The anticipated pace of change in the field of intelligent energy technologies and “smart” solutions now has to be factored into new upstream projects from the start. A gathering of oil and gas industry experts has been told that, although they have achieved much in this sector already, there’s plenty more still to do.

The SPE Intelligent Energy event in Utrecht, Netherlands, has since its inception in 2006 always been at the forefront of the E&P industry’s digital drive. But according to event co-chairman Steve Roberts, who is BP’s vice president for its Field of the Future Program, “there is a lot further to travel.”

Roberts said that in areas such as reservoir access there has been much success, with dramatic improvements through the use of new, data-driven processes, while significant reductions in non-productive time also have been realized.

“Additional production and improved recovery factors all bear witness to the outstanding achievements of our focus on intelligent energy initiatives,” he said.

Despite these successes, however, he added that the bar continues to rise and new challenges occur daily. “There’s a danger of the industry becoming complacent,” he said. “But there is much more that we need to get done. Other industries, for example, have innovated more than us. They are setting the benchmark higher. So we should celebrate the accomplishments we have made so far. But also we must stretch our aspirations.”

With his BP hat on, Roberts pointed out that the company’s Field of the Future program is now recognized as having achieved an incremental improvement in production of between 2% to 4%. “These technologies help improve production, we can optimize throughput much better than before.” More than 80% of BP’s top 100 wells are routinely supported by its Field of the Future solutions.

He also pointed out the increasing pace of change and the need to try and factor that into the building of current oil and gas installations that will need to continue operating for decades to come.

“Are we moving fast enough to simplify what we do, automate where we can and at the same time, minimize the upgrade footprint of our intelligent systems? The platforms, subsea infrastructure and pipelines that we are building today will probably still be operating in 30-35 years’ time,” he said, “yet the technology we are investing in to run them will be obsolete, sometimes before construction completes or plateau production is reached.”

Planetary perspective

Brian Muirfield, chief engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, spoke about planning for the future and remote installations. He is responsible for several key aspects of NASA’s Mars missions.

During the opening presentation, he gave delegates insight into the project planning process for the Mars missions, in particular how to land the third robot rover Curiosity on the so-called Red Planet, while keeping to a budget of $150 million and a three-year schedule.

“Mars is hard,” he said. “By the mid-1990s we had attempted 30 missions to Mars, and only eight had succeeded.” These numbers have improved (with 15 successful missions as of 2012, and four successful landings).

One of the keys to their successes, apart from lots of hard work by talented teams of people, has been to build robust solutions or, as he put it, “tolerance to unknown unknowns.” Like many of the oil industry’s most challenging projects, he said, the Mars missions could not afford the failure of a single component as it would cost them the mission.

“So many of the items that were originally designed to operate for a shorter set period of time are still operating well beyond that,” he said. He highlighted the second Mars rover, the Spirit of Opportunity, which with a design life of originally three months is still operating after 10 years. “We want the Curiosity to last much longer,” he added.

The Curiosity, unlike the other Mars rovers, of course, also has a functional drilling arm which has been used to take cores. “I’m in the E&P business too!” he told delegates.

E&P is the official media partner for SPE Intelligent Energy 2014. Contact the author, Mark Thomas, at mthomas@hartenergy.com.