Case studies and related to approximately 30 oil and gas production fields containing smart wells were reviewed to consider the work process that was used to justify the incremental investment in hardware and installation cost. These fields are from two operating companies and are distributed across most major oil and gas productive regions worldwide. The paper outlines key findings from the review, recommends a project-stage-based modelling workflow and presents opportunities for improvements to support more rigorous and efficient design decisions.

Keywords:
knowledge management, modeling & simulation, upstream oil & gas, selection, project management, justification, smart well, simulator, static model, engineer
Subjects:
Strategic Planning and Management, Professionalism, Training, and Education, Information Management and Systems, Project management, Communities of practice, Knowledge management, Well Operations and Optimization, Well performance modeling
Copyright 2011, Society of Petroleum Engineers
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