Over the past ten years, Shell's Smart Fields programme has built Intelligent Energy capabilities into key field developments and selected brownfields. The capabilities consist of new technologies and new ways of working, which are integrated to provide appropriate technical solutions for asset to become technology enabled from early phase of its development. The global deployment of these capabilities has led to considerable value to the business. New fields in development go through a screening at the early phase of the hydrocarbon maturation process, to identify intelligent energy capabilities valuable to each project.
High value has been achieved from solutions in production surveillance and optimization, smart wells, real time monitoring and optimization and time lapse reservoir surveillance. After some years of Smart Field implementation and value demonstration, the focus of the programme has shifted from "selling" individual solutions to achieving the "Appropriate Level of Smartness" (ALoS) in all key assets and projects.
Integration and new ways of working have been key drivers in the success achieved until now. Collaborative Work Environments (CWEs) have been implemented on a large scale, mostly focusing on the production and field surveillance area and on the real time monitoring. CWEs have improved the cooperation across the boundaries between disciplines and between office and field locations, enabling faster and better decision making. Strong focus has been placed on embedding the new ways of working into the organization. Business value is realized only if the adopted solutions and new ways of working are sustained.
A Smart Field is an asset or group of assets that can be optimized continuously, managing both surface and subsurface aspects of the field through integrated models and workflows to maximize lifecycle value, while honoring existing operational constraints. This is achieved through an innovative integration of People, Processes and Technology. For more than a decade, Smart Fields has been identifying, developing and implementing integrated solutions that have become standard oil field practices such as Collaborative Work Environment, Smart Well, Reservoir Surveillance solutions in the areas of 4-D seismic and real-time production monitoring to name a few. To date the implementation of Smart Fields solutions have enabled the assets to increase production, reduce deferment, and improve ultimate recovery while reducing costs and HSSE exposure.
