You're bringing communities together
- the onshore and the offshore community."
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 29
Digital Energy at Offshore Europe
Some interesting stories we picked up at the Offshore Europe exhibition in Aberdeen
Simulia - use more finite element
analysis
Simulia - testing oil and gas equipment using
finite element analysis
Simulia, part of French design and product
lifecycle management company Dassault
Systemes, wants to encourage oil and gas
companies to do more finite element analy-
sis processes on oil and gas equipment, to
test how well they are likely to perform be-
fore they are actually built.
Oil and gas companies have done finite
element analysis on important pieces of oil
and gas installations, such as risers and the
legs of platforms, for many years; the tech-
nology is nearly 30 years old.
But Simulia believes there are plenty
more pieces of oil and gas equipment which
would benefit from this kind of stress analy-
sis.
For example, Weatherford has been us-
ing the processes to test its designs for down-
hole tools before building them or setting
them to work.
It can work out exactly what amount of
pressure the rollers on the tool could with-
stand downhole.
Weatherford used the software to mod-
el stresses when laying a pipeline, and to
model outer forces on an expandable sand
screen.
With developments in computing pow-
er, it is possible to run finite element analy-
sis tests much faster, on smaller computers.
The capability of the software has also
increased a great deal in recent years, says
Tom Dianchi of Simulia.
"You can get more accurate results," he
says. "Previously the computing power was-
n't available to run it in so much detail."
The same software is used in many dif-
ferent industries, including aerospace and
automotive.
It is used to analyse world cup foot-
balls, to see how they will spin and respond
to contact; it is also used by clothing manu-
facturers to model skin contact.
Oil and gas production
ABB launches "Evolution for Life" One advantage of upgrading the au-
Automation giant ABB has launched a pro- tomation system is that you can make it eas-
gram "Evolution for life," to encourage ier to integrate into other systems, and do
North Sea oil and gas companies to upgrade more with the data.
their automation systems, and give out the For example, one customer is display-
message that upgrading an automation sys- ing data on a wall size visualisation display,
tem does not have to be a production-stop- says Mr Harding. You can also incorporate
ping experience, you can do it in small, man- data from other systems such as management
ageable steps with minimal interruption. systems.
This program also extends to systems in all It is easier to configure the systems to
other industries. be more ergonomic, for example, create bet-
ABB pledges that new systems sold to- ter alarm systems which fit in better with
day will work with systems it has sold since how people work (rather than just besieging
the early 1990's, and in some cases before them with hundreds of alarms when some-
this. ABB will also support the core of these thing goes wrong when one alarm will do).
previous generations of ABB systems until
2025. AVEVA - new plant design software
So you won't have problems with new UK company AVEVA, which makes soft-
software not being compatible with old hard- ware for design and construction of plant
ware. projects, recently announced a new release
ABB has over 100 mission critical con- of its Plant Design Management Software
trol and safety systems running in the North (PDMS).
Sea, and it was used for nearly 50 per cent The latest version has improved tools
of 2006 production, says Dennis Harding, to help people around the world collaborate
VP customer support. "We need to make sure on a project, and keep their designs synchro-
they are running reliably." nised.
Many customers now want to extend The P in PDMS originally stood for
the life of their platforms from what was 'piping' (because the software was designed
originally intended, from 2010 to 2020, even to design piping systems), but the software
2030. has since been extended to cover plenty
By making smaller, planned changes, more aspects of the plant, including ducting,
the disruption is much less. For example steel, supports, platforms, stairs and ladders.
there is no sudden need to do a large amount "This release is very robust and practi-
of retraining. cal to use," says Bruce Douglas, VP industry
"We can break the upgrade down into solutions, with AVEVA.
smaller steps," he says. "They can increase AVEVA also unveiled a new Piping and
the system reliability with no risk." Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) approach
One client of the program was BG based on the creation of a common schemat-
Group, who wanted to upgrade the system ic model to represent the complete logic of
on its North Sea Armada
Platform, which was in-
stalled over 10 years ago.
ABB managed to help them
increase the life of the plat-
form by 15 years.
They wanted the plat-
form to be able to handle
more gas, and also wanted a
new spares management sys-
tem, and wanted to adopt
new safety practises, says
BG's Tim Shepherd. For ex-
ample, The new system
complies with new require-
ments for alarm manage-
ments. ABB wants to persuade oil and gas operators that upgrading
their automation systems won't be a nightmare
November - December 2007- digital energy journal 29
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 30
Oil and gas production
systems in a project.
This enables users to consolidate and
manage all of the P&ID data for a project,
independently of their P&ID authoring tool.
The software has new visualisation ca-
pabilities that allow teams to review and
mark-up 3D models of any size and email
the comments to other reviewers.
AVEVA also recently launched version
12 of its AVEVA marine software, which is
used to design marine vessels. The new ver-
sion has, amongst others, tools to do design
of cabling systems, including cable routing
and calculation of necessary cable length.
Absoft's SAP for oil and gas
UK company Absoft has developed a new
version of financial management software
SAP, specially for smaller oil and gas com-
panies.
Normally, companies buy SAP and
then employ expensive consultants to con-
figure it to their needs, but Absoft is selling
a specially preconfigured SAP package for
the oil and gas industry, so they don't have
to pay the consultants.
Having the package pre-configured
means it can be installed in 3-4 months, not
18-24 months as with a normal SAP instal-
lation, he says. The first client, already
signed up, is Madagascar Oil.
Shell - optimising gas lift
Shell recently upgraded its Excel based system for optimising gas lift on its North Sea Nelson Platform with
a more sophisticated computer system. Engineers Ian Taylor and Carl Gerrard explained how it worked
Ian Taylor, production engineer with
Shell, gave a presentation at Offshore Eu-
rope about how Shell installed a new system
to optimise gas lift on its Nelson Field.
The problem with its existing system
was that it was taking too long to optimise
the gas flow after a trip (retrieving the pro-
duction tubing from one of the wells, which
meant switching off the gas lift system).
With the new software, the amount of
time it takes to re-optimise the gas lift re-
duced from 25 hours to 18.
The Nelson Platform is 200km North
East of Aberdeen, and first produced oil in
1994. "It is one of Shell's biggest assets," he
said.
The platform uses gas lift; gas is bub-
bled down the oil wells and used to help re-
duce the pressure down hole, to encourage
more oil out of the reservoir and into the
well. The problem is choosing how much of
30 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
Creating a version of SAP for oil and gas - Ian
Mechie, managing director of Absoft
Selling SAP software is a new business
direction for Absoft, which was previously
selling SAP services.
Virtually all oil majors use SAP to man-
age some aspects of their business, says Ian
Mechie, managing director of Absoft.
"We think there's an opportunity to sell
SAP to the mid market," he says. "We're
aiming this version at smaller independents."
The oil and gas industry has plenty of
unique challenges, such as working with low
communications bandwidth, which is why
SAP takes a lot of adaptation to work prop-
erly.
the available gas to bubble down each well.
"We don't have sufficient gas lift," said
Mr Taylor. "We need to optimise it."
Shell developed an optimisation soft-
ware over the past 10 years, which has a Mi-
crosoft Excel front end. Users type the pro-
duction information into the software, and it
suggests what the gas lift settings should be,
and this can then be input into the control
system.
Unfortunately the knowledge about
how these settings were calculated and why
is no longer in the company.
"Through the course of time the un-
derstanding of the macros has evaporated,"
he says. "When it breaks, everyone is
scratching their heads."
Shell was finding it was taking too
long to get to optimum production after a
production stoppage in one of the wells.
The company wanted to install a more
As well as financial management, SAP
can be used to manage logistics and supply
chain. It can also be used to integrate sys-
tems with RFID communications, document
management systems, handheld inspection
tools.
TRAC ID SYSTEMS
www.trac-id.com
Trac ID systems of Stavanger, Norway, is
running pilot projects with Statoil and Odf-
jell to fix RFID tags on piping, to make it
easier for the company to keep track of the
condition of different pieces of pipe.
Putting a damaged pipe downhole can
be very expensive for oil and gas companies,
so it is essential that they keep track of the
condition of different lengths of pipe.
With the Trac-ID system, each piece of
pipe has a radio tag affixed to it, which is au-
tomatically read whenever it is put in or tak-
en out of the hole.
The company is developing a software
package which will be able to store data
about the pipe, and the forces which has been
under.
"You can have some lifecycle manage-
ment for the pipes," says Jan Gunnar Skul-
stad, technical manager, Trac Networks,
Trac ID systems hopes to launch a
commercial product shortly.
sophisticated system to work out the opti-
mum settings for the gas lift, says Carl Ger-
rard, who was running the project on the
Nelson platform.
The project started with a 1 day work-
shop in April 2006, and a risk assessment in
June 2006. A software company was asked
to create a new optimiser. "The first version
of the optimiser turned up in August 2006
and it didn't work," said Mr Gerrard.
The system was finally working by
November 2006, and the company managed
to turn off its previous system.
The new system also takes into con-
sideration the price of oil and gas, and this
can be factored in to the decision of how to
use the gas.
It uses the relationships between dif-
ferent lift gas flows, the choke applied, the
oil / gas / water ratios in the production
stream, and the total production.
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 31

