Kuwait Oil Company initiatives for ushering in a new era of digital transformation of its assets to intelligently and optimally manage the Oil and Gas fields were successfully realized with the completion of three pilot projects entitled Kuwait Integrated Digital Fields (KwIDF). This paper discusses major achievements of the Digital Oilfield technology implemented in Burgan KwIDF project and provides an insight on the challenges in operating it. The Burgan KwIDF pilot successfully transformed GC-1 production asset into a fully instrumented DOF comprising of digital instruments and infrastructure installed at well site and the production facility. Real-time production data is transmitted to a state of the art collaboration center that integrates data continuously with automated workflows for validation, modeling and tuning of well and facility models. Right time decision support information generated from smart visualization tools allow quick actions for production optimization, well and facility management in a collaborative work environment. There is persistent value realization from KwIDF technology implemented in Burgan field. It has generated substantial cost savings with faster response time in restoring production and reduction in non-productive time. Driven by the digital environment asset production has sustained at target as production gain opportunities are capitalized and losses compensated quickly. Over the period of time with experience in utilizing the DOF technology it has been observed that the technology sustainment is dependent on the technology providers to a large extent. The main components that require their continuous support are the digital instruments, proprietary software, hardware and related infrastructure. Technical expertise in each domain is necessary for ensuring continuous and smooth operations in the field, wellsite and collaboration centers. Development of an integrated team of domain experts is crucial for successfully managing the DOF operations. Change management initiatives for developing an in house user champion team is mandatory for ensuring sustainment. The important lessons learned and solutions are discussed in detail.

Production forecasting always play an important role in decision-making for the corporate management and architecting company's strategy. In an oil or gas upstream company, the yearly projection of future hydrocarbon production is a routine practice for preparing annual business plan. As sub surface uncertainties pose a huge threat for upstream company, achieving the forecasted crude oil and gas production is challenging in most cases. For national oil companies, having multiple Assets and thousands of wells where reservoirs underpinning different projects at different stages of field development, there arises a need of unified production forecast process that ensures forecast quality. In view of this, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) initiated a process for improving forecast process adopting best reservoir management practices. In order to make reliable predictions, the engineer must be knoweledgable in variety of techniques to cover the wide range of conditions that are encountered in forecasting process. At the same time, engineer should have enough experience of reservoir behavior to alert the ways in which a given procedure might be changed to yield the most reasonable outcome. In case of using multiple methodology during preparation of forecast, the results obtained by each method and its underlying factor of judgment must be accounted.

Several efforts have been made in the past for generating an Integrated Asset Model (IAM) for the Greater Burgan field in Kuwait with mixed results on sustained utilization and benefits. A new effective full field Integrated Asset Model has now been developed within an Integrated Operational Excellence (IOX) program towards Digital Transformation of the Greater Burgan field. A proven model centric approach has been adopted to bring multiple interdependent wells, pipelines networks, and process facilities models together into one single truly integrated asset model. The IAM platform also includes a water processing facility model which consists of 2 effluent water disposal plants, a crude oil export pipeline network and a water injection network model. Development of this integrated wells-network-facility-crude export-water processing facility-water injection network model incorporating the 14 gathering centers in the South and East Kuwait (SEK) asset focused on providing all the essential valuable inputs to business processes for better asset management, faster and more accurate decision-making and optimizing the hydrocarbon flow path all the way from the reservoir till the export point. The assessment was done at full field level where the complete system constraints, interactions and back pressure effects between more than 2000 different wells were fully accounted up to the crude processing facilities. The availability of this fully integrated asset model with up-todate calibrated wells and network models and process models enables Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) engineers to better understand current well performance and production potential, identify any possible bottlenecks imposed by the large complex surface network and process facilities of Greater Burgan Oilfield. The simulated results such as pressure gradient, temperature gradient and erosional velocity ratio gradient across the production networks are presented on the GIS map for easy opportunity identification. The paper describes how the Integrated Asset Modeler tool enables the asset teams to evaluate different operating scenarios to further enhance well performance and the overall asset productivity via re-routing well flow path to an appropriate header, identifying well workover opportunities, re-evaluating artificial lift design, adding new wells for field development and comprehensive understanding of well integrity and flow assurance studies. The integrated asset model can be coupled to the Greater Burgan reservoir model for comprehensive field development studies in future.

