If you don’t know what IE (intelligent energy) and IO (integrated operations) stand for, you are in the minority in the oil and gas industry — or more to the point, you are not keeping pace with industry leaders.

This fact became apparent in Utrecht, The Netherlands, March 22-24, 2010, where a fair representation from the industry met to discuss IE and IO issues at SPE’s Intelligent Energy conference.

It would have been impossible to attend the many presentations in the course of the three-day event without coming to the realization that IE is bringing tremendous value and enormous advances to the oil and gas industry.

Operators that are implementing IO are realizing huge benefits around the world by putting the right people together to make real-time operations decisions.

DNV’s Frédéric Verhelst, project manager for IO in the High North, a joint industry project (JIP) that includes 25 participants (three of them operators), discussed the advances the JIP has made by taking concepts that were considered by some at the outset as “far-fetched” and looking for solutions. To reach these ambitious goals, “New field development and operational concepts are required,” he said. “That means finding ways to handle real-time data across boundaries and taking collaboration to a new level.”

Gerbert Schoonman, East asset manager, Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP), talked about how Shell has applied intelligent operations in Southeast Asia. “Collaboration drives the business,” he said, noting that 30% of BSP production comes from intelligent wells. “Smart fields are definitely delivering value.”

Bernard Looney, managing director of BP North Sea, said his organization has embraced IO at the management level. “We made a very conscious decision to place intelligent energy at the heart of our North Sea operations,” he said. Part of that investment paid for life-of-field seismic on the Claire field that Looney says has led to a 10 MMbbl new well target.

Meanwhile, Doug Suttles, E&P COO at BP, said IE has added 50,000 b/d for each of the last three years even though it has been applied to only one-third of the company’s portfolio.

With significant rewards in the balance, BP plans to invest US $3 billion/yr for the next 10 years in IE.

Waleed Al-Mulhim, manager, Southern Area Reservoir Management at Saudi Aramco, told conference attendees that the key to making IE a reality is to focus on “technology, workflows, and people,” explaining that real-time data enables sustainability. Saudi Aramco has embraced this concept, Al-Mulhim said. “Every new field that has been developed (by Saudi Aramco) since 2003 is an intelligent field.”

Muhammed Al-Qahtani, executive director of petroleum engineering and development at Saudi Aramco explained the value of IE more succinctly: “IE is transformational and progressive technology.”

Statoil’s Trond Lilleng summed up IE as “maximizing value through technology,” noting that stepping beyond the industry norms is the only way to make progress.

“We have to be courageous,” he said. New solutions will require deep changes to the way we think, deep changes to the way we work, and deep changes to the way we collaborate.”

However challenging the way forward, the critical thing is to keep moving.
As Melody Meyer, president of Chevron Energy Technology Co., said, “It’s time to shift intelligent energy into overdrive. We really have no time to lose.”