Oil and gas production

Phenomatics - training in virtual

reality
Phenomatics of Austria is pushing out the boundaries of what is possible with simulator training, by
creating a system where people see the virtual world on a 3D headset, rather than looking at a screen.

TRAINING IN VIRTUAL REALITY - The trainee is refilling lubication oil in agas compressor. On the left, you can see the trainee with his head
mounteddisplay, as other students look on. On the right you can see the what thetrainee sees. The system tracks the person's hand position and
headposition, so they can look around and move their hand in the virtualdisplay. Below image: a view of the system from the front.

Phenomatics of Austria is pushing out the
boundaries of what is possible with simula-
tor training, by creating a system where peo-
ple see the virtual world on a 3D headset,
rather than looking at a screen.
The system tracks which way the per-
son is looking, so if the person looks down,
the image on the screen in their headset
shows what they would see if they looked
down.
The user wears a special glove, and the
computer tracks the position of the glove. So
if someone can put their real hand forward,
their hand on the screen moves forward.
Inside the headset, a slightly different
screen image is put in front of each eye, so
the person feels that they are seeing in three
dimensions.
Traditional simulator manufacturers
have gone to a lot of effort to make their sim-
ulators immersive, to make the person be-
lieve that they are on a real ship's bridge or
aeroplane cockpit, for example with controls
from a real ship, a large screen, real sounds,
even a room which shakes or tilts as a real
aeroplane cockpit or ship's bridge would.
But the Phenomatics team believe that
with a 3D headset, they take the level of im-
mersivity one step further, to the point where
people fully believe that they are in the vir-
tual world, and are very surprised to find out
where they really are when they take the "People get much more enthusiastic
headset off. about safety training," says Dr Holm.
After a while, people accept the virtual
world as a representation of the real world,"
says Dr Roland Holm of Phenomatics. "If
they take off the helmet, they are surprised
about where they are."
Different scenarios can be built into the
simulator like a computer game, eg if you
open a valve, gas will leak.
The system has been used since 2003
for safety training in a refinery in Schwechat,
Austria. All new refinery employees are re-
quired to complete the training before they
are allowed to start work.
In a typical training session at the re-
finery, there is one instructor and four stu-
dents, with one of the students wearing the
headset, the others watching what he can see
on a large screen.
The instructor will give the student
tasks to complete. Each of the students will
then complete the task, with small variations
in it so they cannot just copy what the last
person did. The course has been put together
by refinery staff.
The trainer can alter things in the virtu-
al world, for example, change the pressure
in a vessel, or put something on fire, so the
trainees can be challenged to work out how The headmounted display and hand tracking
to deal with it. device

