Technology Focus: Production Monitoring (March 2023)

TECHNOLOGY FOCUS Production Monitoring Chris Carpenter, JPT Technology Editor As the industry continues to absorb the lessons, and capitalize on the possibili­ ties, offered by big data, professionals have kept in mind that exploration is not the only boundary of the digital fron­ tier. Production monitoring and surveil­ lance requires heightened degrees of precision and efficiency as operations are streamlined and projects are eval­ uated continuously. This month’s fea­ ture highlights a trio of papers focused on innovative technologies that have been implemented successfully in environments ranging from the deep­ water Gulf of Mexico (GOM) to China’s Shengli field. Paper SPE 196188 describes third­ generation production­logging­tool technology that uses miniaturization and digitalization to maximize the effect of digital sensors in deepwater fields. The tool possesses a rotating functional­ ity that has yielded robust and accurate data in GOM case studies. A real­time virtual flowmeter sys­ tem is described in paper SPE 196654. In offshore fields, the system has pro­ 54 Production monitoring and surveillance requires heightened degrees of precision and efficiency as operations are streamlined and projects are evaluated continuously. vided multiple benefits, from esti­ mation of production flow rates in a range of conditions to determination of whether multiphase flowmeters were working correctly. The challenge presented by abnor­ mal production decline in mature fields in China is the subject of paper SPE 197365, in which an early­warning system based upon a machine­learning technique has been used to reduce train­ ing time and guide further develop­ ment strategy. These technologies, like all others you may encounter in JPT’s Technol­ ogy Focus features, are the result of our members’ hard work and willing­ ness to share their important discov­ eries and insights through SPE con­ ferences. We hope that our readers benefit from these innovations and are inspired to discover their own, perhaps by writing and presenting an SPE con­ ference paper. JPT Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. SPE 196514 Banyu Urip Reservoir Daily Well Deliverability Monitoring by Stephanie Sapti Putri Widyasari, ExxonMobil, et al. SPE 198053 Developing the Talent of Future Petroleum Engineers by Remotely Monitoring Well Operations by Bashayer Al-Fadhli, Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company, et al. SPE 198685 Prognostics Thermal Well Management: A Review on Wellbore Monitoring and the Application of Distributed Acoustic Sensing for Steam Breakthrough Detection by Mohammad Soroush, University of Alberta, et al. JPT • MARCH 2020