This paper aims to describe an evolving system utilised by young professionals with varying degrees of experience and backgrounds, supported by senior staff, to gain an improved understanding of ongoing well operations. The program has been tailored to the needs and capabilities of the individual, whilst allowing for continued development. Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC) has several joint venture assets across the globe. In order to assist in the communication with the Kuwait Head Office, KUFPEC has Area Offices to liaise with, and shadow the work carried out by local in-country Operators. However, by doing so the opportunity for Junior Staff, in the Head Office, to be directly involved in Well Operations is restricted. In order to mitigate this, a workflow has been initiated by the South East Asia Region (SEAR) that allows for Junior Staff to track the progress of wells being drilled and by doing so obtain a ‘feel’ for being in an ‘Operational Environment’. The workflow itself is flexible and has been tailored to the individual as well as specific well operations. In all cases the starting point is establishing the Well Objectives and so a detailed review of a Drilling Program and costs, followed by a Q&A session, is undertaken alongside more Senior Engineers to ‘introduce’ the well. Prior to Spud, ‘Well Montages’ are developed that describe the full information of the operation. The Well Montages are updated daily via Daily Drilling and Daily Geological Reports. An ‘Operational Highlights’ email is communicated to the department each afternoon that summarises the well progress and includes any risks or hazards to be aware of. Throughout the operation the Junior Staff are encouraged to reference the Drilling Program to follow the operations progress. After well completion a short ‘End of Well Summary’ is produced. Initial results of this workflow have been extremely positive. As more wells pass through the workflow the technical understanding of the Junior Staff increases. Their appreciation of specific hazards and uncertainties has improved, and they also have gained an enhanced understanding of Well Operations as well as the associated terminology and abbreviations. Support for the Junior Staff has also been obtained from the Area Offices, who are in direct contact with the operators. This paper would be of interest to Mentors or Coaches who have an emerging talent pool. The paper outlines a clear and concise method that has been tried and tested and that allows for a Coach to define a workplan specific for the needs of the Junior Engineer, and thereby promote their individual development needs whilst on the job.

This paper describes the construction, calibration, and analysis of a multi-field integrated asset operations model (IAOM). The strategy is based on a hierarchical approach that introduces process concepts to assure simplicity, flexibility, and scalability as well as integration with external platforms without compromising on accuracy. As a part of ADNOC Onshore's implementation of the IAOM, well and network models were constructed and calibrated for modelling field scenarios, identifying bottlenecks, and replicating business requirements. The new approach is rooted in concepts to assure maintainability of the network model. A hierarchical approach implemented during construction and calibration was defined in levels from wells to processing facilities, and was later standardized for ease of replication of structures. Without compromising on accuracy, the new approach delivered ease of construction, calibration, and analysis that was not possible in an earlier field model. The flexibility in the hierarchical construction approach facilitated faster analyses of scenarios such as commingled flow-line effects and the impact of gas lift conversion. Additionally, model convergence time was reduced by half. The embedded scalability features increased efficiency in the modelling process such that the addition of a newly commissioned field to the network model became a simplified task, ensuring the model will be kept up to date. Hierarchy features facilitated ease of scenario definitions at different levels in the network and supported specific analyses. A nomenclature structure provided flexibility in classifying grouped or related objects for changes in status in defining scenarios. Additional benefits were gained through the ability to easily integrate with other analytical tools such as forecasting software and other intelligent monitoring platforms owing to standardizations built into the network model. This new approach allows engineers to understand the nuances of modeling and execute associated tasks in a structured and simplified manner, which can be replicated across other assets for increased efficiency and model performance.

