E&P Magazine - September 2006

Special Report

Tech Trends

dGB has launched OpendTect SSIS, a sequence stratigraphic interpretation system. In SSIS, seismic interpreters have new ways to visualize and analyze seismic data, which leads to better insights of sediment deposition, erosion and timing. In combination with OpendTect's neural networks plug-in, users can follow up with seismic facies clustering and study the resulting patterns and bodies, and their spatial distribution, in relation to geologic timing and system tracts.

Another Perspective

Analysis assures product flows

Flow assurance is a critical issue in offshore wells, and it becomes more and more critical as tieback distances and water depths increase. The right decisions are imperative because an operator will have to live with them through the life of a well or field or submit to expensive new solutions for a project already in place.

Design the intelligent well

Intelligent wells are about timely information and response. Designed to obtain real-time downhole data to gain critical wellbore and reservoir information, they are likewise equipped with the well completion and control technology to enable swift, responsive actions that minimize asset risk and optimize production.

Drift-off path prediction

With drilling operations moving to ever-harsher environments, there is an increased need to ensure drilling riser integrity in unplanned incidents such as loss of station keeping.

Working with a major drilling contractor, MCS has developed an on-board vessel/riser drift-off simulator for use on the latest generation of dynamically positioned (DP) drilling rigs.

E&P interviews Lukoil chairman

Russia can offer huge oil and gas reserves matched by huge engineering challenges to recovery. Lukoil Chairman of the Board Valery Isaakovitch Graifer, general chairman of the

2006 SPE Russian Oil and Gas Technical Conference and Exhibition, analyzed the Russian oil and gas industry during an interview.

Fields get smarter

Intelligent operations in the oil and gas exploration and production industry is a concept that has been coming into reality during the past few years. While exploration programs to find new hydrocarbon reserves can and must continue, the intelligent operations idea centers on known reservoirs.

Get news from downhole

Well monitoring and surveillance is the process driver for most of what counts as intelligent operations. Permanent monitoring of the production well bore and closely associated processes and infrastructure provide fundamentally better understanding of the well and reservoir.

Just scratching the surface

The term "what the market will bear" ideally should not apply to research and development. Unfortunately, it often does. Thus it is that the Exploration Geophysics Lab (EGL) at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas is studying gas hydrates.

New tool makes casing drilling faster

New top drive casing running and drilling system removes personnel and equipment from the rig floor, gets through trouble zones and cuts time off casing jobs. Conventional casing jobs run up against two time-consuming issues: First, the hole must be cleaned (reamed and wiped) in order to obtain a good cement job. This costs rig time and exposes the well bore to damage.

Optimizing drilling programs using full-wave imaging

In the late 1990s, the development and commercial availability of three-component (3-C) digital geophones ushered in a new era in seismic acquisition. Modern recording systems, along with the new 3-C digital sensors, made it possible to deploy and record large-scale multicomponent 3-D surveys.

Predict viscosity effects

A hydraulically valid model with the resultant viscosity predicting algorithms has been developed for lost circulation material (LCM) added to non-aqueous drilling fluids.

Measuring drilling fluid rheology for fluids containing LCM is difficult or impossible with a standard bob and sleeve rheometer because of the interference of the particles with the rotation of the sleeve in the narrow annular gap.

Pushing the limits in a fractured reservoir

The Colorado School of Mines Reservoir Characterization Project (RCP) is conducting time-lapse multicomponent seismic surveys at Rulison field, Piceance Basin, Colorado, to identify and monitor fracture zones in tight gas sands. Multicom-ponent seismic monitoring is being conducted in a tight gas development project for the first time, as downspacing to 10 acres is occurring.

Shear magic

It is becoming easier to get the message across about the value of land multicomponent seismic surveys. In the United States and Canada alone more than 150 projects have been undertaken using multicomponent acquisition systems which offer excellent coverage with survey sensors recording in the region of 18,000 channels.

The intelligent field comes full circle

The ultimate, perfected vision of intelligent operations is a closed loop with the reservoir simulation as the broad base of the system, ongoing operating parameters all captured in real time and fed into the simulation, and the continuously updated simulation becoming the driver for optimization decisions.

Update the intelligent model

Reservoir models are run more frequently, and the day could be approaching when they are continuously updated with real-time production well data. One thing everyone agrees on is that the industry is not there yet. There is debate about whether it actually will get there or getting all the way there will be useful enough to justify the effort.

Water detection plays critical role

An operator must measure water content to devise an effective flow maintenance plan.

A crucial component of flow assurance today is the need to predict and measure the water production profile in the well.