Issue: November 2018
Special Focus
Improving well pad profitability means increasing output or reducing costs. Wireless networking can help move both needles, enabling operators to reduce their cost basis through efficient facility construction and a scalable architecture.
New technologies perform decision-making locally to control chemical injection pumps at the wellsite and on pipelines, regardless of whether the pumps are tied to a SCADA system.
Oil companies have the opportunity to cut costs, recycle water, and improve yields using innovative field tested technologies. Water flood enhanced oil recovery (EOR) produced water desalination proved the cost of polymer can be cut by over 50%, while also recycling precious water. The electrodialysis reversal (EDR) technology with novel oil-tolerant ion exchange membranes may prove to be a new frontier in produced water treatment.
Features
The technologies and techniques presented significantly reduce deepwater subsea equipment installation and recovery costs, reduce upfront capital equipment cost and facilitate optimized field development.
Emblematic of the high-voltage development of unconventional resource plays is the growing attraction of beefed-up completions with high-proppant loadings and shorter distances between induced fractures.
Understanding how shale formations produce is challenging, due to variations in mineralogy/lithology and wetting characteristics. Once these mechanisms have been determined, operators can customize a completion strategy to maximize well performance.
Inside the Arctic Circle, oil and gas prospects rise and fall on international politics and global warming, as much as geology and the price of oil.
A survey of upstream professionals shows that, while operators are making progress in addressing water management issues, there is still plenty of work left to be done.
Advanced technology allows operators to reduce formation water, while maintaining oil and gas production.
Key process variables that contribute to mill-out fluid fouling, contamination and corrosion can be identified with adequate fluid testing. Case studies, from various Permian basin operators, provided the basis for a methodology to assess mill-out operations, and make process improvements that yield economic benefits.
Osorb Media Systems (OMS) have been under development and improvement for 13 years, with extensive engineering and commercialization over the last eight years. During that time, many applications were successfully identified and proven via laboratory and field tests.
The oil and gas industry, over its history, has become a “boom and bust” sector. Should this be acceptable? Do we accept the current downturn as another cycle, or use it as an opportunity to change?
Augmenting wireline data with drilling-derived geomechanical logs improves reservoir modeling and quickly identifies potential interference between two wells. The optimized approach enables engineers to correctly estimate NPV for a specific development scenario.
Columns
Fickle oil prices return to the market
New methane emission study to look at marginal wells
Deciding where to explore
“Blood from a stone”
Counting down the hits
“Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting”
Digital transformation: Start small, measure success— repeat as you scale
When green wins, a nation’s industry suffers
News & Resources
FAR Limited (15%)—alongside partners Cairn Energy (operator, 40%), Woodside (35%) and Senegal National Oil Co. (10%)—has submitted its Development and Exploitation Plan for SNE field, offshore Senegal.
Oil futures slumped 12% late in October, after hitting a four-year high earlier in the month.
Energean Oil & Gas PLC has appointed Iman Hill as COO.
Ashtead Technology has completed a subsea installation monitoring project for Subsea7 in support of Equinor’s Utgard development, in Blocks 15/8 (NCS) and 16/18a (UKCS) of the central North Sea.
Schlumberger has launched the CemFIT Shield mud-sealing cement system to address the challenges due to fluid communication behind casing.