The change in global oil price has led Oil producing companies to chase each and every barrel of oil either through optimizing their production or through minimizing the production losses pertaining to various reasons. The Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has a vision to increase its production to 4 MMBOPD by year 2030. To fulfill this vision KOC has designed a Digital Oil Field system which is unique in world in various aspects. This Digital Oil Field is designed to achieve two main objectives, first objective is to minimize the oil production losses associated with downtime and second objective is to optimize the oil production at network and field level. To achieve its first objective KOC designed various workflows to chase the losses and identify its root cause. Once the root cause is identified the issue are fixed in minimum possible time. The workflows designed to achieve this objective were all combined under one main workflow Smart Production Surveillance (SPS). The Smart Production Surveillance comprises of various sub-workflows taking care of various elements which affect or may affect the production. The idea behind the SPS design was to capture the main reasons for production losses, report them as quickly as possible resolve the issue in time and resume the production back to normal. Also as a proactive active approach where prediction of issue is done through alarms and warnings system. For this purpose smart alarms are designed based on experience in Oil Field. These alarms help analyze the issues at well level and pin points the major issues. The objective of the Digital Oil Field system is to improve the oil production by optimization. This objective was met by designing an extensive surface network model comprises of seven gathering centers for seven fields. To run this network model around twelve hundred well models were prepared which acts as an engine for optimization calculations.

Raudhatain Field North Kuwait is produced with approximately 500 oil wells of which over 200 use Electrical Submersible Pumps (ESP). The ESP is used as a production mechanism to supplement the natural reservoir drive of the wells. Downhole monitoring of the ESP system is one of the most important aspects in maximizing ESP performance with the final objective of increasing in ESP run life and maximize oil production. An old ESP Monitoring system was introduced few years back, however the application and utilization did not fully support the concept of ESP Real Time Monitoring. The new ESP Real Time Monitoring system has been recently introduced to complement the old system. This new system has more significant improvement over the old system. A SCADA system has been utilized to transmit ESP data from well site to the server in the office that allows the engineers to retrieve real time data, monitor the parameters and perform analysis and take necessary actions in the well. Advances in measurement technology have made ever increasing amounts of real time information available for monitoring both pump and well performance. Parameters such multiple downhole pressure readings, temperature and vibration, well head pressure readings as well as the traditional operating voltages and amperages are not only available, but available in real-time at the engineers desk top. Having all of this data on our desk tops has created an environment that allows the engineer to change for a reactive monitoring approach as problems are identified, to a proactive tool, catching potential issues before they become problematic to the ESP performance. The ability of the new ESP Real Time Monitoring Tool to perform data trending of an ESP for any date or time frame, evaluating either some or all of the critical parameters, has allowed the engineers in Raudhatain field to analyze ESP performance more accurately through trend analysis. This allows an engineer to review well performance in a matter of minutes compared to the hours used in the past. This has helped the engineers in making faster more accurate decisions. This paper will address several examples where ESP real-time monitoring lead to an incremental of 3,000 BOPD production North Kuwait Raudhatain field will continue the utilization of this ESP Real Time Monitoring system and seek further improvement. This paper will describe the system, share our experiences and show how the system helps in ESP optimization and, thus maximize production.

Instrumentation on around 900 artificial-lift system (ALS) wells in the Wafra field allowed remote monitoring, control, and analysis for exceptional management. Having software capable of controlling wells, gathering real-time data, and integration with any database, created another level of effective surveillance. Using real-time optimization simulation software, helped in identifying opportunities, selecting candidates, tracking well behavior, reducing action response duration, reducing number of failures, and saving power cost. This manuscript focuses on the optimization implementation and results verification. The field development team is divided by reservoir type wherein each engineer is responsible for a set of wells. The wells are artificially lifted using different types of pumps including sucker rod pumps' (SRP), electrical submersible pumps (ESP) and progressive cavity pumps (PCP). The manual process of collecting data is progressively becoming replaced by high tech well instrumentation, which is connected to a private network cloud reaching engineer's desktops. This process has created a collaborative environment consisting of different teams such as asset management and operations engaged in production optimization utilizing the smart software modules. The changes to the well are tracked and diagnosed instantly. Deploying the digital oil field allowed engineers to instantly access well data which has improved the management process of identifying well issues based on pre-configured and intelligent alarms. It has created short- and long-term plans for production optimization taking into consideration the health and performance of wells and equipment installed in the field. The aim has been to reach and maintain the optimal rate for each well. Case studies conducted include: – Candidate wells for chemical injection based on measuring the difference in flow line pressure from temperature change – Unbalanced rod pump wells identified based on the comparison between the measured and calculated counter balance torque – Wells with gas interference were highlighted based on continuous dynacard collection – Wells with motor overload were diagnosed based on real-time data comparison between the nominal and actual output current – Production increase opportunities were identified based on the diagnostics report and analysis report created from the software optimization module Smart field optimization has been implemented for the first time in the instrumented artificially lifted wells in a partitioned neutral zone between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, whereby the data is being accessed from admin camp, which is an office area outside the field. It has enhanced the collaborative environment between the different teams working in a joint venture allowing engineers to be focused on solving well problems instead of data collection and validation procedures.

