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A Message from Our CEO
 We are well into 2011, and, as you will see in this edition of our newsletter, Knowledge Reservoir continues to gear up with expertise and new services aimed at assisting our clients with meeting the challenges ahead.
Events last year in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico cast a bright spotlight on the need for better understanding and monitoring of reservoir conditions, drilling, and production activity. Partly in response to these events, Knowledge Reservoir has launched a new division, Real-Time Systems, that will focus on delivering solutions to address situational awareness and rapid decision making in real time. To lead this initiative, we have selected individuals who will adapt and deploy their extensive expertise gained at NASA to an oil and gas frame of reference.
We are pleased to announce that the upgraded ReservoirKB North Sea will be available in a few months to help you benchmark your North Sea projects. It compiles publicly available data on all productive formations discovered within the North Sea area (UK and Norway), with a total data set of over 430 oil and gas fields.
We are excited about the growth of our international business units with multiple projects being executed in Angola, Malta, Oman, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea. As a result, we continue to staff up our hubs in London, Muscat, and Kuala Lumpur.
In the meantime, our US activities in the deepwater as well as in the various unconventional resource plays onshore continue to ramp up with various interesting and challenging projects.
We look forward to another successful year and to delivering solutions to our clients that are better smarter faster...
All the best,
Ivor
Knowledge Reservoir Launches Real-Time Systems Division
The upstream industry, particularly in relation to the offshore environment, is acknowledging the need for better understanding and monitoring of reservoir conditions, drilling, and production activity. Knowledge Reservoir’s solution comprises a unique integrated alliance with proven applications for events-based surveillance, command and control, complex events processing, and knowledge-based decision making in real-time drilling and production environments.
Knowledge Reservoir will provide services to develop knowledge management based situational awareness tools and integrate, test, operate, and maintain delivered real-time systems to client operations facilities. The company’s RTS division will provide integrated systems and services for Real-Time Command and Control and events-based surveillance solutions.
Cost sensitivities, HSE concerns, and project requirements have driven the need to rapidly develop and deploy real-time command and control systems in the oil and gas industry that can be used in multi-project roles. Knowledge Reservoir will employ commercial off the shelf technologies and tools to support the implementation of complex real-time systems to reduce operational and development costs and provide flexibility for expansion and future upgrades by leveraging commercial standards.
 Leading the RTS initiative at Knowledge Reservoir is Marv LeBlanc, an expert in systems engineering, telecommunications, program management, and corporate organizational development. Immediately prior to joining Knowledge Reservoir, LeBlanc was Vice President, Systems Engineering and CTO of Cimarron Software Services, Inc., a recognized leader in Real-Time Command & Control System Integration, playing a vital part in the design and implementation of NASA’s Mission Control facilities for the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. LeBlanc was also formerly Chief of Systems Engineering, Mission Control, with NASA.
Dr. Ivor R. Ellul, CEO of Knowledge Reservoir, commented, “The deployment of real-time systems is rapidly gaining momentum in the upstream industry. Few companies, however, maintain the technology and expertise to link knowledge capital to rapid decision making. At Knowledge Reservoir we leverage our upstream oil and gas subject matter expertise with leading edge systems engineering processes in the design and implementation of Situational Awareness Solutions. With our technical alliance partners, we are very excited to be leading this initiative in support of the industry’s evolving needs.”
LeBlanc added, “The oil and gas industry has reached the point where technology requirements have reached a critical level and cannot be propagated and supported successfully or cost-effectively by proprietary internal systems. At Cimarron we delivered a new paradigm to the Space and Oil and Gas industries - commercial 'off-the-shelf' technology and systems [COTS] with no custom programming or coding required, greatly reducing cost, improving efficiency and sustainability. The COTS solution is not about special hardware or equipment, but system integration engineering and real-time telemetry implementation, defined as the ability to ‘agnostically’ architect an efficient system in virtual and command center environments, at greatly reduced cost.”
Global Exploration and Production (E&P) Technical Resources
Knowledge Reservoir is ready to assist in your preparation for increased exploration and development activity. We offer highly experienced professionals whose outstanding talents and expertise can resolve reservoir, development, and production issues. Our services are flexible so you can utilize these resources on a long- or short-term project basis, or, alternatively, we can address your staffing needs through direct-hire placements.
In 2010, Knowledge Reservoir has successfully assembled multidisciplinary teams comprised of:
- unconventional resources experts, including an acclaimed oil shale team;
- flow assurance and pipeline modeling qualified engineers;
- geomodelers;
- deepwater multi-disciplinary teams;
- reserves and merger and acquisition experts;
- simulation teams with international experience;
- geologists, geophysicists, technicians, and petrophysicists; and
- project managers for projects requiring experience in offshore deepwater projects, shale, tight-gas, and CO2 flooding to name a few.
