SME Meeting Minutes

Up to list of Appendices

Appendix B: SME MEETING MINUTES



1. MEETING: KEMAL FARID

President & CEO, Merrick Systems,
Thursday, 09/11/2008

  • Joint venture reporting composes of two components.
    • Production accounting (deals with sales)
    • Production reporting (deals with volume)
  • Joint venture production reporting is also called as Partner reporting.
  • Partner reporting has two main entities.
    • Operator
    • Partners
  • Same company can be operator in some venture, as well as partners in some different venture.
  • Operator is in charge of drilling and maintaining the well and producing the oil from the well.
  • Operator studies physical characteristic of the reservoir.
  • Operator has long term drilling strategies and field development strategies.
  • Some examples of partners are government agencies, private land owners (own surface rights or mineral rights).
  • Operator has responsibility to maintain the well as has the following responsibilities:
    • Collecting data
    • Processing data
    • Transmitting data
    • Distributing data
  • Field Data Capture (FDC) is the collection of the operational data from wells, field equipment.
  • FDC involves the capture of both numerical data, such as temperature and pressure, as well as qualitative data such as well test, reasons for downtime etc.
  • Partners have vested interest in operating the well as they have invested in some part of the operations of the well. Partners are responsible only for that particular part of the operation.
  • Some Partners would like to get production reports on a daily basis so they c an track financial projections on a daily basis.
  • In order to get some information about production, partners want daily or monthly reporting of:
    • Temperature reading
    • Pressure reading
    • Injection rates and pressures
    • Well down time, why well is down for particular time, when was it restored again etc
    • Cost associated with maintaining wells
  • Partners perform the following functions:
    • Monitoring the data
    • Analysis of data
    • Prediction of the sales and revenues.
  • Partners need to monitor and analyze the data in order to check whether the operator is doing what he needs to do.
  • Many partners would like real time electronic access to data.
  • Partner predicts what revenue they are going to make.
  • In present, mainly paper based documentation is used for partner reporting.
  • Production accounting deals with dollars associated with the volume of the oil and gas.
  • Production allocation is one of the prerequisites of the production reporting which deals with associating each sale of fluids back to well/zone.
  • Well tests are needed as often as once a month (depending on the well) but in USA, most of the time it is done once in a six-month period.
  • Daily production number can be less accurate as compared to monthly production number because daily measurements are often just estimates. The monthly measurements are “official”.
  • Use case will deal with:
    • Who is involved in the information regarding the production of the oil?
    • Who is involved in receiving this information?
    • How this information is distributed and transmitted to different partners.
    • How this particular data is processed and prepared for creating partner reports?


2. MEETING: CLARA FUGE

Vice President, Operations – Merrick Systems,
Tuesday Sep 23, 2008

  • The same company can play roles of operator and partner.
  • Production reports can be done either electronically in the form of spreadsheets, XML sheets or manually on the paper.
  • Data is collected on different levels such as well level, battery level, field level, division level.
  • All raw data is collected at one of the above levels and is processed by engineers, accountants etc for different purposes. This raw data is only the calculations measured in the field, this is Basic Reporting.
  • Operator sends the processed data to:
    • Database
    • Database warehouse of the central system,
    • Different partners, regulatory agencies such as Mineral Management Service (MMS), Texas railroad commission, etc.
  • After validation and common approval from the management team, the processed data is forwarded to different partners on demand.
  • Data sent on a daily basis contains raw data related to volumetric production of oil and gas.
  • On monthly basis, data related to sales and revenue, dollars associated with volumetric production of oil and gas are to be sent to regulatory agencies and different partners.
  • Production Accounting is needed where frequent well testing is not done, so it is required to determine how much each well produced daily so the raw data can be processed in a timely manner by all those people waiting for this data to arrive.
  • If custody transfer occurs, monthly reporting of similar data is required.
  • Sales and royalty payments are involved in production accounting, which justifies the partners needing royalty checks etc along with partner reports.

Basic understanding of the given Production Reports

  • This report was created out of a spreadsheet, they are usually sent out everyday.
  • It represents a combination of raw data (measurements) and well productions, meter information etc.
  • This report is typically sent out to Vice President of Division, Director of Production, Director of Operations and so on.
  • These types of reports are automatically generated by scheduler programs with incremental date/time ranges and email addresses stored into them for prompt distribution.
  • Such reports can be pushed/pulled. Some partners want reports to be delivered later while some prefer them to be sent instantaneously (pushed). Reports that are pulled involve being transmitted by mail/post, email i.e. they are pulled from a particular folder/data warehouse, web interface, back end database etc.
  • The 1st section of the report talks about crude oil production while the second section deals with stocks, different production fields, and summation of battery information in volumes of tanks.
  • It also gives information about fuel gas, sales gas – how much of this gas was lifted, consumed and flared.
  • Page 2 of report talks about details of wells: pressure, daily injection etc
  • Page 3 is a journal of the current day’s production and activities; some data is varied slightly and reported again.
  • Page 4 is a domestic report. It is the result of a reporting engine/crystal reports etc. It contains the names of wells the partner is interested in. It contains the data from American Petroleum Institute (API). Its notation is as follows:
    • 1st two digits (from left) indicate the state, such as Texas
    • Next 3 digits indicate the county
    • Next 5 digits indicate the location
    • Next 2 digits indicate the original well completion/subsequent well completion
    • It explains about the number of days the well was on, wells’ inventory, how much it sold etc.
  • When partners receive such reports, they usually rekey the information in their own systems since there is no universal methodology to document all this information.

Regulatory Reporting – Government bodies, regulatory agencies require regulatory reporting based on how much was sold, injected, well locations etc. They require inspection reports, well test results, tax information, oil production, gas production and amount of gas sold. Gulf of Mexico reports to Mineral Management Services (MMS) and state agencies, LDNR and Texas Railroad Commission.



