Moved to LinkedIn

This blog was getting no readers, so I have moved entirely to LinkedIn.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/burneywaring

If you don't have access to LinkedIn and have a question, contact me at burney@waringworld.com.

Cheers,
Burney

The Joy of PSO

Have a look at the reasons why I love PSO here.

Posting on LinkedIn

I have just posted 3 articles that I first published on LinkedIn.  I was getting more readers on LinkedIn, but I just realized that if you don't have LinkedIn, you can't see them.  So I have reposted them here.

The Astounding Good from Each Oil&Gas Worker

What is it all for? Am I actually making a difference? Ever ask yourself that? I have. [OK, I probably have more free time than you do. Maybe I can do some contemplating for you here?]

In the oil and gas production business we create a product but it is sometimes difficult to remember who our customer is. A company normally sells its product into a pipeline owned by another company. Perhaps for this reason, folks that work in the oil and gas industry do not appreciate the scale of the good that they do for actual people. In case you might be one of these folks, consider some numbers.

In the USA, the consumption of oil is 61 barrels per day per 1000 people. (http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=0&v=91000&l=en).

That is the same as 16.4 people per barrel per day.

A typical medium to large oil and gas company produces a certain amount of production and employees a certain number of people. I think it is fair to assume that most of these people are necessary to obtain that production. Division will give us the barrels per day of production per employee. For example:

[The numbers above are approximate, probably not current and may be in error but I hope are good enough for the intended conclusion.]

By multiplying by 16.4, we can then calculate how many people each employee “helps” on average: Somewhere between 570 and 1450 people!!

Yes, oil and gas worker, you are "helping" as many people every day as a large hospital!

It is necessary to consider what I mean by “helping”. Despite all the global warming and pollution worries, oil and gas are currently sustaining the way of life for almost every person in the USA. Almost every mile every person or product moves uses oil and gas. Almost every bit of plastic used. Almost every product used. Almost all the food consumed. Imagine trying to live without these things, or at least to have the majority of people unable to afford the basics of life.

Is this is sinking in?

For the average person in the US, at least right now, if the oil and gas stopped flowing, life would be very difficult or impossible. Just like the folks that need a hospital today.

The person who works at the insurance agency or the grocery store or the bank thinks that their job is important too. And many are. But just consider a moment that several hundred people are very much dependent for their life on the often hard, dirty, dangerous, unappreciated work of each engineer, driller, pumper, welder, frac-unit operator and technician. Every day.

No applause necessary.

Because the US is still importing oil from other countries, many of these folks we rely on are in other countries too.

And some of you reading this don’t live in the US, so your numbers may be even more astounding. For example, I’m in India consulting at the moment and a barrel of oil here supports 379 people! That means that the extra 3000 barrels of oil per day that our team found this week by optimizing an oilfield will provide the daily oil needs of about ONE MILLION people in India!

Of course, there are other jobs that are critical to the daily survival of hundreds of us. Thank-you Mr. Airplane Mechanic! Thank-you Ms. Structural Engineer!

How many people’s lives did you sustain today?

10 Low Oil Price PSO Tactics

Welcome to (yet another) low oil price environment! Restrictions on capital spend. Cutting rigs. Stopping projects. Restrictions on travel. Etc., Etc. Don't panic! If you are not in the Drilling department (sorry Drillers, this is why you get paid the big bucks), don't start working on your resume (yet). Quit talking about the oil price and use this time to your advantage!

1) Have a nice, detailed look at your field! Build well and integrated models. Create new surveillance techniques using models. Look for anomalies in well behavior both over time and between similar wells/equipment.

2) Ask questions! Use your interviewing skills! Other people will be looking for things to keep them busy. You can help them with that! Sit with Operations (they also will have less to do) and go step-by-step through the welltesting process. What could be improved/automated? Look for and troubleshoot metering and measurement errors. Double check then system shrinkage and meter factors. Review the maintenance schedule and maintenance records of the meters, especially the non-fiscal meters. Investigate root causes to anomalies/failures. Facilities Engineers will have less to do, so have them look at different meter types or how to improve the accuracy of the meters that are installed.

