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Baker Hughes’ evolving digital technology ecosystem

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Baker Hughes is not only developing new digital products, it is seeking to make these products work together better as an 'ecosystem', seeing this as a better way to improve oil and gas overall efficiency

Baker Hughes announced several new digital solutions and investments at its annual meeting in Florence on Jan 30, to support more efficient oil and gas operations.

It is deepening its relationship with Corva, a company which provides a cloud based platform for monitoring drilling operations. Baker Hughes is becoming a reseller and minority investor, and bringing new applications to the Corva App Store.

It is launching a new software tool for production optimisation called Leucipa, and launching a new software tool for asset performance management and process optimisation called Cordant.

For the subsurface, the JewelSuite subsurface modelling software, which it acquired in 2010, is now available on the cloud.

The broader effort is to build and develop its ecosystem of technologies.

"At Baker Hughes, we see digital as a language that - when combined with our domain expertise - helps us speak to our customers," said Maria Claudia Borras, executive vice president of Oilfield Services and Equipment (OFSE) at Baker Hughes. 'Our industry has envisioned automating field production for many years.'

'We have long recognized digital is a critical capability in taking energy forward and leading in the energy transition, and we are continuing to invest and innovate for our customers," said Lorenzo Simonelli, chairman and CEO of Baker Hughes.

Drilling / Corva

For drilling, Baker Hughes is deepening its relationship with Corva. This is a company based in Houston which makes a cloud based platform called Corva.ai for monitoring, visualising and analysing drilling and completions operations in real time, to improve efficiency.

Corva has an established base in the US, and the company is very keen to expand internationally, says Chip Miller, SVP well construction with Baker Hughes. So, it has partnered with Baker Hughes to get better access to international markets, and oil majors.

Baker Hughes is making a minority investment in the company, and will be a reseller. It will also introduce new applications to the 'Corva App Store,' where there are already over 100 well construction software applications.

Corva has an open development architecture, so the operator and service companies can add in their own tools, such as reservoir models. The jargon is 'third party plug and play'.

'We can bring our technology in, clients can bring their technology in,' says Jim Brady, chief digital officer with Baker Hughes Oil Field Services and Equipment (OFSE). It means 'more and more collaboration.'

Drilling efficiency

Companies have always been on a quest to improve efficiency in drilling and production, but this quest is 'starting to move to the digital realm,' Mr Miller says. This means looking for ways to make the digital technologies themselves work together more efficiently.

The improved drilling efficiency is demonstrated when we see more drilling records are being broken. For example, one company recently drilled a mile in a day, using a single drill bit, and then repeated this two more times, Mr Brady says. In the US onshore, the company announced that 140 separate 'mile a day' wells had been drilled, with a record of 10067 feet (3.1km) in 24 hours.

Baker Hughes provides a wide range of digital technologies for drilling, which can be used together to achieve high efficiency.

Its 'optimised drilling package' includes the AutoTrak rotary steerable system, the Navi-Drill Ultra high performance motor, and the Dynamus extended life drill bit.

It also provides fluid management systems, keeping the drilling fluids at the right pressure downhole, not too high that it breaks the formation, and not too low that there's a risk of uncontrolled hydrocarbons in the well.

By using systems like these together, customers can optimise fluids (hydraulics) and drilling parameters, so achieve high daily drilling rates.

Today's digital systems take continuous mud weight and viscosity measurements downhole, whereas a few years ago they only took measurements four times a day, Mr Miller says.

Another area of development is navigating the drillbit through the reservoir, which requires integration between drilling systems and reservoir models. Better and faster decision making about where to move the drillbit should lead to more productive wells.

Production / Leucipa

Leucipa is a new cloud software launch from Baker Hughes for production management, including automating production activities, and intelligent operations. It enables production operations to be integrated with the operator's reservoir models.

Leucipa can be used to optimise wells, something which has not yet been done in 90 per cent of wells, says Jim Brady, chief digital officer with Baker Hughes Oil Field Services and Equipment (OFSE). So, you get the most out of your operational expenditure.

It was designed in-house by a team of domain experts, including discipline leaders in cloud technology and industrial data transformation. Hosting is provided by AWS, and consultancy Cap Gemini assisted in the development.

Pan American Energy of Argentina is a launch customer of Leucipa and is supporting its development with a pilot implementation. It will be released to the open market in mid 2023.

'Leucipa goes beyond typical data collection and analysis with a software solution that focuses first on the specific outcomes that an operator wants to achieve,' said Maria Claudia Borras, executive vice president of Oilfield Services and Equipment at Baker Hughes.

'Pan American Energy has a long history of working with Baker Hughes and is pleased to support the piloting and development of Leucipa,' said Cristian Sarhan, General Manager, Engineering & Technical Production Assurance, Pan American Energy.

Asset performance management / Cordant

Baker Hughes is launching a new software tool for asset performance management and process optimisation, called Cordant.

It builds on Baker Hughes' domain expertise in rotating equipment, critical sensors, valves, pumps, gears, and inspections.

It combines existing digital offerings for hardware, software and services into an integrated and simplified system.

Cordant has been designed to make it easier for customers to integrate their other digital tools into it, including technologies made by other equipment manufacturers.

Cordant is available through a number of different pricing models, including purchasing hardware and software outright to run on your own servers, or buying cloud based 'software as a service' for a subscription fee. Customers can also pay for Cordant based on outcomes tied to performance indicators.

Subsurface

For the subsurface, Baker Hughes provides the JewelSuite subsurface modelling software, which it acquired in 2010. The software is now available as a cloud version on Azure and is being developed in collaboration with Shell. It is developing more advanced 3D models and ways to provide 'actionable insights' from them.

The company offers the 'VisiTrak' geospatial reservoir navigation and analysis service to help steer the drill bit into the reservoir.

Baker Hughes does not plan to build its own reservoir simulator. 'It's not our remit to build such a big thing,' says Jim Brady, chief digital officer with Baker Hughes OFSE. 'Customers have their own ecosystem.'

Baker Hughes is keeping a close eye on OSDU. 'OSDU is a set of APIs you can bring, to much more readily, integrate code,' Mr Brady says.

'OSDU have big ambitions. It's most effective in geology and geoscience, bringing it to the cloud. It provides code you can re-use for connectivity,' he says.

Better integration

As well as developing software and partnering with software companies, Baker Hughes is also making its systems easier to integrate, and taking advantage of the general improvement in digital integration.

'Integration is not easy, but it's getting easier. Integration technology has moved along in the last decade,' Mr Brady says.

Software like Corva often makes use of RESTful APIs for the integration. 'You don't have to have hard links,' he says. 'It's a lot less brittle. You don't need a common state.'

Corva can create a digital twin model of drilling of a well, which can include more and more information, as more digital services are added.
'It gets better as you go along,' Mr Brady says.

Integration is not just something for cloud systems. 'Cloud is important [but] there's more to digital than just the cloud stuff,' he says.

For example, it is useful to integrate onsite tools which can control the speeds of electronic submersible pumps (ESPs) for the best pumping speed, systems to do the right dosing of chemicals, and firmware (onboard software) for downhole drilling tools. 'We have to design this stuff well,' he says.

Better digital integration an also help with geothermal projects, both the drilling / construction costs and the operations. If all the various digital components integrate well together, then efficiencies can be achieved, says Chip Miller, SVP well construction with Baker Hughes.

Associated Companies
» Baker Hughes (BHGE)

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