3. MEETING: MELINDA MCBEE

P.E. Sr. Reservoir Engineering Advisor, OXY Inc.,
Monday 10/06/2008

  1. Meeting was initiated by Melinda & Sally Dehn talking about what role they played at OXY Inc. The Outside Operated team is in charge of evaluating operators capital and expense appropriations for expenditures. The economic approval/disapproval to participate depends on several factors:
    • Geological data
    • Surface and sub surface conditions
    • Reservoir evaluation
  2. Oxy receives regulatory reports, production information, et. from operators
  3. Oxy uses a software called Enerdeq (maintained by IHS company) to maintain lists of wells and other production data information.
  4. OFM (Oilfield Manager) and DSS are the surveillandce tools utilized in reservoir management . (OFM is a surveillance program by Schlumberger). Oxy is migrating to DSS now, though some employees still work on OFM.
  5. The Permian Dashboard (created by MS SharePoint) is used for predicting and monitoring production performance figures and analyzing variances.
  6. Oxy deals with numerous operators (approx. 60 or more) who send them various data & documents such as:
    • Daily work reports (sometimes these are sent once a weekly)
    • Drilling reports (which are sent promptly)
    • Production and injection information which comes in as raw data.
    • Smaller companies send this data as paper based data (documents via postal mail) while larger companies send it in the form of CDs or email attachments.
  7. Enerdeq issues:
    • Information in Enerdeq has a 3 or more month delay.
    • Multiple IDs are assigned to wells by IHS
    • You must include all ID numbers to ensure you extract all the information about the well
    • Oxy does not always receive timely information if well was down for certain amount of time and why.
    • Due to volume of workload, performance of all outside operated wells is not consistently monitored.
  8. Oxy would like operators to send the data on a regular basis in the form of electronic spreadsheets or an access databases so that it is easier to utilize data.

Parameters needed to assess production performance are historical production, latest test information, history of well, decline curve analysis, WOR (water oil ratio), type of flood, material balance etc.



4. CONFERENCE CALL: KEMAL FARID

//Tuesday, 10/07/2008 //

  1. Two directions in general for project to proceed :
    • Mapping general aspects using workflows
    • Mapping details using UML
  2. Collect Table 4 & 5 notes & swim lane model documentation from David Shimbo.
  3. Meet Cheryl Dugger for more information on swim lane models and how JVR can be represented using that. Review table 4 & 5 notes before meeting Cheryl.
  4. Next steps we can follow are:
    • Collecting data from the swim lane documentation of the workshop
    • Elaborate on it and ask SMEs detailed questions on it
  5. Swim lane models explain different actors and their tasks in depth.
  6. Discussed workflow and use case documentation standards. Use cases mainly cover details of implementing software systems, while swim lane models can represent details of business processes and workflows.
  7. Questions to ask SMEs:
    • What are the interdependencies among actor tasks?
    • Get some examples of use case documentation from SMEs IT departments
    • Capture issues, problems SMEs have with the current data transmission and workflow methods
    • Which process within their workflow would they like us to automate?
    • Get some numbers, operators spend x% time in certain operations with expenditure etc of $y a year. Look for economic costs; quantify costs for not having standards so far.
    • Check if PRODML solves their current problems or to what level does it solve them
    • How their workflows can be improved? Data needs to be sent to partners on real time basis, how can that be done?
  8. Research PRODML and determine what aspects of this IT integration standard could be applied to JVR?
  9. Does PRODML have an ontology that addresses JVR?
  10. Can JVR data be expressed in XML using the PRODML specification and are there any extensions needed?
  11. From all the SME input we receive we can check all the common data elements, try to have a standard way of defining these common elements, we should obtain descriptions of every type of data element. We will also collect sample JVR reports from SMEs.


5. PETE FLOYD’S SUMMARY OF MEETING

Mon 13th October 2008
Pete, Neha, Radhika

  1. Primary Project Customer

Major Oil Companies (MOC):
= Melinda McBee – Oxy
= Shell person = ??

  1. Secondary set of Project Customers/stakeholders
    • SPE members & org – Yanni,
    • Software Co’s
      • OSI soft
      • Merrick Systems
    • MOCs participating:
      • Oxy
      • Shell
    • Owner/Operators/Lessors
    • Lead / Prime Partners & Secondary partners ?
  2. Customer (Melinda) situation

Role: Senior Reservoir Engineer Advisor
Responsibilities: Reservoir Evaluation, Production Monitoring ?
Decision-making – Advizing on investments, reservoir / optimization
Role Success factors:
?
Need/pain points:

  • Lack of standardized data from Operators/Partners
  • Lack of integration across existing systems she uses
  1. Project Scope:
    • Data level
      • Data types (Master & Transactional)
      • Data Standards (e.g. Prod data) e.g. PRODML (Energistics)
    • Reports
      • Type
        • Daily work reports
        • Drilling reports
        • MMS / Regulatory – in scope for this project ??
      • Format
        • Paper
        • Electronic – multiple
        • Xml
        • Xls
        • other
      • Process/workflow (swimlane) level
        • Processes/activities/decisions:
          • Oil-related,
          • Drilling / Exploration activities
          • Production activities
          • Production Reporting
          • Production/Well optimization / EOR strategies /
          • Reservoir characteristics/evaluation
        • Well performance
          • Financial
        • Partner billing/invoicing/payments/AR/AP
          • Financial / Investment decision analysis
          • Regulatory
      • Systems level (software)
        • Internal to Oxy
        • Enerdeq (IHS)
        • Permian Dashboard (Oxy internal MS Sharepoint
        • OFM (Oil Field Manager = Schlumberger
        • DSS (Surveillance Tools) = Haliburton
      • External to Oxy (Partners/Operators/Owners)
        • various????
    • Role level
      • What is Melinda trying to achieve/provide
      • Who is involved from Operator side
      • Current Producing Fields ?
      • Current Exploration Fields ?
      • Timescales for this project:
      • Started end August
      • Planned to end by end of year
      • Project outcomes:
      • Define standard data format
  2. Decision on first problem to fix

Options:
1. Standardized reporting
2. Standardized info coming in
3. other

  1. Problem Statement

= A lack of consistent data from Operators coming into Melinda

  1. Root Cause Analysis of problems

Ishikawa or Fishbone Diagram / technique:
People:
- don’t know they’ve got to produce this data
- don’t know there’s a problem
- don’t know how to do it
- cant do it
- they don’t have the time
- they don’t have resources
System:
- they don’t have the right system – compatibility
- they cant manipulate the date in the system
- they cant send it electronically
- they can only do a .xls file output
-
Data:
- they have their own data standards which are incompatible with Oxy’s requirements
- they only use .xls
- they don’t have a web-based tool
Organization:
- they are not allowed to send out the data
- they have their own data standards
- they don’t have the resources
Roles:
- who is responsible for this in the Operator
o Drilling Manager
o Production Manager
o Production Engineer
- who do they report to ?

  1. Questions:

1. Field or Well level ?
2. Ownser/Operators – companies ?
3. Type of Exploration or Production activity
4. Melinda’s role, deliverables & success metrics
5. Regulatory / MMS reports in scope ?
6. What sort of JVs ?

  1. Next Steps

1. Do more research on problem
2. Confirm analysis & scope with Melinda
3. Pete to send soft copy of ppt swim-lane vs
4. Pete to send dates of next mtgs
5. Do level 2 process map
6. Neha & Radhika send brief, reports etc
7. Meet up 13/14th Nov - tbc

  1. Existing Level 1 Process

How the information flows.

