Appendix C: SPE and COT team Meeting Minutes

Up to the list of Appendices

1. PRESENTATION DURING MEETING DATE: SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

Minutes of COT and RTO-TIG team meeting on date: kick-off meeting. Outlined tasks and started the project.

2. PRESENTATION DURING MEETING DATE: OCTOBER 1, 2008

Minutes of COT and RTO-TIG team meeting on date: 10/01/2008
Attendance: Yanni, Radhika, Neha, Jack, Jami, Deniz
Minutes taken by D. Gurkan.
Date: October 1st, 2008, 11 am in room 323 Technology Bldg.

  1. SPE board meeting on Sept. 20th Yanni’s impressions:
    • Very supportive crowd on the project
    • Wishes for a Wiki page that would be shareable
    • IP issues: governance model for the content (Tom at OCG is on this and will let Kemal know soon within this week)
    • Technical directors of programs have shown interest, especially:
      • James Pappas, Tech. Dir. Production Operations – very supportive of the idea, wants to give input on governance model, and in finding more SMEs
      • from Petroskills, Tech Dir. Drilling Completions – provide input on governance model
    • More universities can be involved
      • International
      • Competition among schools, etc.
  2. On the governance model:
    • Kemal and Yanni can lead to put together this governance body by the end of the semester.
    • 3-4 people in the board can be presented to by our students and us at the end of the semester for input to finalize the templates and release them to the public use
    • We can consider Wiki page at the end of the semester as well
    • For now, we will post minutes, etc. on the SPE’s related TIG page
      • Radhika and Neha don’t have access to SPE TIG pages yet
  3. SPE-ATCE meeting in New Orleans, paper submission deadline: http://www.spe.org/atce/2009/callforpapers.php, submission deadline is Jan 26th, 2009, conference is on October 4-7, 2009. Some local ones that I could find are listed here. Please identify calls for papers and let’s target those deadlines:
  4. Roger Hite’s presentation most probably to be held on November 10th.
  5. Some comments on the presentation of work:
    • We need to stay at the use case model level
    • Workflow diagram through the Joint Venture Production Reporting branch will be put into a workflow format and new questions will be generated for SMEs. This workflow will be at a very high level.
    • Variations from company to company will be identified on these workflow and tree diagrams, esp. on quality processes during any reporting.
  6. One comment on how the interactions are among Operator and Partners by Yanni:
    • Operator <-> Partner (when same company)
    • Operator <-> Partner (different companies)
    • Operator <-> Government (different relationship)

October 1st, 2008 - Meeting with the RTO-TIG team resulted in the following directions for the standard use case format:

  1. Stay at the use case model level.
  2. Workflow diagram through the Joint Venture Production Reporting branch will be put into a workflow format and new questions will be generated for SMEs. This workflow will be at a very high level.
  3. Variations from company to company will be identified within these workflows and tree diagrams, especially on quality processes during any reporting.
  4. Interactions conducted among Operator and Partners:
    • Operator - Partner (when represented by the same company)
    • Operator - Partner (when represented by different companies)
    • Operator - Government (different relationship)

3. PRESENTATION DURING MEETING DATE: OCTOBER 17, 2008

This call has been initiated because of some input from Kemal on PRODML research directions and semantic web enablement.

Agenda of COT and RTO-TIG team meeting:

We received your voicemail on modifications and revisions of direction of the project. Sorry for not getting back to you earlier. We decided to look at the minutes of your meeting with the students and then talk to you. Would a phone conference be ok?

Issues to discuss are (please revise/add as you see fit):
1 – PRODML research (if there has been use case and workflow standardization efforts in PRODML, we need to learn and incorporate into our work)
2 – Semantic web enablement has been outside our scope due to limited expertise
3 – Workflow directions from the tree diagram

Thanks,
Deniz and Jami

4. PRESENTATION DURING MEETING DATE: NOVEMBER 6, 2008

JVR presentation of the tree diagrams to SPE Oilfield Integration Workgroup’s regular meeting.
Also, a step-by-step process from the well to the reporting has been presented in a flow chart.
And then, a tree diagram that depicts the reconciliation problem has been presented.

Minutes from this presentation: There has not been any input or questions related to this presentation during Oilfield Integration web meeting.

Yanni: I wish we had more time on the agenda for the topic as they had a lot more content than the 10 minutes allotted and so there was no time for questions or discussion. Having a meeting dedicated to this topic would be something we should consider once they have more content on the workflows to share with the larger audience.