November - December 2007- digital energy journal 31

novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 32
Oil and gas production
Segmenting your suppliers - in
electronic purchasing
To make an electronic purchasing strategy work, you have to segment your suppliers in the right way.
Chris Welsh of Eiro Consulting, writing on behalf of oil and gas e-commerce company OFS-Portal,
explains how this can be done
Many cases of poor supplier adoption and sup-
plier enablement failures have been cited as the
main cause of poor performing or even failed
e-procurement initiatives.
Invariably these projects have taken very
simple criteria to perform supplier segmenta-
tion, such as "Top 80 per cent spend", as the on-
ly criteria for supplier selection.
Before embarking on a supplier segmen-
tation activity it is important for an organisa-
tion to understand what it is trying to accom-
plish from supplier segmentation.
To do an effective supplier segmentation,
the initial steps are to collect and document the
procurement strategy, the landscape in which
the activity is to take place and the external in-
fluences (sometimes constraints) into which the
segmentation activity will operate.
Procurement goals
Most large organisations have some form of
procurement strategy ranging from decen-
tralised and individual buying at the operating
unit or site level to full supplier performance
management on a global basis with strategic
suppliers working on collaborative develop-
ment and marketing of services and products.
E -procurement is increasingly being
adopted as part of the drive for the efficient sup-
ply chain and is moving from the early adopter
phase of the deployment cycle into a commod-
ity process.
You can describe three phases in the pro-
curement development plan.
(i) Enabling communication - purchase 2
Pay, Order 2 Cash, catalogues
32 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
(ii) Domain collaboration - customer rela-
tionship management, product development,
joint marketing
(iii) Product and service optimisation -
supply chain, planning / execution, information
sharing.
As you go through the phases, the impor-
tance and complexity of the supplier relation-
ship increases, and the shared value of the trad-
ing relationship increases.
Procurement implementration filters
Many organisations implement key filters dur-
ing the procurement process and these can be
used to help prioritise suppliers during the seg-
mentation process. These are some common fil-
ters:
Gated vs. Non-Gated - Suppliers with
contracts and good governance around the buy-
ing process can be classed as non-gated suppli-
ers. Organisations often allow direct purchas-
ing from these suppliers without procurement
intervention. Gated suppliers may have con-
tracts in place yet a check or intervention is
forced in the buying process to ensure any buy-
ing activity is authorized.
Contracts and Price Books available -
This implies that the supplier could be capable
of implementing an electronic catalogue. This
is usually a prerequisite for non-gated suppli-
ers.
Volume and Value Thresholds - Spend
thresholds are the most frequent filter used to
target suppliers, many organisations target their
procurement improvement opportunities on the
top 20 per cent of suppliers which make up 80
per cent of spend.
Large transactional volume suppliers of-
fer the most opportunity to implement efficien-
cies in the document exchange with suppliers
and are typically the targets for the implemen-
tation of electronic B2B document exchange.
Know the benefits
A sample of the various e-Procurement bene-
fits is shown below. Each benefit enhances the
supply chain process in its own discrete way.
An organisation's position on the procure-
ment development axis will limit which bene-
fits can be brought to bear.
Each organisation must therefore set its
own procurement improvement targets in line
with its e-procurement maturity.
Compliance benefits (transparency and
visibility of spend for regulatory purposes, map
spend to preferred suppliers against known con-
tracts)
Transactional benefits (automate pur-
chasing, automate purchase to pay process);
Management information benefits
(have information to improve the procurement
process)
Price benefit (have a higher spend with
preferred suppliers potentially leading to im-
proved discount)
Payment benefits (electronic invoicing,
electronic funds transfer, reduced payment pro-
cessing burden)
Intangible benefits (visibility of supplier
performance, getting easier financial approval
for spend, knowledge of employees' roles in the
procurement process, implementing master da-
ta management).
Channel delivery strategy
There are many e-procurement delivery mech-
anisms, or channels, examples being RFx,
PCARD, B2B, WebPortal, Catalogues, paper/
fax, e-mail, and ERS.
For each channel it is important to under-
stand the value delivered by engaging suppliers
using the channel.
Many organisations assume that a com-
prehensive list of channels is needed to ensure
complete cover for supplier enablement and yet
they have not determined the cost to deploy or
the benefits derived from the channel.
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 33