  1. Process and deliverables for project

1. Define need, problem or issue & scope
2. Research the problem – investigate root causes etc
3. Look at solutions, come up with recommendations / proposals
4. Implement or pilot potential solutions..



6. MEETING: PETE FLOYD

Global Client Transformation Director, RWD Technologies
Monday 10/13/2008

  1. He is not a subject matter expert but he has experience in workflow capturing and business process model.
  2. Meeting was focused on process flows, stakeholders and their requirements, workflow capture
  3. Workflow capturing contains two types of data
    • Master Data: related to company, reference number
    • Transaction data: Date the report was sent, Production number such as how many barrels etc
  4. He generally focused on the input that we had from the SME Melinda McBee from Oxy Inc.
  5. Discussing this input, we came up with the following questions that we will ask Melinda in our follow up meeting ( these are also applicable to other SMEs)
    • What is her field of experience like exploration, production?
    • Does she operate on the field level or well level?
    • Does she deal with enhanced oil recovery?
    • What processes doe she follow?
    • How does she try to process data?
  6. Gave us some documents related to business process models and swim lane model.
  7. He discussed scope of the project in the following four levels to make better impact:
    • Data level
    • Process level
    • System level
    • Role level
  8. He also suggested we work towards understanding the root cause analysis (Ishikawa or Fishbone diagram) of problems related to our project so we can come up with the right kind of questions to ask and data to document and standardize.
  9. We will arrange a follow up meeting with Pete in Mid November to discuss what we have learnt from SMEs till then and he will give us feedback on our documentation.


7. MEETING: DAVID SHIMBO

Senior Director Oil & Gas at Oracle Corporation
Tuesday 10/14/2008

  1. David works with Oracle’s oil and gas accounting division.
  2. He suggested we map out work processes and diagrams, swim lane models and physical diagrams to represent the data we collect.
  3. Joint venture reporting happens when multiple oil companies sign rights to develop an oil field & decide to share the revenue and the risks that will be encountered. Companies usually have one half, one third or one fourth interest in the venture.
  4. Production accounting software converts barrels of oil into prices. Showed us website www.p2es.com which gave information about JV accounting. We downloaded some papers for our reference from this website.
  5. Operators provide the manpower that works on the fields, men laying the lines, drilling wells etc. Partners don’t provide people but costs are allocated to them depending on how much share/interest they have in the venture. E.g.- If a company has 25% interest in the joint venture they will share 25% of the costs and risks involved.
  6. Well tests are on 12 hour or 24 hour periods.
  7. Check with project group if we can include details about Joint Interest Billing in our project. Find out how much cost is involved to Joint Venture for fair share of revenue.
  8. Check different reporting softwares with SMEs, OFM is similar to a field data capture software which involves gathering numerical and qualitative data.
  9. Regarding our question about information gathering at well tests:
    • Data is gathered at sensors downhole (5000 feet)
    • PCS systems control the flow, turn pipelines on & off
    • Amount of flow is predicted on daily basis depending when choke is opened
    • Computer simulation models are also used to determine data from wells
  10. Metering is at well level, sometimes downhole also. Its mainly at a well test facility which stores 1000 barrels of oil, its kept for 24 hours and then its allocated back to company which has majority stake.

Tax information is sent to California, electronic meter measures oil, gas & water rates. Source data comes from meters. Oil field service companies send field tickets.



8. MEETING: SHAUN WRIGHT

President, PKO Services,
Wednesday 10/15/2008

  1. Scheduled meeting with Bill Liddell, from Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. He handles operator data base in joint venture production reporting.
  2. Went through the new questions we had created for SMEs.
  3. He added the following questions:
    • Who evaluates the whole business plan before operator drills the well?
    • How do they evaluate the business plan?
  4. Which partners are responsible for water treatment and water allocation?
  5. How do they arrive at reconciliation if partners and operator missed the actual requirement of the contract? Elaborated the importance of contracts in these situations.
  6. Contract between the operator and partners is the most import factor in joint venture production reporting.
  7. Partner has to write the contract for reserving the tank place, transmission place, refinery place and many other factors.
  8. By using simulation models such as decline curve analysis and well tests, the amount of fluid flow rate is determined.
  9. The multiphase fluid flow rate can be determined by using transient pressure analysis.
  10. He also wanted to focus on why operator and partners do what they do.

Next phase of the project: create semantic web technology.



9. MEETING: CHERYL DUGGER

Business Development Executive-Oil & Gas, OSIsoft Inc.
Thursday 10/16/2008

  1. Showed us the actual drawing charts from the workshop and explained the diagrams on it.
  2. The drawings were done during the discussions about quality of data and how various work processes capture data.
  3. She emphasized the fact that JV partners seldom receive the same data as financial departments.
    • The financial people “cleanse” the numbers or slightly manipulate them to suit the production needs or other reasons.
    • JV partners would like to see the data coming directly from the SCADA system.
  4. Accounting also receives this raw data for cost allocation purpose, there needs to be a better work process for this data transmission to JV partners and accounting, so they al l see the same information and not different data.
  5. Drawings explained the process capturing data, how various pumps, multiphase meters do this capture and where it is sent from there.
  6. Discussed problems during data transfer such as security/firewall issues.

Cheryl will introduce us to Jim Crompton who actually drew the charts and can explain them in more detail.



10. MEETING: MICHAEL GAGNER

Project Advisor- Eng. Special Project Group: BHI Centrilift
Friday, 10/17/2008

  1. Mike works in production side.
  2. Centrilift is a service company and their customers are different operators.
  3. Their main work involves monitoring, automation, and optimization.
  4. Raw data directly came from the field either manually or by using field data capture (FDC).
  5. Different types of raw data they get for further processing are:
    • Motor temperature
    • Motor vibration
    • Pump in-take pressure
    • Pump discharge pressure
  6. They monitor multiple wells such as 700 wells at a time.
  7. They have special gauges, which go down with the equipment to monitor temperature and pressure.
  8. They also have meters within the surface electrical system, which monitor power efficiency.
  9. For automation, they use either SCADA system or bring the data directly into web space and do monitoring.
  10. For monitoring, they use specialized-programming tool.
  11. Most of the operators have their own production report.
  12. They send daily reports to the operators.
  13. Daily reports contain efficiency report, downtime report, and reasons for downtime.
  14. They can provide the feedback as what is the problem and solution to the problem.
  15. All reports are in electronic format such as PDF and spread sheets.
  16. Most of the reports are in the standard format. But operators can develop their own formats.
  17. ESP vision software is used for daily report and operators have access to this software.
    • Difficulties while transmitting electronic data:
    • Lot of noise
    • Break down of the communication systems.
    • Few satellites provide 24 hours coverage around the world.
  18. Operators are responsible for water treatment and water allocation.

He has agreed to set up an appointment for us and provide the access to the demo site.



