Actenum presents at AAPG Workshop: Improving collaboration and enhancing performance through effective integrated scheduling

Actenum’s Owen Plowman presented this month at AAPG’s 2nd Workshop on Maximizing Asset Value: Integrating Geoscience with Reservoir Management & Technologies Optimization.

Abstract:

Oil & Gas operators are constantly striving to improve performance. But what does this really mean, and what does it require? Experience gained over the last ten years of working closely with operators has led to several conclusions, together with some illustrative examples from real-world practice. 

“Improving performance” means, broadly speaking, improving performance of the well delivery process, and this is tied to two initiatives: (1) working towards the goal of smoothly delivering many tens or hundreds of wells to production every year, according to a published schedule and budget; (2) continually seeking ways to improve timing and costs of those well delivery operations to increase return on capital employed. 

There are many factors that influence positive well delivery performance. Some of those commonly seen among operators considered to be best-in-class include:

• Sustained leadership commitment for change, both organizational and technical;
• Determination of Key Performance Indicators that will be used to measure performance (“What gets measured gets improved”);
• Ensuring that all disciplines in the well delivery value chain are committed and able to collaborate effectively with each other, through an integrated business operations model;
• Minimizing the barriers to rapid and accurate access to any required data, from any discipline;
• An open attitude towards changes in business process and workflow that may be needed to increase agility and positioning for success;
• Adoption of a flexible and sophisticated planning and scheduling platform incorporating optimization, with a capability that enables the rapid creation and evaluation of multiple development plans and operational scenarios;
• The presence of rapid and effective feedback loops between all disciplines—from subsurface to reservoir to drilling/completions—to enable effective decision-making and reconfiguration of operations in response to changes that may be required.

Operators may gain value from each of these factors separately, but adopting a well delivery process that encompasses all of them results in dramatic performance improvements: decreased cycle times, improved forecasting of costs and production, more efficient use of capital, the ability to rapidly reconfigure operations in response to recommendations from subsurface and/or planning, alignment of all aspects of operations, and enhanced ability to meet organizational targets.