With a diverse talent database of over 10,000 technical professionals worldwide, Knowledge Reservoir is able to quickly staff projects for West Africa, Northeast Africa, Nigeria, Yemen, Oman, Abu Dhabi, India, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, China, Malaysia, Europe, as well as the continental U.S. and the shelf and deepwater offshore Gulf of Mexico.
Our recruiting software system and experienced oil and gas professionals make it possible for Knowledge Reservoir to immediately respond to our clients.
Knowledge Reservoir has extensive technical experience working in reservoir engineering, exploration and development geosciences, production and operations engineering, A&D, corporate planning, SEC reserve reporting, and project management.
Contact our sales personnel to start putting a team together today.
Phone: +1 (713) 586-5950
Email: info@knowledge-reservoir.com
New! ReservoirKBSM Now Includes Updated North Sea Module
Those who use our ReservoirKB Deepwater Gulf of Mexico database are already aware of the benefits of this all-inclusive source for oil and gas reservoir information. Recently, we overhauled the ReservoirKB North Sea module, bringing it up to date in the GIS format and including all pertinent data needed to benchmark your North Sea subsurface studies and gain insight into new North Sea oil and gas prospects and brown field revitalization projects.
ReservoirKB North Sea covers all productive formations discovered, including reservoirs currently in production or sanctioned for development. Additionally, we provide continually updated reservoir performance metrics, analogs, lessons learned, and regional knowledge. Our knowledge base provides a unique combination of reservoir engineering data, geological description, and production data analysis not available from any other single source.
>> Learn more about ReservoirKB
>> Download the ReservoirKB North Sea brochure
>> Go to www.reservoirkb.com to sign in
>> Schedule a lunch and learn by calling Dave Rees at +1 (713) 586-5950
ReservoirKB Gulf of Mexico Latest Update
This release features significant improvements in both content and application design. With this update, the knowledge base now covers:
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- Over 300 fields (including all the latest discoveries)
- Over 910 reservoirs
- Over 1,330 wells
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Not only does this update make ReservoirKB Gulf of Mexico the most comprehensive knowledge base on the market, the improvements to the application make it the most capable knowledge base on the market. Functional updates include:
- daily basin snapshot reporting,
- a new ability to plot performance data,
- advanced analog gathering and analytical toolkit,
- technical articles on key developments significant to the basin trends,
- advanced user-defined reporting layout, and
- well log integration (coming soon).
ReservoirKB was developed to provide a comprehensive knowledge base of data to assist you in evaluating projects, assessing risks, and measuring them against other opportunities in your portfolio. Our clients find it an invaluable resource when researching analog fields, as reservoir assessment and benchmarking are at the heart of good appraisal and sanction decisions. Currently, we have modules available in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico and North Sea.
Want to learn more? Schedule a lunch and learn at your organization. Contact Dave Rees at +1 (713) 586-5950 for details and available times.
Knowledge Reservoir Teams with Quest Offshore Resources
As the complexity and cost of deepwater developments continue to escalate, global exploration and production companies, as well as major financial institutions, will require a more comprehensive picture of deepwater development costs and associated production/revenue. They will be driven to ground their production and reserves predictions to key analogs and benchmark their development costs and planned timelines against other similar fields. This information, when analyzed by domain experts, and viewed as a holistic system, provides the basis for sound development decision strategy and project prioritization.
The combination of Knowledge Reservoir’s ReservoirKB and Quest’s field development infrastructure data and analysis will provide users with a rich source of field-specific analysis and tools never before offered to the industry. The combined platform will provide for very detailed analysis of reservoir performance, field design, economic viability projections, key equipment availability and complete offshore field evaluation asset modeling including:
- field/reservoir performance projections;
- field layout, design, and project planning;
- field development cost projections;
- field-by-field economic viability;
- real-time “field development” asset tracking (MODUs, Marine Construction vessels); and
- regional economic analysis.
Dr. Ivor R. Ellul, CEO of Knowledge Reservoir, commented, “As we continue to evolve our Knowledge Management products and services in the upstream oil and gas industry space, we are pleased to be able to collaborate with innovative and well respected data providers like Quest. Their widely acknowledged expertise in the global deepwater and subsea sectors in particular, makes this relationship a great fit for our ReservoirKB clients.”
