Digital technology can do more than ever before, but human brain power still brings something important to the table.
Speaking during a panel session at SPE’s Artificial Lift Conference and Exhibition on 20 August, experts noted that digital tech is rapidly evolving and that the industry is finding ways to harness such advances to produce more hydrocarbons.
For starters, different digital tools have reached different levels of maturity.
Courtney Richardson, Oxy’s lead for QA/QC–ORCM artificial lift, said predictive design software provides a fundamental base for design work although it still requires some hands-on effort, but auto-validated well testing is further along.
“We've got these smart processes in place that can auto-validate well tests for us in large batches, and that frees up some time for us to do other things, like go hunt barrels,” she said.
She noted, however, that as the industry implements smart technologies and algorithms, “it's incredibly important for you to understand the logic behind it.”
Without understanding the underlying logic, she said, “you can very well auto-validate yourself” into production decline. “It's just very important that as we leverage these technologies that we also understand the logic and we build it around all the possible scenarios.”
Amine Zejli, senior petroleum engineer at Chevron Technical Center, said that at one time, digital solutions at Chevron were fairly well siloed by discipline.
“A lot of the data, a lot of the workflows that were used by the operators out in the field, by engineers in the office, the facility, engineers, asset management, were all different. So, they all had slightly different views of what's going on in the field,” he said.
One problem with that was that whenever a Chevron engineer created an innovative tool or workflow, it couldn’t easily be scaled across the enterprise. On the other hand, support and licensing costs for tools from external vendors could be significant, he said.
To solve this issue, Chevron created its own system based on a platform from an external vendor, and the system has replaced legacy systems in a number of Chevron fields and business units.
“We also set up a central organization and multidisciplinary organization to support, sustain, and grow the solution,” Zejli said, noting it supports automation and real-time optimization. “When you have a large number of wells being managed by a small number of engineers, you have to have automation in place.”
The platform’s modeling tool stack allows engineers to build reservoir and full-field models that represent the entire value chain, he said. Another tool stack, the engineering orchestrator, allows engineers to build their own workflows, while the data manager tool stack aggregates data across the enterprise.
“We have been able to enable engineers to build their own models, build their own workflows that they need to, or collaborate with the center to build them, build their own dashboard, or, again, collaborate with the center to build up and meet the engineering needs for that specific field, and at the same time reuse any capabilities” from other fields, he said.
Those workflows can be scaled across the company following a review process, providing a balance between too many controls and no controls, he said.
“You don't really want to handcuff engineers. They will figure out a way to build what they want to build, right?” he asked. “We try to find a middle ground.”
Workflows need data, and Frank Corredor, artificial lift Intelevate manager at Halliburton, said technology has made acquiring data easier than ever.
“IoT (Internet of Things) devices are helping us to enhance how we're capturing more data in the field,” he said.
Lawrence Camilleri, CEO of Camilleri & Associates, said real-time data could be used in a three-step plan to improve production. First, he said, data makes it clear where things stand.
“Rates and pressure are the longitude and latitude of the well. It tells us where we are,” he said, noting the next step is understanding the well’s potential. “And once we have rates and pressure, it's a walk in the park to characterize the inflow of the well and identify the full potential of the well.”
Once the potential is understood, it’s time to map out where the well should go and how it can get there.
“Real-time data is key, and we already see it in a lot of forms of artificial lift,” he said.
Beyond that, Camilleri sees potential for real-time data to help with power optimization.
“With the availability of real-time data, you can automate it on a continuous basis,” he said.
Reducing the power reduces operating costs while increasing the run life of equipment, he noted.
“If you optimize the efficiency, there's less power spent wearing out equipment,” he said.
Finding New Talent
As the number of people graduating with petroleum engineering degrees continues to decline, industry leaders are looking for ways to encourage people to enter the industry.
Richardson said if she were early in her career, she would be drawn by companies focused on investing in carbon capture and low-carbon technologies. A second draw would be in the form of work that involves artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The younger generation “grew up in the digital age” and would likely gravitate to work using those technologies, she said.
At the same time, she stressed the importance for the industry’s workforce to have a solid foundation in the fundamentals of their disciplines.
“We've got to draw them into the industry on those things, but we also have to make sure that we are growing their knowledge and giving them a good foundational base,” she said.
Zejli said the industry can bridge the gap by helping engineers from other disciplines learn the petroleum industry, but that the industry’s cyclicality often works against it.
“Stability of the career is a major concern for a lot of engineers, a lot of young students,” he said.
One thing he does during recruiting events is highlight the scale of what the industry does.
“I would anecdotally say that, you know, you build a workflow tool, a process, deploy it to a field that produces 120,000 barrels, and you get 3% uplift, and you will single- handedly have helped bring a million barrels online over a year,” he said.
Zejli compared that to one of his previous jobs as a software engineer at a tech company, “working on a widget that may get some users, or it may not, or programmatically moving pixels around. The impact is not there. So, I try to focus on the impact, the size of the problem,” he said. “That resonates a lot.”
Corredor said internships can help students gain a better understanding of the opportunities that exist in the oil and gas industry.
“It's a good way for us not just to capture talent in an early stage, but also to start planting the seed at universities, because after the internship, they're going back and they're going to start telling their friends about their experience,” he said.
Camilleri said a more holistic approach within the industry might encourage more to enter it.
“My vision of the future is we won't just be artificial lift engineers. We won't be production engineers. We won't be reservoir engineers. A bit like John Lennon's vision, imagining the world altogether, acting as one, and the engineer sees no limits to his application of maths and physics and that would attract more young people and would attract people from the broader spectrum,” he said.
