Fundamentals of a Well Life Cycle Framework

A sea of paper work was stacked on my desk as a managing petroleum engineer in the mid 1990's.  Everything from hand written notes on well activity to stacks of material transfers on paper forms came streaming through  every day.  In order to best produce the 400 wells I was responsible for within the course of the week, there was constant re-assembling of data every day to stay on top of both the activity, planning, and paper work the business required.   To further the challenge, banker and investor reporting required frequent faxes of information specific to the assets they were tied to in order to be satisfied as to the viability of the company. 

Upon reviewing the multiple uses and requirements of daily production reports, information from the wells was humanly handled  twenty- three times before it was finally completed updating all required useful places. 

In today's world (15 years later) that challenge has been reduced, but is still less than optimal in most oil & gas companies because of the lack of clarity in process, deficiencies and gaps in "field to office" data capture methods or the lack of a strategic plan for tying "asset" and "well" information together between departments and functions. 

Whether those gaps are realized at the Executive Level, Management Level, or the disciplined function level, they create both human resource loss and asset value loss. 

The key elements of a Well Life Cycle Framework are clearly identified in the following bullet points. 

1. Entering valuable data once and use it every where it is needed for business impact. 

2.  Having a Well Master Strategy that ties all company asset entities in all applications information together for extraction to the right department at the right time. 

3. Having clearly identified processes to sustain the data flow with properly trained resources to keep up with both the technology and process. 

4.  Identifying all aspects of detailed information that is useful for engineering, geological, geophysical, land, business, and executive functions with corresponding data flow technologies with the architecture to deliver to everyone in the mode needed to analyze. 

5.  Keeping in mind that the greatest ROI comes from a well / field / reservoir producing at it's optimum rate against both science factors, and business and market factors, a Well Life Cycle Framework should be designed to achieve this in all aspects of the operational team. 

The following list of functions / departments should be included for information requirements. 

1. Land
2. Accounting
3. Capital Planning
4. Geologic and Geophysical
5. Partners
6. Reservoir
7. Purchasing
8. Pre-Drill Planning
9. Contract Management
10. Drilling
11. Completion
12. Facilities Management
13. Land
14. Production Engineering
15. Field Operations
16. Regulatory
17. Health , Safety and Environment (EPA, OSHA)
18.  Acquisitions  

The framework of technology and process should be clearly defined at all levels and expectations.  It should be kept in mind that capturing information in a shared environment serves the creative, business, and technical aspects of the company. The process itself should be stable, strategic, integrated and serve all needed components.  This is contrary often to internal spreadsheet silos that often get lost in the sea of informational documents. 

So where can a company begin to put together it's best strategy ?  The first step is to create a realistic picture of where you are at at this point. 

1.  Is there a clear method for creating a new well in each application. 

2.  Is there a clear method for getting all the key data to a centrally located data warehouse for all recipients to see and utilize for business optimization ? 

3.  Are there adequate applications and good processes to support all information requirements to optimize the asset through all phases of the Well Life Cycle ?

4.  Does the right information get to the right person in real time or near real time? 

5.  Is the information displayed in an actionable fashion ?

Identifying these matters for each WLF section and each function will give a company a sense of what needs to be done and in what fashion to optimize assets