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John Chadderdon, CEO of Quest Offshore Resources, added, “This alliance will allow our joint clients to have strategic clarity on the market, which will allow decisions to be made with much more confidence. The combination of Knowledge Reservoir’s expertise in geosciences and reservoir engineering, combined with Quest’s insight on the deepwater supply chain will offer the industry a vision to the future that cannot be gained from any one source. The collaboration of Knowledge Reservoir and Quest will deliver deepwater expertise in engineering, geosciences, economic evaluation, and the benchmarking of field architecture and facilities.”
Middle East Unconventional Resource Activity
after attending SPE’s Middle East Unconventional Gas Conference 31 January – 2 February in Muscat, Oman.
Items of Significance:
- Countries and companies alike are becoming committed to the exploration and development of unconventional resources across the Middle East.
- Currently, activity is focused on tight sands, carbonates and deep basin centered gas accumulations similar to the focus of the US industry for the previous 25 years. However, as we have seen with the US industry, technical advancements in multi-stage horizontal fracture stimulation are leading to a larger focus on shale gas exploration and development.
- A representative of Oman Oil Management stated at the conference that no more conventional targets remain for new exploration in Oman that are not currently being explored. This is not unique in the region to Oman. It’s time to shift our focus to unconventional resources.
- Current areas of focus of the Middle East unconventional resources activity include:
- ultra-deep drilling and completion operations in high-temperature/-pressure environments;
- quantification of ultra-tight pay; and
- fracture stimulation completions. There has only been one fracture stimulation in Kuwait, which is one more than has been performed in the UAE. The first ever fracture stimulation is being considered in the UAE later this year.
- Challenges include the following.
- Adequate service equipment: Fracture stimulation equipment, high-temperature/-pressure drilling and completion equipment, and adequate logging and measurement equipment for these environments
- Scaling up for the volume of operations dictated by tight reservoirs with well spacing on the order of 160 acres or less (much less)
- Fresh-water resources for slick-water fracture stimulation
- Gas prices – Oman $2.50 per MCF, UAE $1.00 per MCF (Abu Dhabi currently a net importer of gas from Qatar at $5.00 per MCF)
- The next phase of activity is shale gas, which is in the very early stages of investigation and consideration
- Shale oil: The biggest surprise
- The word of the Bakken, Niobrara, Eagle Ford, or any of the other shale oil plays had not reached the Middle East yet, but it has now thanks to Knowledge Reservoir!
- The source rocks for the giant oil reserves of the Middle East’s conventional reservoirs hold considerably more oil in place than has been produced from the region’s current oil reservoirs. However, getting it out will be the trick. That is where Knowledge Reservoir’s extensive knowledge of unconventional resources can make a significant impact.
Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) in the Deepwater Gulf of Mexico
The project was funded under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and administered by the group Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA). Partner groups which contributed to the study included the Louisiana State University and Anadarko Petroleum.
The project first identified the “size of the prize” which is the forecast of oil recovery and remaining oil in-place at cessation of production under current operating practices. A comprehensive database was provided as a deliverable with detailed information for over 80 fields and 400 reservoirs with original oil in-place, rock and fluid properties, cumulative oil, and forecasts of expected ultimate oil recovery. An evaluation of why oil is being left behind followed, which has been referred to as the oil trapping mechanisms. For Neocene age reservoirs, the forecast average oil recovery factor is 31.6 percent and the oil trapping mechanisms for the remaining oil in-place are shown in the
pie chart below.
 A scoping list of potential IOR processes was identified specifically to target the oil trapping mechanisms. Limited drive energy was a common theme, and, therefore, gas and water injection schemes were included on the list. In total, a list of 19 IOR processes were evaluated under the broad topics of water injection, gas injection, water-based EOR, gas-based EOR, pumping and artificial lift, and well technology. Alternative, lower cost water injection schemes were considered such as aquifer dump flooding and seafloor water injection due to the high operating cost environment in the deepwater. Project partner LSU provided a comprehensive literature review of many of the technologies considered to document the current “state of play” for each technology. A ranking of concepts was included to help develop a focused list of priorities for future research funding.
A key element of the study was to identify the technical gaps which are currently keeping the industry from implementing the IOR concepts. Recommendations were made for future work which may help to “bridge” the identified technical gaps.
For more information on this project, contact Joe Lach at +1(713) 586-5950.
Using Intelligent Completions to Improve Ultimate Recovery
Commingling can, in principle, generate very large increases in net present value for the following reasons:
- a higher production plateau and faster cash flow;
- ability to produce hydrocarbons from reservoirs that may be uneconomic to produce on their own, thus potentially increasing total production;
- fewer wells, less infrastructure, and lower capital and operating costs; and
- a smaller environmental “footprint” due to fewer locations.
However, several practical reservoir management issues must be considered before completing a well to allow unrestricted commingling of two or more zones.