11. MEETING: DAVID SHIPLEY

Chevron
Friday, 10/24/2008 Pending approval.



12. MEETING: BILL LIDDELL

PE Engineering/Operations Systems Manager, Anadarko Petroleum Corp
Monday 10/27/2008

  1. Bill manages the Engineering and Operations Systems group at Anadarko and is interested in sharing and receiving production data.
  2. The common problems faced by operators and partners in JVR:
    • Partners need real time information but its not easy to receive
    • There is need for automation of data for easy access
    • Due to diverse ways of naming data, its difficult to send or organize
    • Main information needed is oil, water and gas rates, choke size and pressure drop
    • Instead of real time data, partners are typically sent well by well basis information in spreadsheets
  3. Major problem is existence of different production systems and automation systems for every company. This data needs to be mapped into each company’s system.
  4. Internationally they have the concept of unique well identifiers, in the US there are API numbers hence the two don’t match (API and UWI are just used to identify wells. They do not need to be the same). Different assets/new assets need to be represented in database, how should that be done? since every state & agency has a different idea of their production databases.. Really, the issue is having each system utilize a unique well identifier and then having the data elements such that they will map into whatever production/automation system that each partner has.
  5. Preferred format for sending reports for Anadarko is excel spreadsheets. Regulatory reports are sent monthly and also provided to public domain (IHS,TRC etc).
  6. Data capture is mainly done by SCADA, some field’s use pen recorders to record rates & volumes. Laptops are used to capture data where automation does not exist.
  7. Factors considered before drilling are:
    • Acreage
    • Geology
    • Resource potential
    • Costs
    • Depths
    • Temperatures
  8. After all this consideration, reservoir engineers do cost analysis. Operating costs, projected rates are put into economic model to check if it meets hurdle rate (mark). (While the above is interesting, it has nothing to do with the Production sharing that we were discussing)
  9. But before this, all resource owners need to be contacted, land permits need to be obtained etc. (again, interesting but not germane to the production allocation problem)
  10. Production systems will also perform water allocations. Well test is typically done a minimum of once a month if 2 or more wells go to a one meter, for individual wells it is essentially done everyday.
  11. Software and applications used in Anadarko:
    • Open wells (s/w by Landmark) – captures operational data. It tracks hourly activity for detailed costs (partners receive only the data not the detailed costs), so partners have to analyze this data themselves to come up with cost estimates.
    • Red Jet tool – used to feed non operated well reports into Open Wells ( Anadarko’s own tool)
    • OFM – reservoir/production surveillance tool
    • SAP – for accounting software
    • ARIES – economic package used to generate a production forecast and calculate reserves for domestic US
    • PEEP – economic package used to generate a production forecast and calculate reserves for offshore and international properties
    • PDC (home grown solution)– This is a field data capture solution
    • PDB - production database (home grown solution). Used to store production data.
    • ECLIPSE,CMG,VIP – Reservoir modeling
    • PHOENIX – Used for reserves reporting
  12. Metering is done downstream of the well head. For some of the Offshore wells, sensors are present up and down the well bore.. Most all of our automation is controlled by radio and can be viewed anywhere there is an internet connection..
  13. At Anadarko, a process is in plact that will map the data from PDB (both daily and monthly production data) into OFM.
  14. Described how measured quantities are allocated: first they check what feeds a meter, you see how much oil, water & gas comes out of the well and then check sales meter and proportion based on total.
  15. For a well test, you check if its an allocation test(valid test) or not to get true values. If an allocation well test, then it will be used to proportion the meters back to the individual well.
  16. The data the field sends is mainly volume, rates, pressures, choke sizes, etc. This is sent electronically to the PDB.
  17. The ARIES tool is used to forecast trouble-free production volumes to generate a MBX(Manage by Exception) curve. This curve is used to identify potential work activities to improve well performance..
  18. Raw data from PDB goes into PRA(Production Revenue Accounting).
  19. They use SAP environment to do the regulatory reporting and activity reports.
  20. Improvements for JVR suggested:
    • There needs to be a standard for mapping data, it should be transparent to all Production systems. Allocation is not important for the data sharing — the actual results are what is needed (oil, water, gas volumes, choke size, pressure flow etc are the data that needs to be shared).

A data sharing product is needed. From non operator perspective, the previous day’s daily volume production is all they want to see (even approximates of it).



13. MEETING: LISA KOSS & PEGGY EANDI

Budget and Reserves Analyst, Devon Energy Corporation
Friday, 10/24/2008

  • They are operator in operated field and partners in non operated fields.
  • They maintain production data base.
  • In operated property, they capture information either by SCADA or manually.
  • When data is captured manually, pumper enter the data in Evin program (Software for storing the data temporarily)
  • This data is then downloaded to TOW (big allocation engine) for daily and monthly allocation as well as for regulatory reporting.
  • TOW is commercial software by Landmark used for production capture & allocation system.
  • In operated field, reservoir groups deal with budget and forecasting of the production.
  • Data from TOW goes to data base called RIO (Reservoir information online).
  • Partners can have access to monthly data from public data source such as Texas railroad commission.
  • Use surveillance tool as OFM.
  • From RIO data goes to PEEP (Petroleum evaluation economic program).

They are sending us sample production report.



14. MEETING: DAVID SHIMBO

Senior Director Oil & Gas, Oracle Corporation
Wednesday 10/29/2008

  1. Started with the explanation of the basic operations involved in drilling and exploration.
  2. A big challenges faced by the Operator is not always having meters at every well due to cost reasons.
  3. Test separator is used instead and this is where the measurement error comes into picture.
  4. Well tests then take place to check how much each well produced individually. Since the sum of these amounts added together is never the desired figure, you need to allocate the amount to each well proportionately. This is back allocation.
  5. Explained the different operating costs:
    • Drilling and completion costs
    • Workover costs
    • Facilities costs
    • Oilfield maintainence costs
    • Water injection costs
    • Gas processing costs
  6. The challenge here lies in back allocating these costs back to each well to determine how much each partner must pay.
  7. Described Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
    • Lease operating expenses ( summary of all operating costs)
    • Lifting costs per barrel
    • Drilling/completion payout (estimated before drilling)
    • Workover profitability (cost of well repair jobs etc. takes place after drilling during production)
  8. Described the key players involved in all these processes in the table at the end of these minutes.
  9. Discussed the various types of reports that are sent between the key players:
    • Production reports
    • Revenue reports
    • Operating expense reports
    • Drilling reports
    • Workover reports
    • Maintainence reports - None of this data is consolidated information.
  10. Softwares used by operators and partners:
    • Exploration and production software
    • SAP,ERP is used by executives
    • Drilling software
    • Production analysis software
    • Reservoir simulation software
    • Core financials
  11. Explained the process of oil and gas measurements through a diagram. Also illustrated the process of well tests thorough a diagram.
  12. Asked us to read some information regarding the same, on websites www.p2es.com, www.quorum.com www.energistics.com www.pidx.com
Executive Operations Engineering Finance
VP Exploration/Production Oilfield Manager Petroleum Engineer Financial Analyst
(required to see only big picture) (oversees individual fields only) (oversees individual wells only) (deals with money, revenue, expenses)
(can be operator/partner) (operator) (operator) (operator/partner)