5. PRESENTATION DURING MEETING DATE: NOVEMBER 17, 2008

One workflow diagram has been added to what has been already presented. Also, an updated reconciliation:

Minutes of COT and RTO-TIG team meeting:
D. Gurkan’s notes to the students after the meeting: You will need to contact the SMEs who have contributed to your swim lane model the most asap (today) and ask them to put you in contact with their production accountants. You may cc Yanni (or whoever has put you in touch with the SME) in your e-mail. Introduce yourselves again as the students who have been working on "project title". Thank them for their time again and then request this link to a production accountant in their company especially for joint venture reporting purposes.
If you do not hear from them by the end of tomorrow, you will need to either call or e-mail them again and also e-mail Yanni (or Kemal - whoever has put you in touch with the SME) about this.

6. PRESENTATION DURING MEETING DATE: DECEMBER 11, 2008

A workflow diagram with questionable sections has been presented.

Minutes of COT and RTO-TIG team meeting:
1 - Decided to send out an e-mail with SME questions regarding the Production Accounting in the swim-lane diagram.
2 - A web site has been created on http://tech.uh.edu/faculty/gurkan/SPE/index.htm to display SME questions and final version of the workflow diagram.
3 - The SME questions sent out by Kemal Farid:

SPE RTO TIG Members,

The RTO TIG has been working with the IT Technical Section on a workflow documentation project. This project was kicked off with a workshop at the 2008 Digital Energy conference. Since then, we have been working with two students at the University of Houston, College of Technology to create the first set of workflow and use case documentation addressing Production Accounting and Partner Reporting.

The long term goal of this SPE initiative is to create a body of reference work for engineers and IT professionals who are implementing digital solutions for the improvement of operations with an emphasis on more real-time operations and optimization. The goal of creating this first set of documentation includes establishing the methodology for capturing and documenting the workflows. In the future, the vision is to support this project with a collaborative process, such as a wiki, to capture knowledge from the SPE community over the long-term. More details on this project can be found in the RTO TIG’s 2007 ATCE meeting notes in the shared documents folder on our site www.RealTimeOptimization.org.

The students are in need of additional support from subject matter experts (SMEs). There are a number of questions below. It would be very helpful if you or someone in your organization familiar with the production accounting or Partner reporting processes could provide answers, information or any supporting documentation that address the questions below.

The results of this project will be presented at Digital Energy and ATCE.

Thanks for your support of this project and I hope you all have a great holiday season.

Kemal Farid
Co-chair, Real-time-optimization TIG
CEO, Merrick Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Please visit http://tech.uh.edu/faculty/gurkan/SPE/index.htm for an update regarding the progress of our Joint Venture Production Reporting workflow documentation project being complete by students at the University of Houston, which is funded by the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
We kindly request your support to move this project forward. Please review the list of questions below. If you can, please provide detailed responses to these inquiries. Otherwise, please consider forwarding this list of questions to others who may be able to provide responses. Any support you can provide is appreciated.

Responses to the questions below should be directed to the University of Houston students who are working on the project, Neha Bhongale (nbhongal @ mail . uh . edu) and Radhika Zanwar (radhika.zanwar @ yahoo . co . in).
SME Questions (related to Production Accounting and Partners)

  1. How does the Facilities Engineer (row 3 in the swim-lane diagram) interact with other roles in the JVR process?
    • When machinery or parts are replaced, does the Facilities Engineer have to prepare and send a cost justification to the Operations Manager? Or anyone else? Please elaborate on how this process works.
  2. What role does the Production Accountant play?
    • Do they conduct revenue accounting (as shown in item 6g of the swim-lane diagram)?
    • Do they conduct joint interest billing?
    • If yes, what are the detailed steps involved?
    • If no, who performs these functions?
  3. Define accounts receivable and accounts payable.
    • Apart from the Production Accountant (in terms of revenue accounting – see item 6g in the swim-lane diagram), does any other team deal with this information?
  4. Does the Production Accountant perform hydrocarbon accounting (as shown in item 6g of the swim-lane diagram)?
    • If yes, what are the detailed steps involved?
    • If no, who performs this function?
  5. What triggers the process of reconciliation (see items 6g and 6h in the swim-lane diagram)?
    • Does it involve comparing the production amount to the forecast amount?
    • Is this comparison done in barrels of oil or in dollars?
  6. Who creates the financial reports and who sends the financial reports to the Executive? (See item 8j in swim-lane diagram.)
  7. What role do the Partners play?
    • Do they play a role in revenue accounting, joint interest billing, or hydrocarbon allocation?
    • Are they involved in reviewing field KPIs, capital planning & budgeting (item 9i in the swim-lane diagram)?
    • Do they deal with HSE related incidents (item 9k in the swim-lane diagram)?
    • Do they analyze sales and revenue information and production information (item 9l in the swim-lane diagram)?
  8. What role does the Partner Asset Manager play (row 9 in the swim-lane diagram)?
  9. What role does the Partner Corporate Manger play (row 10 in the swim-lane diagram)?
  10. Are there Reservoir Engineers, Facility Engineers, Production Accountants, and/or Operations Managers on Partner side also? If so, please explain their functions and tasks.
  11. Define non-operated data.
    • Do the Partners collect non-operated data?
    • If so, how is it collected and specifically who collects it?
    • If not, who, if anyone, does?
  12. Is there an HSE Engineer involved in the JVR process?
    • If so, how are their tasks related to the JVR workflow?

