Digital Oilfields is collaboration with
production in focus (using the most extensive and technological use of the
collaboration term). Undoubtedly automation, instruments and control discipline
is a key player, from the base to the top of the automation pyramid inside an
oilfield initiative: From the instruments, control, HMI .. passing through the
special operation application up to the high level applications, reports and
key performance indicators.
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?
Today,
thanks to the digital oil field requirements, new technologies and companies
thirsty of competitiveness, there is a lot of points in the oilfield with a
high degree of advance automation,
complexity or advance operation applications. Not only in the base or
first steps of the pyramid, sometime in the middle application or in higher
levels.
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 ...
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