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Oil and gas production
Understanding this benefit allows a prag-
matic approach to deployment, for example, if
it costs $1000/year to support a supplier on a
web portal and the supplier only submits 12
documents/year with benefits from using the
portal being $10 per transaction, should the or-
ganisation deploy the portal to that supplier?
Supplier performance management
Classifying suppliers for e-procurement has to
be aligned with and should be steered by the
classification used for ranking suppliers by the
procurement function.
In this way, e-procurement becomes an in-
tegral part of the procurement function's every-
day activities and is seen to enhance supply
chain management activities, an important step
to gaining ownership for e-procurement.
Supplier Preference
Each organisation will have its own measures
to determine how suppliers are classified as pre-
ferred suppliers.
An industry accepted model is the Suppli-
er Preference Quadrant; parameters to the quad-
rant can include items such as ease of doing
business with, are we a key customer for Sup-
plier, dependence on customer revenues for the
supplier, is it a critical supplier for buying or-
ganisation.
Supplier Classification
Purchasing organisations with the most devel-
oped supply chains tend to have rationalised
each supplier according to a set of criteria such
as Strategic, Value Added, Leveraged or Local.
Furthermore, the best buying organisa-
tions will not only have mapped each supplier
into their particular hierarchy, they will also be
engaging with the suppliers in a manner which
is in accordance with the position in the hierar-
chy.
Understanding and positioning suppliers
in the hierarchy is an integral part of supplier
segmentation, it dictates the amount of effort a
buying organisation is willing to put into estab-
lishing and maintaining supplier engagement.
An example hierarchy is shown below:
Top Tier - Strategic Alliance/Partnership
- Top handful of suppliers that are critical to the
34 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
success of a business and with whom collabo-
rating programs are in place governed by exec-
utive sponsorship
Middle Tier - Critical Relationships -
Those hundreds of suppliers that are critical to
sustaining the day-to-day operations across an
organisation yet which may not be participat-
ing in a collaborative end product (Global or
Regional, Direct Suppliers)
Foundation Tier - Local suppliers criti-
cal to a small portion of Operations and those
thousands of suppliers who have a purely trans-
actional relationship (Local MRO, Indirect
Suppliers).
There is normally many more suppliers in
the foundation tier than the middle tier, and on-
ly a handful in the top tier.
Supplier technology progression
Supplier capability can limit the adoption of an
e-commerce strategy if an organisation's sup-
plier base is technically more than one-step
away from its customer. There are tools and
processes available to assess the readiness of
your supplier base.
It is important to understand that your
channel delivery strategy has external depend-
encies, a major one being the ability and readi-
ness of your suppliers to embrace the technolo-
gy required to implement the channel.
Matching the right channel delivery with
your suppliers based on business benefit de-
rived is a key activity performed during the
Supplier Road Mapping.
Industry standards
An area which progresses slowly, is the devel-
opment of standards for e-business document
exchange.
Having said that, there are numerous stan-
dards available, some industry specific, some
technology focused.
Successful Supplier Segmentation will
adopt the right standards for each commodity
sector in your organisation whilst ensuring a
strategy for adopting the least number of stan-
dards is the prudent approach.
The standards adoption strategy needs to
address these specific areas:
B2B Document Standards (both XML
and Legacy EDI); secure and reliable Internet
Protocol (IP) standards; data standards for clas-
sification of products and services; and cata-
logue access standards to enable the procure-
ment process.
Knowing the norms of operation within
your industry allows the selective adoption of
channels for e-procurement.
If your industry is well advanced at im-
plementing EDI, this can be considered an in-
dustry norm and your supplier base should be
receptive to implementing this channel technol-
ogy.
Know Your Spend
Most organisations do not progress past this
phase of data collection and simply use the his-
torical spend and transaction count as the basis
for the whole supplier segmentation strategy.
Parametric tools have been developed and
used effectively to perform this analysis and
when tied to the business case ensure projec-
tion of maximum benefits is sustained.
Summary of inputs
Supplier Segmentation sits within a framework
of a larger purchasing activity, the key inputs
that need to be considered are as follows:
Supplier performance; supplier technolo-
gy capability; procurement strategy and goals;
industry standards; supplier classification; sup-
plier preference; supplier supply chain perform-
ance; channel strategy; transaction volume and
spend; current procurement implementations;
industry operating norms.
This is part one of a two part article on sup-
plier segmentation - part on discusses the
steps to identify and prepare for a benefits
driven supplier segmentation strategy, and
part 2, to be published in the January 2008
issue of Digital Energy Journal, discusses
applying the knowledge captured to gener-
ate a supplier road map, matching the most
effective supplier enablement channel with
the supplier profile, and deliver the biggest
business value.
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:18 Page 35
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 36
Oil and gas production
Improve your rig scheduling
Vancouver company Actenum has 5 mathematics Phds developing algorithms to optimise scheduling.
Saudi Aramco uses it to optimise their rig scheduling, other companies use it for planned maintenance.
The software goes through all the possible
assignments of rigs to well locations, to work
out which one is the optimum according to
different metrics, for example net present
value or maximised production.
The software can quickly recalculate
the optimum way to deploy the rigs after any
operational change-for example, a break-
down, or drilling taking longer than expect-
ed-so producers always know what expected
rig movements and costs will be, and how to
reschedule rigs as conditions change and dis-
ruptions occur.