Thanks, Jami
Dr. Jamison V. Kovach (Jami)
Assistant Professor
Organizational Leadership & Supervision and Project Management Programs
ILT Department - College of Technology
312 Technology Building, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204
Phone: 713-743-1704; Fax: 713-743-4032; Email: ude.hu|hcavokvj#ude.hu|hcavokvj

7. MEETING DATE: JANUARY 9, 2009

Breakfast at Eric’s: SPE team has indicated that deliverables should be presented in a report format.

8. PRESENTATION DURING MEETING DATE: FEBRUARY 5, 2009

Agenda (Jack and Deniz):
1) Listen to Yanni, Kemal, and Shaun’s feeling of the report
2) Go over deliverables to present an estimate schedule of delivery:
1. Develop a standard use case format to document workflows.
2. Document Digital Energy workshop content within the standard use case format for the selected workflow.
3. Review workshop results with subject matter experts (SMEs) at Oil & Gas companies.
4. Document notes from meetings with SMEs at Oil & Gas companies.
5. Develop and document the selected use case based on feedback from SMEs.
6. Analyze the business case in terms of the economic impact of the workflow.
7. Evaluate the use of a semantic web (ontology) to capture the workflow and use case.
8. Publish the results to the SPE ITTS-OI and RTO-TIG team site and in other SPE venues.
3) Present final version of affinity diagrams for the summary of SME meeting minutes
4) Present scenarios of various JVR cases such as Partner-Operator (same company), Partner-Operator (perspective of Chevron), Partner (perspective of OXY), software flow during a JVR, etc. We have come up with ~7 of them – we would like to hear your initial impression and opinions. The goal is to compare these scenarios to find overlapping processes in the workflows and present the overlaps to SPE community as potential processes for standardization efforts.
5) Digital Energy workshop – considerations?
6) Distribution of the report to the community – is there any restriction? Potentially interested parties are: PRODML, Chevron.
7) PRODML training is offered to us. Also, SME contacts might be provided by Alan Doniger. We would like to hear your opinions on this new development.

Minutes of the meeting (by Deniz Gurkan) (Attendance: D. Gurkan, J. Kovach, J. Christiansen, Y. Charalambous, K. Farid, S. Wright)

1) Listen to Yanni, Kemal, and Shaun’s feeling of the report

Yanni: A lot of content has been included into the report. Joint venture sub-processes need to be emphasized more. It is too general and wide in content instead of focused. Mark Crawford (PRODML , Exxon) will join the meetings next time for input.
Kemal: We can expect to get more participation from SPE community with this report since it is very comprehensive and it show a lot work has been done. SPE community might be attracted to become part of this work. It needs to be refined. And, we need to collect some input from the SPE community on the format and presentation of the material.

2) Go over deliverables to present an estimate schedule of delivery:
1. Develop a standard use case format to document workflows.

This is an ongoing deliverable that outlines the methods used to document a use case in this project. We will outline what tools have been used to present and focus our attention to JVR: tree diagram, flow chart, swim lane, sequence diagrams, etc. And, we need to outline the reasons of each transition from one to another. The end product will be a detailed sequence diagram of the processes.

2. Document Digital Energy workshop content within the standard use case format for the selected workflow.

Summary of what has been achieved at the workshop needs to be included. After the SME meeting with James Compton, the pictures of charts will be clarified. The pictures will be moved to an Appendix as a reference and only the description of the group #4’s work will be left in the section. Lessons learned on the conduct of the workshop will be included. The white paper on use case documentation (provided by Merrick Systems during the workshop) will be added to the appendix as well. Some points to mention about the workshop:
* Did not allow the teams to come up with a uniform approach
* Allowed the recognition of an opportunity for UH students to contribute by workflow documentation
* Scope has not been framed very well
* Swim lane of each company is different and no workflow exists in isolation, that’s why, workshop participants kept going back to the beginning of the whole process instead of focusing on the JVR only

3. Review workshop results with subject matter experts (SMEs) at Oil & Gas companies.
Ongoing and mostly delivered. Once J. Compton’s meeting notes are available, this deliverable will be completed.