15. MEETING: DON VANSPEYBROECK

ConocoPhillips
Friday, 11/14/2008

  1. Explained the lifecycle of a well through a diagrammatic sketch. It involves Planning of a well, drilling, well completion, production, and plug and abandonment of a well. The JVPR occurs between the completion and abandonment stages.
  2. Explained the varying roles of partner and operator that the company plays. In some cases, they own the physical meter and the pipeline connected from well to this meter and in other cases, they only own the meter but not the well or pipeline. Fluids passing through change ownership, so owner of the meter needs to inform well and pipeline owner which fluids were obtained.
  3. For this purpose they have files for each well, with records of volume, pressure, temperature at meter.
  4. Problems faced are there is no standard in the way pipelines transmit this data. This is a long term manual problem because negotiation with pipeline personnel is required for files.
  5. There are two sets of problems in both scenarios.
  6. This is why they send only gross volumes since there are no compliance standards required that way. NOJV and other contracts need to be considered for getting a proper standard.
  7. Well tests are usually regulated by state; there are different well tests for different operations (usually done every 6 months). Some wells need downhole and surface tests to be done.
  8. Production reports are sent hourly, daily or monthly. Daily data reports are estimation, monthly reports are more accurate.
  9. Current standard used in spreadsheets, but the company would prefer XML, PRODML for the entire industry. Most popular are common delimited text files, spreadsheets. These are the formats in which they receive reports from their operators.
  10. 5% of the people read from websites and type the required data into their own database or call an automated number to collect the data and then type it into their database. This is how technology and rules create problems currently.
  11. Production monitoring is done on a monthly and daily basis using applications such as Auvoset (Schlumberger), P2ES (Nova Star Enterprise Universe) – this is a production allocation tool.
  12. The production number is given to allocation engine, it allocates on a 30 day period or 90 day period, back allocation is done through well tests.
  13. Raw data’s first capture point is SCADA, and then higher level analysis tools like OFM & DSS are used along with analytical tool like Sparkfire. This is done by reservoir engineers to optimize wells, whereas the operations team is only concerned with optimizing production.
  14. Raw data is sent on an hourly basis but analysis is done monthly during allocation.
  15. Contract is a purchasing/land agreement, it does not focus on data exchange.
  16. Lots of companies are interested in a common standard for the industry .
  17. Partner reporting should also include onshore details, not only offshore details as JVR seems to suggest.
  18. Other applications used are SAP, Maximal for creating maintenance reports, Wellview EDM for drilling and work over reports, SAP for operating expenses reports. In SAP, maintenance reports are based on different work orders, not on notification from the system.
  19. Hence, maintenance reports are different workflows in itself. Information put in SAP is not automated.
  20. Engineering is not included in reconciliation unless there is a problem. There is no system reconciliation only accountants deal with it.
  21. Upstream operations functions and actors are:
    • Facility Engineer
    • Maintenance Engineer
    • INE (Instrumentation & Electrical) – install SCADA, calibration of control equipment
    • MSO (Multi skilled Operators) – adjusts parameters of controllers, downtime, well tests.
    • Production Technician/Analyst – Check valid gross level numbers before putting into system, facilitate manual operations.
  22. No reconciliation is done before reporting.
  23. For a global standard we need to include other production methods.


16. MEETING: JAY CUPPLES

NOJV Manager, Chevron North America Exploration and Production Company Gulf of Mexico Business Unit, Non-Operated Joint Ventures
Monday, 11/17/2008

General:

  • NOJV, (Non-Operated Joint Ventures), manages properties where Chevron is not the operator.
  • Generally, the majority partner (Company with the largest interest) operates the field.
  • The Operator generally performs all upstream producing operations throughout the life of a field: drilling, completion, production/operations, and abandonment.
  • Reports generally come in either an Excel or PDF format.
  • The Operator will send a bill to the partners on a monthly basis reflecting their proportionate share of the expenses.
  • Revenue due the partner is calculated based on the allocated production statements received from the Operator. These are received monthly.

Well Work: Drilling/Completion/Abandonment

  • The NOJV Team monitors daily drilling & completion activity.
  • The Operator provides drilling reports daily. Real time information is sometimes available online through service companies.
  • Drilling reports contain a drilling summary as to what occurred during the previous day, daily and cumulative costs, and a safety/environmental summary. As they occur, logging downloads and directional surveys are also attached.
  • Completion reports generally contain a detailed daily completion log which would include things like where perforations were made, packer, and tubing settings, and pumping volumes/schedules, etc
  • Abandonment reports are generally not as detailed as the drilling or completion reports. Sometimes this is limited to only a notification that the abandonment project has begun.
  • A MMS Sundry notice is completed to document all wellwork. It is 2 to 3 page document filed with MMS giving all the details of what transpired during the operation. Operators sometimes, but not always, provide hardcopy or electronic sundry notices for wellwork which are then put in a well file for future reference. When not available from the operator, this information is sometimes available in the MMS website. The lag time between the actual work and online availability of the sundries may be 6-18 months. Sundries do not include all the details that would appear on the daily well reports. This and the lag time between the work and filing make these a less reliable resource for making analysis and decisions.

Production:

  • The operator provides unallocated production reports to the NOJV Team.
  • Frequency and details of these reports varies by operator and by field.
  • Examples are daily, bi-weekly, or monthly.
  • Some data contain well by well daily oil, gas, water volumes and flowing tubing pressures, others contain a daily total field volume.
  • Allocated Production and Tests are available through the Mineral Management Service (MMS). This data contains monthly oil, gas, water and required well tests (1 or 2/year). Third party companies provide via subscriptions or licenses the MMS data in a more user-friendly format, (IHS/PI-Dwight’s and Lexco/(OWL). Data is usually 3-4 months behind the current date.
  • Where the Operator does not provide timely data (monthly), the NOJV Team must rely on the MMS or subscription services to provide data which can be 3-4 months behind.
  • Although not allocated, the Production Fields Estimates provide the Reservoir and Production engineers more timely information to identify trends or issues and to make better decisions. Generally the differences between field estimates and the MMS allocated volumes are predictable and not significant.

Improvements

  • Standard report for drilling, production and completion information.