The software takes into consideration
the daily rate at which a rig is chartered out
(fixed at the time of the charter), and its
transportation cost.
"Normally, when you reschedule, you
do it based on your past experience and
knowledge. But you do it in the dark. You
don't really know ahead of time if your deci-
sions are going to be productive or not, or if
they will cost a lot of money," says
Actenum's marketing manager Owen Plow-
man. "Our tool lets you assess the value of
your decision."
"Saudi Aramco tested the software for
3 months, used it in a major planning exer-
cise, and then they came back and said we're
getting some results from it, and they signed
up," says Mr Plowman.
Actenum's software is used by Saudi Aramco to optimise
scheduling for 135 drilling and workover rigs
36 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
Producers can use Actenum's software
to make sure that they always have their rigs
scheduled in an optimum way, and can also
quickly work out the costs of any changes.
"They have to decide, is it worth mov-
ing a particular rig?," he says.
"For example, when you are going to
send a rig to a particular well, and the rig is
not ready when expected, you might have 2
other suitable rigs which are available, but
quite far away," he says. "The software will
help you determine which one you should
bring in, based on the schedule for the rig."
The tool can also enable rigs to be re-
scheduled after a change to the drilling plan.
For example, there might suddenly be a re-
quirement to drill more wells, that wasn't in
the schedule before, or wells which had been
planned and no longer required. Drillers
might want to move certain wells up in the
schedule because they are more important,
for example injection wells.
Many companies use Microsoft Excel
for this kind of work, but Actenum's soft-
ware can do a lot more than Excel can.
"If management asks how much more
production would result from adding a rig,
it's very hard to get an answer like that using
Excel," Mr Plowman says. "If you use our
Rig Activity Scheduler you can answer a
question like that in 30 seconds."
Maintenance
Actenum's technology was originally put
through its paces scheduling planned main-
tenance jobs for a Canadian oil sands com-
pany.
"If a
company
has 12 large
pieces of
equipment
made up of
2,000 sub
assemblies,
including
pumps,
valves,
compres-
sors,
pipelines
and pro-
30 seconds to work out how
cessing
much more production you
units, the would get from adding
software another rig - Owen Plowman,
will auto- Actenum
matically produce a preventative mainte-
nance schedule for all that equipment for any
given time period," says Mr Plowman.
"If things break down, or you find out
that a maintenance crew will be delayed for
some reason, the software can revise the
schedule quickly and intelligently.
A Saudi Aramco employee heard
Actenum giving a conference presentation
on maintenance scheduling, and realised the
approach could also work for rig scheduling.
Actenum has also been asked to look at
using its technology to optimise steam as-
sisted gravity drainage (SAGD) projects in
the Alberta oil sands.
Actenum
Actenum was founded in 2003, to commer-
cialise optimization research work started at
a university in Vancouver. The company still
has close links to the research community.
The optimization technology is based
on new mathematical techniques; of
the 18 employees, 5 of them have PhDs
in a specific area of mathematics, Mr Plow-
man says.
Actenum will present a joint paper with
Saudi Aramco at the ATCE in Anaheim this
year, entitled 'Increasing production and re-
ducing rig costs in complex drilling opera-
tions."
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 37
Wintershall central monitors North
Sea platforms
www.wintershall.com
Wintershall has installed what it claims is
one of the most modern platform control
rooms in the world, for centrally monitoring
Views of Wintershall's control room for monitoring 18 gas production platforms in the North Sea with (top right) Dr. Ties Tiessen, member of the
board of executive directors of Wintershall responsible for production, and Theo Bergers, operations manager of Wintershall Noordzee, at the
platform control rooms in Den Helder.
CapRock launches enhanced remote
video streaming
www.caprock.com
Oil and gas satellite communications com-
pany CapRock has upgraded its satellite re-
mote video service, enabling users to see
proper streaming video from offshore oil
platforms, rather than rapid image snapshots
as it provided in the past, the company says.
The company suggests that the service
could be used for sending image data from
cameras on remote operated vehicles
(ROVs) back to shore, so experts can view
the images from the cameras in real time and
diagnose potential problems from the office,
without the need for expensive remote as-
sessments.
Sending underwater images tends to re-
quire a much higher image resolution than
video from above water, CapRock says.
Secure access to the video is available
through the Internet or clients’ private net-
works.
and control its 18 gas production platforms
in the Dutch sector of the North Sea. Com-
munications will be by microwave radio.
This means that it should no longer be
necessary to staff the control rooms onboard
the platform during night time, the company
SeaTel antennas with Hughes modems
www.hns.com
Hughes Network Systems reports that it has
completed interoperability testing between
its IP satellite broadband modems and Sea-
Tel marine stabilized VSAT satellite commu-
nications antennas.
The two companies have put their prod-
ucts together to create a packaged maritime
VSAT system which can be used offshore.
Users can take advantage of the band-
width allocation and quality of service tech-
niques on Hughes modems.
Brunei Shell extends asset tracking
contract
www.astratagroup.com
Brunei Shell Petroleum has extended its as-
set tracking services contract with Astrata
until September 2008.
Astrata provides services for tracking
assets using a mixture of wireless communi-
cations, GPS, and geographical software.
November - December 2007 - digital energy journal
Communications
says. Wintershall also believes it can make
substantial savings in materials procurement,
maintenance, production planning, staff
planning and logistics.
Total investment in the system is Euro
11.5m (USD 16.3m).
RigNet's Mark Slaughter now CEO
www.rig.net
Oil and gas satcom company RigNet reports
that Mark Slaughter, appointed president and
COO in January this year, has taken on the
role of CEO.
Mr Slaughter has 20 years experience
in oilfield services and communications, in-
