Sometimes we tend to think about advance automation or advance operation applications, just when we talk about downstream in the oil & gas market. What happen with upstream? (From the production well, up to the inlet refinery flange). Is the upstream linked just with tele-supervision, single control loops and simple HMI interfaces?
We will take a look to classic, specific and advance Automation applications and features in upstream that contribute to digital oilfields:
Some of the classic Automation application in upstream :
o Surface installations monitoring and control
o Process plants (treatment, injection, compression etc.) control
o Process plants Safety Systems
o Production wells (ESP, PCP, Mechanical, plunger lift, gas lift, Rotaflex etc.) monitoring and basic control.
o Remote measurement points monitoring
o Oilfield SCADA
o Pipelines monitoring and control (oil, gas and water)
o Electric power (generation and distribution) measurement, monitoring and control
PumpOff / Rof Pump Controller / Advance production well control :
o Real time well control and protection
o Surface and down hole dynamometric card
o Torque analysis
o Goodman analysis
Specific Automation application in upstream :
o Other wells advance control
o PCP (Progressive Cavity Pump)
o ESP (Electro Submergible Pump)
o Plunger Lift
o Gas Lift
o Injection well
o Other
o Pipe lines
o Leak detection and location (different techniques)
o Liquids administration
o Batch track
Advanced Automation application and advance features needed in upstream :
o Well test : There is a variety of well test technologies. Each apply in different oilfields and conditions. The advanced well test applications need to deal with four stages inside the digital oilfield initiative: To program the test, to execute the test, to control the test, to view and analyze the results. Other important issue is to integrate with other oilfield components : Telemetry wells, information production system, maintenance system etc.
o Oilfield balance : For a better understanding of the oilfield behavior, and with regard to optimize the production, you need to know how much oil, water and gas are you extracting, injecting, moving, storing, selling, buying, burning, treating, modifying and losing. The oilfield balance (in a partial o total way) finally joint the measurements from the well head, well test in battery, treatment plants, pipe lines, internal measurements and sales point, obtaining the overall efficiency and field factors. Some required features in a Oilfield balance : Flow balance, API corrected or energy balanced as appropriate. For digital oilfield contribution, the balance need to be flexible in information management. Linked with other corporative applications, integration with GIS, web deployment, multiple search filters etc. The measurement points, should be easily configured from the own balance interfaces. Recreate calculus (like AGA 3, AGA 10 e.g.), to corroborate the measurement, identify failures or supplement the computer instrument. Advance calculus like dew point or other chromatography relative calculus. Historical, current and predictive balances. Corrections by pressure, temperature, density. API compliance.
o Downtime management : In a small oilfield, or with a few production well control technologies and rotating machines, is easy manage the downtime. But in huge oilfields, and with several lift machines, injection pumps, air coolers and/or other rotating machines, became a real challenge. Image an oilfield with 4000 well, 12 or 14 different control lift technologies. How to keep the downtime metered and under control?.
o SNMP Telemetry : In an oilfield with 1000 wells or more, probably you will have 1200 control devices in a network or more. Count servers, workstation, printers and others devices too. To know the health of each site all the time will be a need . Some advance application, like the described before, will need the status of each site to know how to proceed.
o Sites administration and maintenance: Following with the same example, in an oilfield with 1000 wells or more, 12 or 14 different lift control technologies, you will add or modify the production wells (and control technologies) may be up to four to ten times a day. You will deploy this changes in the local HMI, the SCADA database, the relational databases, the historical databases and so on .. Up to 24 man hours for each new or modified well technologies will be used. Is a battalion of people, and you can make mistakes. There is some techniques to deploy it in a few steps, been do for a single maintenance operator.
o Alarm management: The amount of alarms generated are tremendous. Surely a study and an alarm management system based on the EEMUA 192 or ISA 18.2 is needed.
o High availability : The oilfield nonstop. The systems in the digital oilfield also not be stopped. Like in other systems, there is different techniques to guaranty the availability. The final selected solution depend of different conditions. Fault tolerance, hot or cold standby are some of the techniques more widely used in oilfields.
o High level report and KPIs : Almost at the top of the pyramid, the high level report and KPIs. Designed according with the business process, people and technologies, following the “life cycle” to obtain the better “dashboard” for the oilfield operation in the short, medium and long term.
o Special databases :An oilfield telemetry not only use huge real time databases. In such application are also used relational databases, time-indexed databases and multidimensional / data warehouse databases oriented to BI.
How automation is linked with a digital oilfield initiative: Regardless if it is a classic, advance or specially I&C solution for upstream, the important part is that the solution meet with the final objective decide through the Project Life Cycle, designed starting with the evaluation of the business process, people and technologies.
No one individual vendor has developed an unique solution for a digital oilfield, and our clients know it. The spectrum of need and possibilities are enormous. Some vendors are developed partial solutions or specialized isolated technologies. To have access to independent assessment at this point is a solution, developing concepts, engineering, design, integrating parts and development the final solution from an independent point of view. Even in disciplines or services not mentioned or nor identified yet ...