The volitile nature of petroleum products as well as the integral convolution of the process urged the petroleum industry to pursue techniques to recognize, assess and encompass possible hazards. Together, both government agencies and non-profitable professional societies guide industry leaders with best- recommended practices. Hence, they aim at improving operations mamanement and ensure a safe working environment with processing facilties. Regretably, accidents due to both human errors and electromechanical failures still happen and result in numerous consequences. As a result, critics have raised concerns about the petroleum industry's safety and risk mitigation credentials and question its ability to prevent major accidents. Therefor, and in to establish a rigid safety culture, the gap between both the academia and the industry need to bridged to enhance the knowledge base of safety in the petroleum industry. The purpose of this paper to defines the establishment of "HSE Risk mamangement in the petroleum industry" course in the Petroleum Engineering program at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Not only it is designed to cover the technical aspects of HSE in the petroleum industry, but it also enhances the overlooked soft skills, ethical responsibilities, and creating safety culture.

With strategic target to produce 200 MBOEPD and become operator of 20% of the daily production asset by 2030, KUFPEC conducted several internal transformation initiatives to achieve them. One of them was the decision to build integrated corporate Information Management System (IMS) for Exploration and Production (E&P) data to improved decision-making efficiency. The paper will explain the strategy, reason and technology used to implement the system. It will also provide benefits and lesson learned from the implementation. Prior information management system, the company relied on manual process and shared folder. This led to inconsistency among asset teams within the company. It also consumed technical resources time to manage the data and create report for management. Integrated information management system was new in the company. Building information management system from a scratch was a challenging task and could take a significant amount of time. It required strategic approach that allow the company to reap the benefit earlier. Therefore, the company selected to implement information management system for production data first. Production data was among main driving factor for decision-making because the company was mainly involved as non-operating partner. The company selected ProSource as the solution for integrated corporate information management system. The solution footprint covered most of E&P domains data. It allowed the company to expand the corporate information management system to other domain later. As part of change management, the company created a new Technical Support Department that will oversee the integrated corporate information management system in the company. During project implementation phase, the support and commitment from the asset teams were high. They supported the project by providing data and active participation in the project. They realized that the project would bring benefit to them and was important for their routine works. The support was very important because they are the owner of the data. They are also the end user of the system once it was implemented. With the system in place, the production data was stored in a secure and easy to access database. This increase data integrity and confidence of the data. Engineers from different asset team have unified interface to access the production data securely. This reduced learning curve if an engineer was moved to other asset team. It also increased data visibility, accountability and transparency. Production data were available to any body that has permission to access, from engineer to top-level management. Reports were standardized according to the company other initiative. Petroleum Engineers have more time to analyse the data rather than loading and managing the data. After the benefit realization of information management system for the production data, the company decided to implement information management system to Geology and Geophysics domain later on.