cluding various senior roles in Halliburton
and as president of Stratos Global Corpora-
tion’s Broadband Division.
RigNet co-founder, Omar Kulbrand-
stad, who had been serving as CEO, will
continue as a director of the company. Mr
Slaughter will also retain the title of presi-
dent, but the COO position will remain un-
filled.
Meanwhile Michael Press has been ap-
pointed to RigNet's board of directors.
Mr Press spent 17 years with Standard
Oil Company where he was VP corporate
planning and later senior VP Crude Trading
and Transportation.
37
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 38
Communications
Wi-fi on offshore oil platforms
The time is right for wi-fi on offshore oil platforms, believes automation giant Invensys
Most of us are getting quite familiar with wi-
fi now, we've used it at home, in the office,
and when travelling.
The experience many of us have had
with wi-fi so far has been mixed.
We all know it's extremely convenient,
you can do your e-mail at home downstairs
on a laptop, you can steal your neighbours'
internet connection when yours isn't work-
ing, and get your e-mail at airports.
But on the downside, often it doesn't
work, you can't log onto your own network,
you don't have the coverage you need in your
own house, there's not much point in being
wireless when your battery runs out, and you
know that you're not supposed to be letting
your neighbour use your own wi-fi network
(even if you don't know how to stop him).
So with these concerns, it's not surpris-
ing that most oil and gas companies are tak-
ing a very cautious approach to putting wi-fi
on their offshore oil platforms.
But automation giant Invensys believes
that most of the concerns, including about
security, ease of use, battery life and cover-
age, can now be answered. So you just get
the extraordinary benefits without the prob-
lems.
Today's industrial wireless communica-
tions technology is just as reliable as cable,
Invensys believes, and there are plenty of
further advantages of wireless communica-
tions, including the flexibility, ease of instal-
lation, and lack of need to lay cables.
Many older oil and gas installations
have problems with corrosion on cable trays,
which means they face expensive rewiring
jobs. It can prove much cheaper to fit a wire-
less system to an old oil and gas installation
rather than refit all of the cabling and cable
trays.
Ultimately, Invensys sees these tools as
taking oil companies to what is becoming
something of a Holy Grail, being able to re-
duce the number of experienced personnel
which need to be working on the rig, by hav-
ing experienced personnel working in their
homes or shore offices communicating with
the rig.
Invensys is not aiming to promote any
specific products, but is more focusing on
providing the service of wireless solutions.
So it does not have any incentive to try to
sell you more equipment; some of its com-
petitors, the company says, sometimes act as
though this is their main priority.
38 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
The biggest obstacle is the challenge of
persuading people to make the first step and
start testing things out - people are very com-
fortable with their wires.
But Stuart Young, Invensys' principal
account manager for upstream oil and gas,
North West Europe, says that many oil and
gas companies are currently showing inter-
est in the technology with a view to in-
stalling it.
The first full scale implementation has
already been made in 2006 on a PEMEX rig
in the Gulf of Mexico, with data being com-
municated over 24 mile distances at speeds
of 24 mbps.
BP is also doing a few pilot projects on-
board offshore oil platforms to see how well
it works.
There are a few wireless installations in
the US, but on shore installations, not off-
shore.
What you can do with it
Once everything is set up with wi-fi, it be-
comes possible to do many things, including
read devices and change controls remotely.
Invensys has set up a wireless demon-
stration centre in its offices in Aberdeen,
which can indicate how you can read a me-
ter, or change settings on a remote device,
by touching the screen of your palm pilot,
even if the device is in another room.
No longer is it necessary to physically
go to the specific meter to read it or change
it.
You don't need to completely reinstall
all your electronics in order to do it; every-
thing Invensys makes is backwards compat-
ible to 1987 - or in other words, so long as
you originally installed it after 1987, Inven-
sys will make sure it works with the equip-
ment it is fitting today.
Invensys is also developing software
tools which can connect the platform control
systems with enterprise management soft-
ware such as SAP, so the systems which
business managers use can take data directly
from the control systems.
Personnel can be wirelessly enabled as
well. Invensys suggests a device which is fit-
ted to the person's safety helmet, which also
has a panic button on it, and can tell if the
person lies down (eg if he has collapsed) and
sounds the alarm.
By connecting the person with the
equipment, the computer system can sound
an alert if someone turns the wrong valve.
Wireless technologies can be used to
work out where people are, by triangulating
the strength of signal from their communi-
cations devices with different fixed trans-
ceivers.
Another suggestion is that people could
have a 'mote' (a wireless communications
modem) clipped to their back pocket (inside
the safety suit).
They can then wear a throat micro-
phone, which will enable them to speak to
someone remotely over the wi-fi.
Coverage
One of the biggest challenges is coverage -
making sure the wireless communications is
available and absolutely reliable.
Invensys takes pride in its ability to
make sure the platform has adequate wire-
less coverage for the task in hand.
Invensys conducts a comprehensive
study, to work out where to place the
transponders, and what the coverage will be
like with its planned transponder locations.
Then it can calculate how good the ra-
dio coverage will be to an accuracy of
99.994 per cent.
Saturation wireless coverage is not
cheap; therefore the oil and gas company, to-
gether with the service provider, may decide
that there are certain areas of the installation
(for example, in the tank farm), where wire-
less coverage will not be provided.
The final radio coverage will also de-
pend on the temperature and climate (eg hu-
midity in the air), and this can all be taken
into account when working out how good a
proposed transponder layout will be.
To keep in the forefront of wireless
technology developments, Invensys is is ac-
