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?
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