17. MEETING: DAVID SHIMBO

Senior Director Oil & Gas, Oracle Corporation
Tuesday 11/18/2008

  1. This was our follow up meeting with David. We discussed reconciliation and he explained that reconciliation does occur between engineering and production accounting. Reconciliation is correcting numbers occurring before.
  2. When bad data occurs anytime in a week, it needs to be corrected at those days itself. Daily summaries should account to monthly production number.
  3. He reviewed our swim lane diagram and suggested some changes:
    • Add more production accounting details
    • Add softwares/systems
  4. David suggested a SME, Yvonne Cleveland, from Newfield, who could provide us with details about production accounting. He will set up a conference call with her and us.
  5. David agreed to contact production engineers from Chevron Philips for us to set up meetings with.
  6. He would be able to set up a training course for us, involving business process workflows from Oracle. This tool can be used to make our diagrams more interactive and informative.
  7. We need to review BPM tools on the Oracle website.

Talked about Asset profitability reporting (LOS- lease operating statements). These involve expenses related to pumpers, electricity, trucks and gas, site maintenance etc.



18. MEETING: PETE FLOYD

Global Client Transformation Director, RWD Technologies
Monday, 11/24/2008

  1. This was our follow up meeting with Pete.
  2. Reviewed our swim lane diagram and flowchart.
  3. Suggested changes in the swim lane:
    • Show problem points in the diagram and focus on those
    • Use colors for depicting systems/softwares or use label boxes
    • Show format of data (input to output) using label boxes on the arrows
    • Have decision boxes in the right places
    • Define what is the process here and its purpose
  4. For extending the swim lane diagram, either focus on each organisation’s needs and problems, in their workflow or try to combine the workflows into one, but the space may not be sufficient for that.
  5. Add billing procedural questions to our list of questions.
  6. Focus on one aspect of all these workflows, decide on one process you need to represent.
  7. Show one example of partner operations, capture data transfer systems.
  8. For this, start with a single generic process then add company specific details.
  9. Show type, format and frequency of data.

Add feedback loops, such as operator produces oil, sells it and then gives payment to partner.



19. MEETING: DONNIE C. HALL

APA Joint Interest Group, Outside Operated, Staff Accountant, Oxy Inc.
Monday, 12/08/2008

  1. Partner receives joint interest billing (JIB) from operator on monthly basis.
  2. JIB contains expenses for repairing the well or/and drilling the new well.
  3. There are two electronics way, the JIB can be done.
    • JIBLINK
    • TRANSZAP
  4. Oxy Inc. does JIB electronically using JIBLINK system because it is easy to use, superior to TRANSZAP.
  5. JIBLINK also summarizes lines of accounting hence more useful for big property.
  6. Small operators send manual bills.
  7. Manual bill contains two or more document. It depends on how big the operator’s property is.
  8. Bills for drilling new wells are called capital charges.
  9. There are two types of capital charges.
    • Intangible drilling cost (IDC)
    • Tangible drilling cost (TDC)
  10. IDC deals with amount for drilling the new well, amount for building the roads to location and etc.
  11. TDC deals with physical stuff such as casing, pipe, underground flow lines to carry oil, gas to battery.
  12. If well is not working efficiently because of some reason, they can have plug and abandonment (PNA) charges.
  13. Oxy Inc.has joint interest billing from $ 35 to$ 6.4 million per month.
  14. Most of the companies use Oracle and SAP payable systems.
  15. Oxy Inc. uses Oracle payable system.
  16. According to joint operating contract, partner has to pay bills to operator within 15 days they receive the payment receipt from operator.
  17. They pay bills using checks, electronic checks and wire transfer.
  18. JIB group deals with landman and financial analyst.
  19. JIB also interacts with engineers to confirm all the operations that have been done on the platform are required or not.


20. MEETING: ESTELLA ALVARADO

Manager Production Accounting, Anadarko Petroleum Corp.
Monday, 12/8/2008

  1. There are several production accountants at different levels (senior levels, specialists, accountants etc) who get transactional type data daily i.e. data that is calculated through different systems. This data includes tank readings, theoretical for each well, temperature, pressure rates etc.
  2. Oil sales need to be reconciled at the end of the month. This reconciliation is done through purchaser statement. If this number doesn’t match they contact lease operator or purchaser to resolve. Gas volume information comes from different purchasers.
  3. Lease operator visits well sites, gauging tanks, entering downtime, reading meters etc.
  4. Run ticket calculation involves checking the opening and closing dimensions of tanks to calculate total oil sold for lease (BSW, gravity etc).
  5. Production accountant reviews, allocates and closes this data. It is gathered into the system and reviewed by the supervisor.
  6. Production accountant sends monthly production numbers to partners. Volumetric production reporting is done to state agencies and volumetric allocation is also done by Production accountant. They also provide numbers of active well counts.
  7. Route setup is maintained as it shows the list of every operator and his wells.
  8. PDB (production database) contains transactional data from every operator. WINS is a well system managed by land admin.
  9. Revenue accounting gets monthly production data from Production accountant. Revenue accountant pays royalties severance taxes.
  10. Revenue accountant manages the financial side, applying values to productions.
  11. Joint Interest Billing uses well counts to bill out producing overheads.
  12. When setting up master file, since one well can have multiple zones, engineer determines the split(60%-40%), production accountant allocates volumes depending on reservoir engineer and lease operators’ information.

They compare daily estimates with purchasers’ statements. Revenue records what was sold and paid for and what was reported.



21. MEETING: CAROLYN MARTIN

Production Accounting, Oxy Inc.
Monday, 12/8/2008

  1. On the first of every month she receives oil run tickets sent by the field personnel.
  2. These oil run tickets contain information such as:
    • Date
    • Lease number
    • Lease name
    • Gross barrels
    • Opened and closed valves
    • Absorbed gravity
    • Absorbed temperature
    • Gauges(in feet, inches)
    • Meter factor
    • BSW decimal
    • Average line clamp
    • Opening and closing clamps - The run tickets are signed by the carrier (whoever hauls is the carrier) and witnessed by an Oxy person.
  3. The oil run tickets are sent electronically, but the original ones are sent manually after scanning them.
  4. The run ticket system approves the tickets and then puts them into TOW(stands for The Oil Well) and then runs allocations on it. TOW is an oil well processing system, tickets are pulled into TOW, allocation is done for wells that are tested and portion of sales received.
  5. Every well within the gathering systems will get an allocation i.e. a portion of the sales based on test times and days.
  6. By the 10th of every month accounts for produced water, injected water, gas accounting and volumes are received from the plant.
  7. The reports are then closed and allocations occur. These include the ones from wells falling behind, every run ticket is matched with the meter information.
  8. SPLIT system captures tax exempt wells.
  9. Allocations within SPLIT are sent to revenue team, they process this data to pay for royalty and working interest owners for sales. They also do regulatory reporting (MMs, TRC etc).
  10. Revenue accounting gets copy of run ticket report and split reports from production accountant. Partners only receive data if they request it.
  11. Carolyn mainly processes data about injected carbon dioxide and gas.
  12. The run ticket report is matched with split report to be sure that the totals on tickets match the totals on the gathering system (one by one).

