Abstract
Nowadays automation and digitalization in oil & gas industry have become a new normal practice to replace traditional workflows. The implementation of automation and digitalization is driven by the need to automate the repetitive and low-cognitive tasks, so it allows engineers to spend more time on high-cognitive and high-level analytical evaluations or studies, and to finally lead up to smarter decisions. One of the solutions is by developing and implementing "fit for purpose" automation tools which consist of various data analytics inside the tools.
Saka Energi Indonesia, as the operator of Pangkah PSC, has developed and implemented automation and digitalization in Ujung Pangkah field. Located in northern side of East Java, the field's reservoir consists of multi-layered carbonate oil and gas zone, which is being produced through horizontal and directional wells. Solutions of automation and digitalization have been developed for the Ujung Pangkah field to minimize loss opportunity, increase oil production and reduce the field decline rate. With some collaboration efforts from Subsurface, Operation and IT Department Team, some automation tools have been developed and implemented in Ujung Pangkah Field, which are as follows:
Exception Based Surveillance (EBS) tool: An automation tool to identify real-time well problems & opportunities.
Auto Gas Lift Rate Allocation (GALAA) tool: An optimization tool to automate gas lift rate allocation.
SAKA Well Opportunity, Register, Define and Select (SWORDS): An automation tool to evaluate well opportunity portfolio.
Well Model Update Automation: A tool to update well model automatically for every individual well.
By implementing the automation solutions, various repetitive tasks can be completed significantly faster and more efficiently. Saka engineers have more time to perform high-cognitive analytical evaluations on other technical areas. Ujung Pangkah field oil production decline rate has been successfully decreased from 21%/year to 8.6%/year after the automation solutions have been implemented in 2018.
Ujung Pangkah success story of automation & digitalization implementation will be used as a reference for managing other Saka assets in different fields. The new automation solutions are a faster and a more efficient way of optimizing existing field production and it will give positive impacts exponentially with increasing well numbers.