4. Document notes from meetings with SMEs at Oil & Gas companies.
Context has been presented very well by affinity diagrams. However, JVR-related points need to be highlighted. Refinement is needed.

5. Develop and document the selected use case based on feedback from SMEs.
Add a section on what JVR scope should be at the beginning and then present the large content that has been collected. Also, add a chapter at the beginning of the document on what JVR is, its components, contents, scope, etc as a background material

Shaun: non-operated and operated JVR are the two main categories of JVR. PRODML is mainly focused on non-operated JVR because the reporting from an Operator to the Partners need the most standardization, interface definition, and interoperability during the case when Operator and Partner are different companies. Another big category is US vs. non-US JVR.

There was a discussion on how well NO and O JVR can emcompass a good categorization perspective. A consensus has not been reached. However, COT team presented a first attempt at some specific scenarios such as Operator-Partner same company, same company's roles/expectations when it is an Operator vs when it is a Partner, all software overview throughout the JVR process, etc. COT team needs to refine the scenarios into a comparable form so that we can identify similarities and differences in each case. Also, contextual focus can be narrowed further during this exercise. Such scenarios will eventually help a beginner software engineer to understand the JVR processes better.

6. Analyze the business case in terms of the economic impact of the workflow.
COT team suggested to use the Digital Energy Workshop time to lead SMEs and some additional outside members
* study workflows generated during this project
* provide feedback on the progression of the project
* analyze the boundaries of JVR process
* familiarize with the project methods so that SPE community might consider opening a solicitation for other universities (interested parties) to propose to develop workflows for other use cases listed during the 2008 May Workshop such as the gas lift optimization
* demonstrate the value of COT work to SPE community
* discuss and develop the business case and economic impacts

Endorsement of the workflow diagrams, scenarios, and general methodology of the project by the SPE community can be partially realized during this workshop. And then, business cases and economic impact input can be incorporated into this deliverable of the project to be completed by May 15, 2009.

7. Evaluate the use of a semantic web (ontology) to capture the workflow and use case.
Out of scope.

8. Publish the results to the SPE ITTS-OI and RTO-TIG team site and in other SPE venues.
Ongoing.

3) Present final version of affinity diagrams for the summary of SME meeting minutes
Presented during discussion of deliverable #4 - some more refinement and highlighting of just JVR processes is in progress.

4) Present scenarios of various JVR cases such as Partner-Operator (same company), Partner-Operator (perspective of Chevron), Partner (perspective of OXY), software flow during a JVR, etc. We have come up with ~7 of them – we would like to hear your initial impression and opinions. The goal is to compare these scenarios to find overlapping processes in the workflows and present the overlaps to SPE community as potential processes for standardization efforts.
Presented during the discussion of deliverable #5.

5) Digital Energy workshop – considerations?
Please see notes under deliverable #6.

6) Distribution of the report to the community – is there any restriction? Potentially interested parties are: PRODML, Chevron.
Making the documents public is ok as long as we get the permission of SMEs on the content of their minutes.

7) PRODML training is offered to us. Also, SME contacts might be provided by Alan Doniger. We would like to hear your opinions on this new development.
We will contact Alan Doniger for a tutorial on PRODML and its contribution to JVR.

9. PRESENTATION DURING MEETING DATE: FEBRUARY 13, 2008

Agenda (Deniz)
Assuming we will concentrate on US JVR.
1 – Determine all standard ways of reported parameters in daily drilling reports, completion reports, and well logs. Compare with PRODML if they have been addressed.
2 – SPE team: review deliverables I and II
3 – On deliverable IV: Affinity diagrams (suggestions/issues/JVR focus), software usage, scenario comparisons.
4 – Definition of scope of project, different types of Partner reports, sequence diagrams, completion of swim lane diagrams
5 – Ongoing approval for publication of SME meeting minutes

