Digital Energy Journal- Improving well head data at Brunei Shell

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Improving well head data at Brunei Shell

Friday, June 29, 2018

Nurhamizan Yussop of Brunei Shell Petroleum talked about how the company is improving the way it manages data about well heads, speaking at our Kuala Lumpur conference in October 2017.

Brunei Shell recently embarked on a project to improve data management of its well heads - including trying to get correct data of all well head configurations.

Nurhamizan Yussop, wells and production technology data technician with Brunei Shell Petroleum, explained how it is being done, with a talk at the Digital Energy Journal Kuala Lumpur conference in October.

Mr Nurhamizan Yussop works in the technical data management team, of Brunei Shell, looking after the wells and production technology discipline's data.

The aim was to get a 'single source of truth' version of well data, which could be made available to all staff, with all verified well head reports on one platform, with the 'engineers Data Model' software by Landmark being chosen.

The company standard is that all mechanical data for the well head / Christmas tree should be recorded in the EDM.

The data has a vertical component (the parts of the well head handling flow upwards from the well, including well hangers), and a horizontal component, the assembly to take flow to the production tubing, including annulus valves.

Before the project, data about well heads was being stored in various formats in the company, including electronic well files and physical well files. Data is held by both the production and wells teams.

Data has been captured in the database at different stages of the project, from engineering design to execution.

The well head is a structure on the surface which provide the suspension point and pressure seals for the casing strings, and also where the production tubing is connected to. There are assemblies of valves sitting on the wellhead to control flow. These are called Christmas tree.

If the company has incorrect data about the specifications of the wellhead, it can lead to incorrect calculations about Maximum Allowable Annulus Surface pressure (MAASP), Operating envelopes production volumes, time consuming work to correct errors, and frustration.

Brunei is about the size of Singapore, covered with tropical rainforest. Oil and gas is the main export.

The oil and gas assets are split into 3 regions - onshore Darat, offshore East and offshore West. There are over 4500 reservoirs and over 244 offshore structures, manned and unmanned. There are about 1600 producing wells, including water injection. Total production is 350,000 boepd. There are over 3,000 staff.

It is the main supplier of domestic fuel to Brunei - and also gas is liquefied for export.

The project

The company's data clean-up project began at the end of 2016, stating that specific information needed to be recorded for all new wells. Then the work to improve the data from the existing wells began.

The project team aimed to work closely with stakeholders, including the well engineering department and production technology department, to understand where the current data systems can be improved, and what process should be followed to improve it.

The project team also made use of a Shell online forum called Shell International Global Network, where Shell employees share best practises and answer questions. They found that Shell Canada had undertaken a similar project, and were able to discuss with the people involved.

A 'standard operating procedure' was created, showing how new data should be created and entered into the EDM software. This procedure was put through a test.

The fields on the form are colour coded, where yellow means they are mandatory for the business, and white is 'good to have'.

A data quality team was established, with a role of checking all new data entered into the system, whether it is correct and whether it is entered in accordance with the standard. Once approved, data is given a 'stamp', including with the time it was approved. This means that anyone working with the data later can be sure that they have the latest approved data.

There may be a need to check that the data is in alignment with what has actually been installed on site, for example by asking the drilling supervisor to confirm the data is correct.

There is also a traffic light system, where data is shown as 'green' if it is approved, 'amber' if it is in the approval stage, and 'red' if it is in the compilation stage.

The colour might change if there is a change to the data's status, for example data is updated during maintenance work, but the update has not yet been approved.

The company normally runs automated checks through all of the data at the end of every month, checking for data completeness.

Mr Nurhamizan said that they had completed a previous project of mechanical backloading for 1773 wells into EDM that took about 4.5 years to complete. This time, with the help of the best practices, they will aim to complete wellhead backloading project into EDM in 2 years.

Ultimately, Brunei Shell will have all of its well data verified, and available immediately to staff, from a single database. It will lead to better calculations, better and faster decision making, and problems due to bad data being avoided.

Associated Companies
» Brunei Shell Petroleum Co Sdn Bhd

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