tively involved in the Wireless Industrial
Networking Alliance (WINA); the current
president of WINA, Hesh Kagan, is also In-
vensys' director of technology.
Security
You might be worried about security - if you
can control your equipment remotely, then it
could be controlled from a pirate's boat half
a mile away, as much as from the accommo-
dation block.
Invensys' answer to this problem is to
have very, very good IT security.
The company considers its encryption
standard 'government grade'.
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 39
Invensys believes that its WPA2 secu-
rity system would take about 10 years of a
Cray supercomputer to crack the encryption
(or four Cray computers working together
for 2.5 years).
In order to access the system, you need
to have 4 independent data keys correct.
Different technologies
Invensys is working with different wireless
technologies.
Offshore Communications Houston
There will be some exciting offshore satellite communications technology on display at Offshore
Communications event in Houston
Offshore Communications, to be held in Hous-
ton on November 6-8, is the largest conference
and exhibition in the world focusing on com-
munications in the oil and gas industry.
Conference topics include microwave
communications, fibre optic submarine net-
works, optimizing satellite connections, Asia
Pacific satellite communications, telemedicine,
regulatory and licensing, economics, hybrid
systems, incident response, tracking equipment
and personnel, and remote monitoring.
Here is our round-up of some of the new
technology which will be on display at the ex-
hibition.
RigNet
www.rignet.com
RigNet, which claims to provide communica-
tions services for 25 per cent of the world’s off-
shore rigs, will exhibit its special services for
oil and gas satellite communications.
This includes RigNet Medical, a
telemedicine service
RigNet Data Management, sending
drilling data from rigs back to shore
RigNet SOIL, a private data and collabo-
ration network with guaranteed security, relia-
bility and performance
RigNet Wifi, providing wi-fi onboard rigs
for casual and business use.
RigNet is based in Houston and has of-
fices in Louisiana, Brazil, Malaysia, Nigeria,
Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, UAE
and the UK.
CapRock
www.caprock.com
CapRock will exhibit its video streaming serv-
ices, which can be used for remote engineering
and problem diagnosis, off-site data analysis
and collaboration.
The services can be used for monitoring
subsea maintenance and repair operations from
shore, installations and cleanup.
Communications
"WiMax" technology can send data up another, and all the wireless devices in the
to 50 km - this is different to the "wi-fi" most area can talk to each other, so there is no sin-
of us are familiar with, with a much shorter gle point of failure in the system - eg if one
range. of them breaks, then the data communica-
Data could be downloaded over WiMax tions will continue.
to support vessels around the rig. It can also Zigby uses small (approx 6 inch cube)
be used for rig to rig communications. computers which are fitted around the plant,
A variant of wi-fi is Zigby, which can called 'motes', each with a battery life of 44
be used for 'mesh' communications. Like months.
with the internet itself, there are many dif- These computers can be positioned
ferent routes data can take from one place to close to plant equipment.
Arqiva can find out the
www.arqiva.com exact weather
UK satellite communications company Arqiva and wave
will demonstrate its competency as internation- height condi-
al satellite experts, providing satellite coverage tions on the
through 10 teleports and 100 uplinks around the platform or rig.
world. It also would
It will present its range of satellite solu- know how
tions for the offshore oil market, including ad- much a drilling
vice, license support, design, installation and rig is moving in
maintenance of satellite communications sys- the water, its
tems. position, anchor
tension, inclina-
RigStat - record and
Patriot Antenna tion, and im- transmit weather data,
www.sepatriot.com ages of the rigs motion data and video on
Patriot Antenna Systems of Michigan will ex- condition. an offshore oil platform -
hibit its 1.0m backpack antenna (see photo), The data useful if you have to
which can communicate in Ku and Ka bands. is communicat- evacuate all personnel
The antenna folds up to fit in a backpack ed back to shore
and weighs under 65 pounds. It can be set up in by satellite, ei-
10 minutes and has tools to fine tune the eleva- ther low earth orbiting satellites (Iridium / Glob-
tion so it points accurately at the satellite. alstar / Orbcomm /) or by Inmarsat, and is view-
able by Internet browser.
RigStat The service was developed during 2004.
www.rigstat.com Already, over 20 systems have been imple-
RigStat of Sug- mented in the Gulf of Mexico, one in Australia
ar Land, Texas, and one in Nova Scotia.
will be exhibit- "We provide a robust, cost effective solu-
ing its rig log- tion under $100,000," says Russ Roy, CEO.
ging system,
which can log Global Marine
data about www.gms-telecoms.com
weather, motion UK submarine cable company Global Marine
and images of will exhibit its new joint venture work with
an offshore oil Huawei of China, to provide telecoms services
platform or Patriot Antenna Systems - a using submarine cables.
drilling rig. Ku band antenna you can The joint venture combines Huawei’s ex-
carry around in a backpack
The serv- pertise in fibre optics with Global Marine’s ex-
ice is designed pertise in submarine cable engineering.
to display, store and transmit information that The joint venture expects to win 20 con-
reflects conditions on the rig, especially during tracts in 2007, totaling 100,000 cable kilome-
evacuations (for example, during a severe storm ters, including from two transpacific cabling
or hurricane). contracts and a number of medium sized (2,000
So, for example, an oil and gas company to 10,000km) projects.
November - December 2007 - digital energy journal 39
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 40
Communications
Uplogix
www.uplogix.com
Uplogix, based in Austin, Texas, specializes in
remote management technology. It will demon-
strate its Envoy equipment, which can be used
to connect remote systems with a satellite com-
munications network, for remote monitoring.
It will demonstrate its Envoy Manage-
ment System (EMS), which enables a compa-
ny to manage the data streams from its Envoy
applications around the world.
SES New Skies
www.ses-newskies.com
SES New Skies will exhibit its satellite com-