Minutes of the meeting (by Deniz Gurkan) (Attendance: D. Gurkan, J. Kovach, Y. Charalambous, K. Farid)
We are concentrating on US JV production reporting in this project.
Workshop update: 10 people RSVP’ed, 4 cannot make it. We decided to hold the workshop during the conference. Next meeting, we will discuss possible agenda options.
1 – Report’s Background chapter: Daily drilling reports, well completion reports, and well logs are out of scope of this project. We will concentrate on production. W-2 and W-10 forms of RRC are still relevant since they contain well test reports. Note: IHS has a de facto standard way of displaying well logs. We will change the report’s references to JVPR when necessary. TASK on this chapter: expand section C to include just production reports, periodic well test reports, downtime reports, and maybe well maintenance activity reports.
2 – SPE team will review: Deliverables I and II, scenario comparison table with ppt descriptions, and affinity diagrams. Need decision on keeping or deleting the slide inputs from the workshop’08 materials on pages 24, 25. In the meanwhile, Jami will add affinity diagram explanation/description into the section B of deliverable I.
3 – On deliverable IV:
Affinity diagrams: should be one of the main focus points during the workshop. Presents the SME meeting minutes in an excellent way and a great tool. JVR relevancy determination is in progress. SPE team will help us define which items in the affinity diagrams are relevant to this project – maybe change the legend to “in scope” and “out of scope”. The last two entries in the affinity diagram (issues and suggestions) will potentially lead us in the business case development. And JVPR scope definitions will help provide input to sequence diagrams.
a- Enerdeq SME offer by Kemal if more info is needed
b- Well number mismatch is a big problem: various formats exist; API, RRC no., etc.
Also, suggestion to add a new affinity diagram that displays all of JVR and the scope of this project inside the whole JVR – to be presented at the workshop’09.
Scenario table: SPE team will provide feedback on scenarios, column headings, and the entries before Deniz sends out an e-mail to individual SMEs who have contributed to the scenarios explaining in detail what row and column headings mean.
Software usage: still to be documented in a presentable and usable way to the SPE community. All software formats, input/output relationships will be analyzed and added to the section.
PRODML: originated from the Nordic region for JVPR data exchange in XML form. Does not have a good documentation but it is a working standard. We can help Alan Doniger with documentation. Deniz will send him a version of our report (with affinity diagrams inserted) to ask for input and then try to meet with him to get PRODML training. Also, Mark Crawford can take part in this process.

Definition of scope of project is in progress.
Different types of Partner reports are being analyzed. More will come next time with sequence diagrams.
Completion of swim lane diagram will be addressed next time with the task description document.

10. PRESENTATION DURING MEETING DATE: FEBRUARY 27, 2009

Agenda (Deniz and Jami):
1 – Background section of the report has been extended to include JVPR. Please review.
2 – First deliverable includes the affinity diagram description now, please review.
3 – Scenario comparison table needs SPE team input.
4 – Sequence diagrams have been prepared – we will present and request feedback from SPE team.
5 – Workshop agenda proposal (Yanni and Kemal, please add your proposal to this):
i) Affinity diagrams for SME meeting minutes will be presented to the attendants.
ii) Scope of the project (JVPR) will be presented inside JVR umbrella with an affinity diagram or other means.
iii) Sequence diagrams that explain reporting will be presented as the results of this project.
iv) Business case section:
Phase 1: 2-step survey of attendants; 1st issues will be polled, 2nd ranking of issues will be determined.
Phase 2: during the workshop, suggestions will be discussed on the highest ranking issues (as determined from the initial survey)

Minutes of the meeting (by Deniz Gurkan):

SPE and COT team has decided to change the charter document’s reference to business case deliverable to:
Analysis of Issues: Recommendations and Solutions
COT team will write their opinions on this subject into the corresponding section of the report.

Report Background section:
JV establishment paragraph should be general to US operations.
Scenarios:
PPT needs to be presented in a different format with references to the swim lane diagram
Column descriptions should be added
Scenario table should be sparse to leave room for SME contribution/revisions, some entries do not fit.
Sequence Diagram:
Decided to be generic (substitute all references to software and applications with their generic names/concepts, Kemal will help to do this)
SPE team will review and provide feedback by next week Friday.
Outline of Report:
Report sections will be moved to have deliverable V first and then business case second and then deliverable 1 onwards.
There will be a “Results” and a “Process” main headings that will enclose these sections.
On workshop:
Table of scenarios will be given as a first exercise to the attendants during registration period to fill in under columns for their company’s practices.
Workshop Agenda:
Before workshop:
I) Next week, a 2-step survey process to collect info on issues, and then rank list them.
II) March 13th: send out the report with all changes to workshop attendees.
During workshop:
PPT (Kemal and Yanni): Summary of previous workshop and purpose statements
PPT (Kemal and Yanni): Introduction to project (We have not discussed this: Scope of the project (JVPR) will be presented inside JVR umbrella with an affinity diagram or other means.)
PPT (COT team): Affinity diagrams of SME meetings, sequence diagrams, etc
Activities:
1 – Scenario fill-up worksheet
2 – Validation of sequence diagrams (a scope paragraph will be added to each - assign sequence diagram validations to each table according to their expertise)
3 – Collect solution suggestions for issues

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