The implementation of intelligent energy or "smart" digital oil field technologies has been a hot topic for the upstream industry. It's come a long way in a relatively short time (about 10 years), with a lot of talk and behind-the-scenes development early on and not much proof. As a result, it is still viewed by some as an item to be filed in the "IT folder," with its impact on day-to-day operations negligible.

As the approach is more firmly embedded in companies around the world, the results in terms of rising production levels are starting to speak for themselves.

In the early days of implementation it was hard to quantify the benefits, but BP is one company that, via its Field of the Future program, is reaping the rewards. While chatting with BP's Steve Roberts, vice president of the flagship technology program, at the SPE Intelligent Energy International event in Utrecht, the Netherlands, Roberts made it clear the company is seeing quantifiable production optimization benefits from implementing intelligent energy solutions.

At the end of 2011, the operator estimated it had incrementally increased production levels by 73,000 net boe/d directly as a result of the program. It has an internal goal of 100,000 boe/d by 2017 – and Roberts said the company is well ahead of that schedule.

Key features of the program include reducing operational risk, automating routine tasks, optimizing production, and continuously improving. Technologies being implemented include real-time tools for monitoring facilities and predicting failure to enable proactive maintenance, particularly in key areas such as rotating equipment and where corrosive materials are being used.

Roberts said effective solutions have been deployed into eight of BP's operating regions, including Alaska, Angola, Azerbaijan, the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea (UK and Norway), Oman, and Trinidad. It also has observed similar progress being made in other companies, he added. Roberts also pointed out that BP's digital oil field drive has focused mainly on alignment around a core focus area, driven by its portfolio, where a significant proportion of total production is dependent on a comparatively small number of wells. These wells are typically (but not exclusively) high-rate oil and gas wells in moderate to deepwater depths, on fields producing under waterflood and with a propensity for sand production. It has therefore made perfect strategic sense for the company to prioritize and target this element of the portfolio, and it is pushing on rapidly with its next generation of solutions. According to Roberts, BP has begun to change its strategy and approach to enable this and is "aspiring to become fully empowered by real-time information to make better decisions faster," he said.

Edwin Verdonk, vice president of Subsurface Expertise and Technology Deployment at Royal Dutch Shell, was in agreement. "We see that the speed and implementation of new technology is faster than ever before, and that's very important," he said. "When you look at the changing world and the complexity of the challenges facing us, technology is going to get us to a different place, a new level."

When talk is turned into results as quickly as the digital oil field initiative has done, you can see what he means.