After splits are printed and proofed they go to the revenue department.



22. MEETING: LUTHER SOWELL

Devon Energy
Tuesday, 12/09/2008

  1. He works primarily with production engineers, reservoir engineers, accounting, marketing and land departments.
  2. For outside operated fields, they get daily information regarding all wells and their status – casing and tubing pressure, downtime choke, etc.
  3. Reconciliation happens between production accounting team and production engineer. There is also reconciliation between other departments.
  4. Production engineer gets daily information from the field related to well test.
  5. For gathering the data, there is one input point set up in the field – company operated wells. Data for outside operated wells is entered at Devon’s Houston Office.
  6. Pumper and Instrumentation Technicians collect the data from remote platforms and send to a central system by email or broadcast distribution.
  7. Production accounting team has the responsibility to allocate the volumes (sales, fuel usage, etc) to each well.
  8. Production accountant allocates the volume of oil and gas produced (sold) to each well using well test and downtime. There are other methods used to allocate production to a well level.
  9. Reservoir and production engineers, including partners, make decisions about the potential area. If the well starts producing less, they will decide whether to move production activity to another zone.
  10. Production accountant sends data (volume) to revenue accountant, via computer system, for recording and valuation purposes.
  11. Reconciliation happens between production accountant, production engineer, and revenue accountant. At times, the planning and evaluation group is involved in this process.
  12. Devon Energy provides (daily well level data including well test and downtime) to partners as requested.
  13. Marketing department is responsible for selling the gas, oil and natural gas liquids.


23. MEETING: ISAK RUSINEK

GoM DW Production - Joint Ventures, BP
Tuesday, 12/09/2008

  1. Daily report contains the summery what happened yesterday.
  2. They send reports of well test in the form of PDF and sketches.
  3. Tag data contains sensor data.
  4. Production accountant does final allocation on monthly basis.
  5. They store drilling and completion data in the secure website called PETROLINK.
  6. They send drilling report daily in the form of logs (hard copies) and spreadsheets (soft copies).
  7. Separator separates gas, oil, and water coming out of field.
  8. Gas plants convert the wet gas to dry gas and then it is converted into natural gas liquid.
  9. They do not use multiphase sensor because it is not part of the original metering and allocation agreement (not reliable at the time of the agreement).
  10. Depending on the agreement, they send allocation to partners and government.


24. MEETING: TRUDY DENNY

Revenue Accounting Supervisor, Oxy Inc.
Thursday 12/11/2008

  1. Main roles of the supervisor include checking if general accounts are accurate, all partners are paid correctly and supervising groups.
  2. Trudy is in charge calculating taxes for the oil sales, but not reporting or paying to the state.
  3. She receives data from the production accounting team.
  4. She looks into the run ticket volumes i.e. how much goes into pipes/barrels (this is looking into the run of oil into the pipeline; this run is done 2-3 times a month). The revenue accountants only see the final amount on the ticket.
  5. Trudy also receives the price/month for each well. This price comes from traders/marketing department.
  6. Revenue accountants are sometimes involved in the process of reconciliation. This is done on the money and not on volumes and involves checking last month’s run ticket and comparing it with the current month’s ticket.
  7. Trudy creates reports called receivables and account payables. The receivables describe the money that is to be received after selling the oil or gas. These reports are circulated internally (within Oxy) only, while account payables need to be sent to operators etc to whom the company owes money.
  8. Revenue accountants pay the royalty owners and partners.
  9. She and her team use the Oracle accounting system which sends these reports to the Joint interest billing team directly. Each person has their own access to different parts of the system (JIB has access to only certain parts of the system, while revenue team can access only the parts of the system needed by them).
  10. The financial team looks into forecasting.


25. MEETING: BRENT A. FLOYD

Production Operations Curriculum Director, Schlumberger Information Solutions (SIS)
Monday, 12/22/08

  1. In USA, partners are typically companies or individuals but outside USA, most of the partners are government agencies (major resource holders).
  2. Pumper and/or Instrumentation Technician does well testing based on operational requirement (such as well is producing less) or statutory requirement.
  3. Generally, Pumper is the well level supervisor.
  4. Reservoir Engineer deals with subsurface. Production/Field Engineer deals with surface.
  5. Facilities Engineer deals with facility processes such as waste water treatment, compressor, and water separation facility.
  6. In USA, most of the operations (such as collecting data, measuring flow rates) in the field are done manually.
  7. Asset Manager deals with partners.
  8. Production Engineer, Reservoir Engineer, Petroleum Engineer have to report to the Asset Manager.
  9. An AFE (Authority for Expenditure) is prepared and circulated internally for approval (Operations Manger) and then externally with partners. The AFE provides costs and expected benefits from the work.
  10. Production Accountant deals with Production Engineer.
  11. Production Engineer gets the information from the Pumper and/or SCADA/DCS system. Based on this information, the Production Engineer estimates the volume produced by the well and sends it to Production Accounting.
  12. Joint Venture Partner receives volume produced by the well.
  13. Partner either sells their own crude oil produced from the well or receives revenue from the operator.
  14. Non-operated data is a percentage of the production, cost/expenditure, and revenue.
  15. Depending on how big the organization is, the non-operated partner will have their own Field/Production Engineer, Reservoir Engineer, Petroleum Engineer, Production Accountant, Revenue Accountant, and Operations Manager.
  16. Joint Venture accountant deals with the cost/capital expenditures.
  17. Accounts payable is managed by cost accounts that deal with purchasing.
  18. Accounts receivable is managed by the revenue accountant that deals with sales.
  19. Daily or monthly process triggers the process of reconciliation.
  20. Operator will have HSE Engineer to deal with health, safety, and environmental incidents.
  21. Production Accountant allocates the volume (production) to each well by using following formula.

Production = Sales + Uses (fuel, flare, etc.) – Other sources(purchases) +/- Inventory charges.