- Differences in depth-adjusted pressure may result in cross flow between reservoirs. Such pressure imbalances may grow over time if the productivity indices (PI’s) of the reservoirs are different, which is a common occurrence.
- Gas or water breakthrough in one reservoir may limit the oil production in the other, reducing ultimate recoveries.
- An over-rapid drawdown of a reservoir can create high gas saturations near the wellbore, thus reducing relative permeability, reservoir productivity, and recovery factors.
- Managing the producing gas/oil ratio over time is critical in effectively utilizing reservoir energy to maximize recovery and ensure effective lift from the wellbore to the surface.
- In gas reservoirs containing liquids, a controlled drawdown is often necessary to avoid premature liquid dropout near the wellbore (condensate banking), which can damage relative permeability to gas, well productivity, and recovery factors.
The last points underscore the importance of managing the producing gas/oil ratio for an individual reservoir, which is effectively impossible unless the production from each reservoir can be individually monitored and controlled.
Traditional methods of exploiting multiple reservoirs from one wellbore without
commingling
are
to either:
- develop the reservoirs sequentially from the bottom up or
- use dual or multi-string completions to maintain segregation.
The disadvantages of the first method, sequential development, include:
- the long time needed to exploit all the reservoirs, which can have a major impact on peak production and well economics and
- the tension over time between cementing lower reservoirs to tap into virgin upper zones or implementing enhanced recovery methods in the lower reservoirs.
The disadvantage of the second method (multi-string completions) is that productivity from the individual reservoirs and from the well as a whole can be restricted by the smaller tubing sizes in multi-string completions. In principle, casing size can be increased to accommodate larger tubing, but this is costly in deeper wells.
Using intelligent completions to manage commingling can provide the benefits of commingling while overcoming the disadvantages. The petroleum industry defines an intelligent completion, also known as an intelligent well system (IWS), as a completion in which control of inflow or injection takes place downhole at each individual reservoir, with no physical intervention, and with active monitoring (2001 SPE Forum in St. Maxine, France). Put another way, intelligent completions enable independent monitoring and control of production from multiple reservoirs to optimize flowing parameters and reservoir management in commingled wells.
At a high level, intelligent completions (Figure 1 and Figure 2) consist of:
- remotely controlled down hole flow control devices, e.g. hydraulically-actuated sliding sleeves;
- feed-through isolation packers; and
- down hole tubing and annulus pressure gauges and, in some cases, down hole flow meters and temperature gauges that can be remotely monitored from the surface.
Intelligent completions enable managing production rates and pressure drawdowns on a reservoir-by-reservoir basis to achieve the goal of maximizing ultimate recoveries. More specific benefits of intelligent completions include:
- Preventing cross flow between reservoirs
- Gathering data on individual reservoir production and pressure as the basis for reservoir management and royalty determination
- Enabling reservoir-specific enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations such as water flooding or gas injection
- Excluding production of unwanted water or gas
- Managing well integrity and flow assurance
- Eliminating problems stemming from fluid incompatibility
Intelligent completions require an investment in hardware and monitoring. To maximize return on investment, the design of intelligent completions should be based on expected reservoir management needs over the life cycle of a field. To discuss the optimum design of completions for your field, contact Steve Knabe or Joe Lach at +1 (713) 586-5950.
Figure 1: 3-reservoir intelligent vertical well completion schematic (SPE 85677 figure 3A)
Figure 2: Intelligent completion schematic with dual laterals (SPE 120303 figure 2)
Raise the Woof: Knowledge Reservoir's Winter Charity
which is a local welfare organization that raises awareness around animal cruelty and the importance of the spay and neuter program; they also maintain a beautiful facility in Houston that helps connect responsible pet owners with adoptable dogs, cats, birds, small animals, and farm animals.
Our goal was to donate a whole carload of items to the SPCA as well as a cash donation. In lieu of mailing our holiday wishes to you through the postal service, Knowledge Reservoir donated the money reserved for postage to the Houston SPCA. If you'd like to join us in our donations, you may do so by visiting the Houston SPCA Web site. |
Read on to find out how we've raised the woof.
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AEA Investors LP
Altex Technologies Corporation
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
CC Energy Development
Cimarron Software Services
Cyan Partners
Dynamic Offshore Resources
Enogex
Genesis Energy, LP
GMX
Horton Wison Deepwater
Interlink Petroleum Ltd.
Mitsubishi Corporation
MND Exploration and Production Limited
Pakistan Petroleum Limited
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw
Pittman LLP
QVT Financial LP
Rowena Energy
SandRidge Tertiary LLC
Southern Natural Gas
Vintage Production California
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Knowledge Reservoir
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