Improving Operations Through Increased Accuracy of Production Data

Production Engineers have more and more information available and operating companies are trying to integrate that information and create an "integrated oil-field" with the main objectives of maximizing production and at the same time maximize recovery. One of the challenges in these types of approaches is the quality of production data. By not having accurate enough production data, the integration efforts are covered in a layer of haze, uncertainties. By combining advanced data validation and data reconciliation techniques it is possible to improve the quality of production data and quantifying all flows, temperatures, pressures and compositions throughout the production network.This technology has been applied in the downstream area for years and are now more and more being deployed in oil and gas production. The main goal is to provide accurate flow of oil, gas and water in each production well, but it can and has been applied to water injection systems, gas fuel and flare systems, FPSO's etc.It has been shown that it is possible to provide accurate production data in a production network. In particular, it has been shown that even on wells that do not have multi phase flow meters, it is possible to determine the flow of oil, gas and water with an uncertainty of less than 10%. In addition it provides other types of virtual meters, in general a production network with x measurement, would have another 2*x measurements validated and reconciled. Also by comparing measured data with validated and reconciled data it is possible to draw some conclusions; for example sensors and equipment that need maintenance can be identified much earlier and maintenance can move towards conditioned based, predictive maintenance.This is a digital technology that can help operators have a better understanding of how their assets are performing and can help in increasing recovery from each well in the production network. Injection schemes can be performed more optimally and capacity from a field can be expanded in a cost effective way.