26. MEETING: KAROL S. DURHAM AND DEBORAH A. LOEBLEIN

Ms. Durham, Senior Production Analyst, Ms. Loeblein, Production Specialist, Hess Corporation
Monday 01/12/2009

  1. The Production Analyst enters monthly production volumes into production allocation system – SAP PRA (U.S.) or ProCount (International), then allocates the volumes to a well level. Interface jobs are then run to move the data into a Global Information System including Reserves database.
  2. For International Outside-Operated Asset, well volumes are received from Operators in various formats such as OFM (oil field manager), excel spreadsheet, and PDF files.
  3. Master file data includes wells, completions, reservoirs, zones, measurement points such as meters, tanks, equipment, etc.
  4. SAP PRA and Procount Master-file data records are created for outside operated and operated properties prior to entering any production data
  5. International Outside-Operated Asset does not deal with well level details. They only need sales number for each well.
  6. For Operated Asset, Operators are responsible for sending following production data to their working interest partners.
    • Oil production
    • Gas production
    • Fuel gas
    • Flare gas
    • Water production.
  7. One of the production allocation softwares used in the Hess Corporation is ProCount. This is used for international assets only. SAP PRA is used for U.S. assets.
  8. International outside operated monthly well level production is uploaded directly into ProCount from Excel spreadsheets.
  9. For international Operated Assets, the Production Analyst performs the monthly allocation. The Production Accountant exports allocated well level volumes to the production accounting software SAP PRA.
  10. Generally, there are two types of allocation.
    • Weighted average well test and downtime
    • Allocation meter: Used by most of the onshore projects. It is very expensive.
  11. The Production Accountant deals with the actual production number whereas the Revenue Accountant deals with sales number.
  12. Non-operated data is the data coming from the working interest partner.
  13. The Production Accountant receives the LACT tickets or the run tickets from the Transporter.
  14. In the Hess Corporation, there is separate department for HSE related incidents.
  15. The Production Analyst and the Engineering Technician deals with the well test.


27. MEETING: PETE FLOYD

Global Client Transformation Director, RWD Technologies
Thursday, 01/22/2009

  1. He suggested to focus on one scenario such as Oxy INC. is partner and Chevron is an operator. Then we will have different swim lane model for each company.
  2. Ask SMEs if they can show the contract between Operator and Partner to see the relationship between them.
  3. Need to capture the process for the same person such as Production Accountant but when he is playing different role for the Partner and the Operator.
  4. Start Process: operator captures production figures.
  5. End Process: Partner pays to operator for that.
  6. Focus on the contract one by one and then compare with the other contract.
  7. Are we doing production reporting or contact reporting? (Ask to Yanni and Kemal)
  8. If the scope of project is production reporting, then do not involve Facilities Engineer.
  9. Reconciliation: No money involves in the process of reconciliation. It deals with only production number. It can be different for different organization. It depends on what data information they are looking for?


28. MEETING: JAMES CROMPTON

Manager of Upstream Architecture, Chevron
Thursday, 02/05/2009

  1. Company (Lease operator) has to wait on permission from regulatory agencies (granting permits) before any major activity such as drilling (pre-spud), completing the oil (bringing a well online), abandoning the well, etc.
  2. There are different types of regulatory agencies.
    • State agency (example Texas Railroad Commission)
    • Federal agencies:
      • Mineral Management Services (MMS): deals with offshore
      • Department of Interior: deals with onshore operations.
  3. If state has the royalty interest in the field, then operator sends production data to state regulatory agencies.
  4. Drilling reports sent to regulatory agencies contain the information related to how the operator plans to drill the well, what he will do with drill cuttings (water or sand that are produced in the drilling process). Reports also contain well status (waiting on rig, drilling, temporary abandoned, producing, etc.).
  5. Operator has to get permission before getting into production phase. It contains the information related to what is the process to produce the fluid, how the product will be transported, and etc.
  6. Well status during the production phase means is the well producing hydrocarbons, shut in for repair, turned form producer to injector, temporarily abandoned, etc.).
  7. He explained the reason why allocation is done: because most of the time the operator can not measure the product where he needs to measure.
  8. There are different types of lease in the USA such as federal lease, state lease or private lease. Outside the USA, government owns the mineral rights.
  9. Operator (Production accountant), has to pay rental to property owner such as federal government, state government, or private owner for use of land.
  10. Based on the agreement, operator has to pay royalties to federal government, state government, or private owner for depletion of mineral resource.
  11. Operator has to pay taxes (fraction of revenue generated) to federal government and state government.
  12. LACT (lease accounting custody transfer) meter is the point where the official commercial measurement takes place. The LACT meter is usually owned by the Transporter. It is the real point of valuation which goes to pipeline/ tank battery, truck or loading point.
  13. By using the pressure and temperature readings at the well head (or in some cases down hole near the reservoir completion), operator calculates flowrates (oil, gas, and water) using engineering calculations.
  14. Well test is done to measure how much oil each well produced on a periodic (3-6 months) not a continuous basis.
  15. There are two different types allocation.
    • Ownership allocation by using well test is done every 3 to 6 months to pay right royalties to different working interest owners. It is also called as financial allocation because it deals with the product which has the value. (most of the time only oil, sometimes oil and gas). Accountant is responsible for this allocation.
    • Production allocation deals with all the three products came out of the field. Production engineer is responsible for this allocation. Purpose is for mass balance in the reservoir for ultimate recovery of hydrocarbons over the life of the field.
  16. In onshore operation, all sensors are usually connected to the SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system vie local networks. In offshore operations, all sensors are connected to field DCS (distributed control system) by wiring on the platform. The temperature and pressure reading are then transmitted electronically to the central office.
  17. From FDC (field data capture), the data goes to production allocation software such as Energy Components.
  18. After production allocation, data goes to revenue accounting software such as SAP. Then it goes to cost accounting team.
  19. Lease operator will find out if there is anything wrong with equipment. Facilities engineer rely on the information sent by lease operator. The field data capture system will record well downtime which triggers equipment integrity and well performance reviews.
  20. In the annual budget report, operator has to estimate how much he plans to spend on the maintenance, major projects, new drilling for the next year.
  21. Answers for the questions from workshop material
  • Well division order: Division of ownership.
  • Operator asks partner to pay their share of expenses. Partner involved very closely in annual budget cycle.
  • Data profiling: One type of representation of production history (production vs time). Production history can also be represented on a map by using bubble maps.
  • DDA: Depreciation, depletion, amortization
  • He has suggested asking more about it to production accountant.
  • PPA (Prior period adjustment): Looking back in prior allocation to check what went wrong and redo all things to match the estimated allocation number with actual allocation number. PPA happens at the time of reconciliation.
  • Surveillance Exception: It is related to monitoring. Reservoir engineer deals with it. The main focus is on maximizing long term value of the major project.
  • Alert: It is traditional safety system if pressure or temperature is beyond safety value it gives the automatic alert and terns off the operation.
  • Inferred measurement: Measurement of flow rates by using pressure and temperature.
  • AWT: Automatic well test
  • Home: Operator’s central system.
  • Multiphase meter: try to break down the total fluid volume into oil, gas, and water volumes.
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