3) When you do find profitable optimization work to do, take your time and practice negotiating some nice terms with a service company who are likely to be very receptive, improving your project economics even further.

4) Explain the value of your optimization opportunities in terms of payback time and in terms of $/barrel of oil. If there are spending limits due to the low oil price be sure to highlight if your optimization work will pay back before the end of the fiscal or calendar year. That way you are helping to increase cash flow, not use it up. Quantify just how much cash your projects will generate and by when. Where possible, make a package of work you identify, not justifying one job at a time, to get your projects more attention and improve implementation efficiency.

5) When creating justifications, acknowledge risks and find mitigation mechanisms. Discuss your projects in more detail with Operations and Well Intervention or whatever service group will execute this work. Probably they would also like you to get them some work to do. Having them on board will improve your chances of getting your work prioritized.

6) If there is resistance to highly economic optimization work, listen very carefully to the feedback. What exactly is the problem? Ask what you can do to get another, better shot at getting this work done. Most managers will appreciate and reward polite, professional persistence.

7) Make double sure that any wellhead chokes that exist are recently evaluated and you understand 100% why they are installed. "The well made sand 15 years ago." is not a good reason. Come up with a plan to carefully open chokes, with monitoring procedures, sand detection, etc., if necessary.

8) Look at the surface equipment. Look for high tubing pressures. Try to lower separator pressures. Ask about compressor re-wheeling. Find flowline and manifold-to-separator bottlenecks caused by small piping, wax, scale, welding rods/gloves/pig bristles/etc by comparing actual pressure drops with model results. Hire a compressor specialist, or a Production Chemist as needed to help look over special areas of investigation. Again, you can negotiate a good price now. Justify this help based on cutting fuel and chemical costs and the chance of improving production.

9) Make a plot of PI vs kH for all your wells to look for stimulation candidates. Dig into stimulation procedures with simple chemistry (low cost) and how to evaluate stimulation performance.

10) Practice your soft skills. Really listen to what other people say and how they say it. When they deserve it, make other people look good by complementing them to your/their bosses. (This will make you look good too.) Write some Standard Operating Procedures. Automate your SOPs. Find better ways to share your expertise. Ask for quarterly performance evaluations. Practice taking constructive criticism. Practice giving your boss constructive criticism.

Hurry up and get this work done before the oil price goes back up!!

What are other things that you can do to improve value in your assets when the price of oil is low?

ESP Diagnostic Diagram

One of my clients brought this diagram to my attention recently. The paper, by Petroleum Development Oman and Engineering Insight Ltd of Aberdeen, was very useful and included an especially useful diagram, but the diagram was not so easy to read or print in a larger size. I tried to improve the image so that it would be even more helpful. All credit goes to the authors and their paper IPTC 17413 2014, available on SPE's PetroOne.

Here is a link to the full size diagram.

To use the diagram, consider that something such as a blockage of in pump intake and increase in free gas might only differ slightly, such as in terms of motor temperature and possibly the behavior of the ammeter. Focus on these areas in troubleshooting may help diagnose the problem.

What is a Produce-the-Limit Review?

Although I mention Produce-the-Limit in this blog, it may be useful to describe the layout of the event.

The Produce-the-Limit is a 2-week event.  Primary participants are Reservoir Engineering, Production Engineering and Facilities Engineering, plus Operations. We normally have between 8 and 15 people participating.  The event begins with a some sessions in which we build a cartoon of the asset, outlining all the important information, concerns and opportunities of which the team is aware. Then we brainstorm additional opportunities together.  We also build a Limit Diagram of the current constraints in the asset.  Next, we split into two teams.  The subsurface team works on a well and reservoir review for opportunities while the surface team works on a review of surface opportunities.  We come back together to integrate the information, create scenarios, run economics and create a plan.  The last few days are spent refining the plan and creating documentation and a final presentation.  The outcome is presented to senior leadership for the asset. 

Here is my 'fancy brochure' with some more information.