munications services used by the oil and gas in-
dustry.
SES New Skies has seven satellites, with
two new ones under construction, providing
Adjust your satcom power on the fly
Hughes Network Solutions has launched a new satellite communications technology, DVB-S2, which enables
the power of satellite communications to vessels and offshore platforms to be automatically adjusted.
Users of satellite communications on offshore
platforms have long been aware that the com-
munication speed often drops during rain.
But with DVB-S2 technology, the power
of the satellite signal can automatically be in-
creased to compensate for the rain's effect on
the connectivity.
For users of VSAT on vessels, the DVB-
S2 technology can be used to automatically in-
crease the power of the satellite signal, as the
vessel moves towards the edge of the satellite
footprint.
Satellites are set up to point at certain ar-
eas of the world, and the signal is much stronger
in the middle of the beam than at the edge.
Users of VSAT terminals can typically
spend a lot of time adjusting the system to try
to get the best signal, and this is no longer nec-
essary with this technology.
"It's always seeking the optimal transmis-
sion point," says Dave Rehbehn, marketing di-
rector of Hughes Network Systems. "It's
squeezing out the most bandwidth, continually
and automatically."
The specific technology involved is called
Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) and
Adaptive Inbound Selection.
Growing market
Mr Rehbehn says that the market for satellite
communications in the oil and gas industry is
growing, with much of the growth due to de-
mands from employees for more communica-
40 digital energy journal - November - December 2007
coverage of all ocean regions.
In the oil and gas / maritime industry, the
services are used for voice / data / internet /
video communications, fleet management,
weather monitoring, and ship to ship commu-
nications.
SeaTel
www.seatel.com
SeaTel is travel mug sponsor of the event.
It will be draw-
ing attention to
its new 60cm
Ku band VSAT
antenna, which
is fully compli-
ant with FCC’s
04-286, WRC-
03 resolution SeaTel VSAT antenna
tions for personal use.
"These guys are away from home for a
long period of time," he says. "It's nice to be
able to get on the internet, and stay in touch with
your family."
Hughes is involved in a number of instal-
lations on Gulf of Mexico platforms to enable
workers to communicate over the satcom link
via their mobile phones.
This works particularly well when there
are a number of platforms in close proximity,
because one system can provide a mobile serv-
ice to all of them.
Mr Rehbehn estimates that the costs of
mobile phone calls from the platforms can be
as low as 2 cents per minute.
Many platforms are also setting up voice
over IP systems, so that voice calls made on the
platform can connect with terrestrial VOIP sys-
tems such as Skype. The amount of data re-
quired to send Skype calls over a satellite can
be as low as 5 kbps, there is very little data over-
head from the IP protocol.
Another driver for satcoms on platforms
is systems to send equipment monitoring data
back to shore.
Ku band
Mr Rehbehn says that technology for Ku band
VSAT has improved a great deal in recent years.
"In recent years, the satellites have got
more powerful, new communications technolo-
gies like DVB have been implemented, anten-
902 and ETSI’s latest EN 320 340.
Infosat
www.infosat.com
Infosat Communications will exhibit satellite
communications equipment and services for In-
marsat, Iridium, Msat and Connect. This in-
cludes Inmarsat BGAN and
It will also demonstrate its security and
audio-video services, providing closed circuit
TV, access control and audiovisual equipment.
Deltawave Communications
deltawavecomm.com
Deltawave Communications of Louisiana will
exhibit a range of Inmarsat satellite communi-
cations services for oil and gas, including a
FleetBroadband maritime terminal and the new
family of isatPhone mobile Inmarsat terminals.
na technology has been continually improved
and antenna cost has reduced," he says.
"We think there are exciting opportunities
to use Ku band in regional areas - such as the
Gulf of Mexico and North Sea," he says.
Ku band satellites have smaller antennas
than C band, but only cover regions of the
world, whilst C band can cover the whole
world. "With the bigger the antenna, the costs
dramatically increase," he says.
"You can do Ku band with a 60cm effec-
tively. With C band, you're talking 1.8 or 2.4m.
It's a huge difference."
However the long promised Ku full roam-
ing services, where users can go from one Ku
satellite to another, is not yet available, he says.
"Its not like GSM handsets," he says. "We
don't know of anybody who's able to take a re-
mote terminal and go from one DVB RCF sys-
tem to another. I don't think you're going to see
roaming."
Instead, service providers are putting to-
gether systems which can work in different
parts of the world, but as long as they are on the
same satellite constellation, such as Intelsat or
SES.
Dave Rehbehn, marketing director of
Hughes Network Systems, will speak about
the new technology at the upcoming Off-
shore Communications event in Houston
(Nov 6-8).
novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:05 Page 41

2nd Annual
Standards Summit & Reception

Open Data Exchange Standards are part of the critical path to fully implement
Integrated Operations for Production Optimization and greater Operational Efficiency.

Join oil and gas industry leaders from around the world for a one-day, open forum to discuss:

T Collaborative Standards Development

T Global Standards Adoption
T Deep Standards Deployment

Date: Tuesday, 6 November 2007

Location: St. Regis Hotel, Houston, Texas USA

Theme: How Open Standards Enable Knowledge, Information and Data Management

Agenda: T North America Region & SIG Meeting

O WITSML Drilling Standards
O PRODML Production Standards
O Data Management Standards
T General Session
O Keynote address by Dr. Agustín Diz of Repsol YPF
O Round Table moderated by Mr. Bill Pike of Hart’s Energy Publishing
O Public Forum
T Reception

Come see us at:

IPTC Dubai
4-6 December

Hyderabad 2008
14-16 January

EnergyTech-Africa
Sponsors: 23-24 January

For more details about Energistics and online registration, visit www.energistics.org. or
email Energistics at membership@energistics.org or call +1.713.784.1880

© 2007, Energistics. All rights reserved.

novdec07.qxp 19/10/2007 16:06 Page 42

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© 2007 Halliburton. All rights reserved.

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