The Kuwait Oil Company is developing the North Kuwait Jurassic Gas fields in order to increase domestic gas supply. The reservoirs are difficult with deep, poor quality reservoirs under high pressure containing H2S and CO2 leading to significant challenges. KOC entered into an Enhanced Technical Service Agreement (ETSA) with Shell in order to benefit from IOC expertise and to optimize the development. Some 40 Shell staff work with KOC. A core element of the ETSA is to build and enhance KOC's staff competencies to develop the North Kuwait Jurassic Gas fields. This professional competencies development program is done through the application of various training and coaching activities. KOC has an established and well-structured competence assessment and training regime for all staff under their employment. Shell, with its wide experience in sour and High Pressure/High Temperature (HPHT) gas field development, is well placed to complement and build on this important competency development process. Shell has embarked on a journey to shorten it's time-to-autonomy by transitioning from traditional classroom training to providing structured development programs including on-the-job-training, blended learning and coaching. The paper will describe how training and coaching activities were selected for KOC's North Kuwait Jurassic Gas team, how they were implemented and monitored, and what the critical success factors were. Shell's training and coaching program to the North Kuwait Jurassic Gas team have started five years ago with a steady increase of activities year-on-year. The multiple years' implementation of the North Kuwait Jurassic Gas competency development program have allowed for learnings, review and fine-tuning of the program. The paper will address the most important elements for a successful training and coaching program in this unique partnership. This contains of four elements, the role of management and business; type of training and coaching event; staff's own involvement and training program management. The paper will show how an IOC supports an NOC to enhance staff competencies in a challenging technical area, how this training and coaching plan is being managed and executed and what are key elements to consider.

In the last decade, upstream oil industry faced an exponential increase of the use of real-time data, which lead to numerous digital oilfield (DOF) implementations. These have demonstrated the value to drive operations efficiency, optimize production, and maximize hydrocarbon recovery with better, faster decisions while reducing health, environmental and safety risks. Since the appearance of computers and the internet, many enabling technologies entered the oil-patch. Over the years, various areas improved as a result of significant commercial, corporate and academic efforts. However, some specific concerns remain be the same as a decade ago: data, value proposition, work processes, people skills and other aspects of change management. This paper focuses on the best practices that have made DOF implementations successful and the hard lessons learned. Many DOF implementations failed to deliver the expected value because of poor practices and misconceptions. These are presented in four interrelated areas: people, automated workflows, processes and technologies. Management of change at various levels of the organization continues to be a critical success factor, e.g. the introduction of new systems, designing effective collaborative ways of working, training people, management support and having the right resources (time and financial) to focus on real-time oil and gas production optimization. Automated workflows have been developed and deployed at various intensity levels. Although there is a lack of common language for defining workflows, there has been tremendous improvement in this area. On the other hand, work processes had been an area of little improvement. Because of poor process definition and understanding, companies failed to adopt and sustain highly sophisticated workflows. In the paper, we discuss the effort required to properly describe work process that support DOF implementations. We also describe the technology challenges faced and how these can be mitigated in the future.

With the goal of reducing non-productive time (NPT) and increasing operational efficiency, KOC decided to implement pilot projects to evaluate feasibility of intelligent digital oilfield (iDOF) concepts. The Kuwait integrated digital oil field in the Sabriyah field (KwIDF Sabriyah) pilot was implemented as a tool for real-time collaborative diagnosis and optimization of a water-flooded giant carbonate reservoir within the Sabriyah field. Initiated in 2011, KwIDF Sabriyah is currently extensively used for the monitoring and optimization of (a) waterflood, (b) electrical submersible pump (ESP), and (c) gas lift (GL) systems. KwIDF Sabriyah has increased the operational efficiency in many areas of daily engineering activities, including (a) reduction of excessive time spent on data acquisition and validation, (b) significant reduction of time on the identification of the root of failure of equipment, (c) collaborative decision-making with key stakeholders, (d) minimization of time between decision to execution by means of operations support services, and (e) prompt re-evaluation of optimization initiatives soon after implementation. This paper illustrates how the automated workflows are used by describing a typical working day at the KwIDF Sabriyah Collaboration Centre (CC) where the visualization of real-time well production parameters are provided to an integrated multidisciplinary team consisting of reservoir, production, process and well surveillance engineers. This environment supports the cooperative and proactive decisions never before achieved while functioning, not only in physically remote locations, but also in departmental silos within the company. An extensive case history is also provided to illustrate the new way work is being achieved and how it is adding value with ease, with the support of KwIDF Sabriyah workflows platform. The achieved results are reported in terms of sustained oil gain.