Minimise Risks Through a Comprehensive Validation of the Existing Production Operation and Planning Strategy for the Largest Oilfield in Poland

Integrated field management is a key initiative recognised by many operators that helps delivering the promise of digital to meet their business strategic objectives of increased hydrocarbon production, reduced exploration and appraisal costs, and sustained development and operation costs. This paper presents how an integrated asset model has been developed for the largest oilfield in Poland to enable a comprehensive validation of its current development plan and operating strategy to ensure safe operation; assessment of other feasible development scenarios to fully realise its potential and paving the path to digital oilfield. A proven integrated asset modeling approach has been adopted to bring a complex reservoir, multiple interdependent wells, pipelines networks, process models together into one single platform. The integrated modeling platform included both gas and water reinjection network models to provide a pore to process closed loop solution. Development of this integrated reservoir-wells-pipelines-network-process facility-water and gas reinjection network models focused to provide all the vital valuable inputs to better field management, fast and accurate decision-making, optimal safe operation in meeting the set seasonal sales contract. Assessments of production operation strategy and field development scenarios were conducted at full field level from reservoir to process plant, accounting wells, pipelines, process handling capacities, the complete system constraints and back pressure effects of all involved components. The availability of fully integrated asset model with pore to process solution enables engineers to better understand the current well performance and production potentials; to ensure a safe and optimal process plant operation. The model helped to identify bottlenecks imposed by the existing pipelines network and process facility; it also enabled the asset team to confirm the existing development plan was not optimal. Other feasible planning scenarios which could further enhance the overall asset productivity were identified, i.e. via determining location of infill wells and which unused idle producers to be converted to gas or water injectors. The study demonstrated a comprehensive validation of the existing development and operation strategy was achievable with the approach. The paper describes how the developed integrated asset model enables the asset team to validate the existing operating strategy and field development scenario of the studied onshore brownfield; to further enhance asset productivity and to achieve efficient field management by adjusting the operating condition in meeting the seasonal sales contract. The integrated asset model also helps to evaluate and to analyse forecasts of different development scenarios including infill drilling and adding new wells and other enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques to achieve an ultimate recovery and asset economics.

Subsea Gas Well Late Life Restart Lesson Learned: Failure Analysis and Operating Strategy

This paper elucidates the importance of flow assurance transient multiphase modelling to ensure uninterrupted late life productions. This is discussed in details through the case study of shut-in and restart scenarios of a subsea gas well (namely Well A) located in South China Sea region. There were two wells (Well A and Well B) producing steadily prior to asset shut-in, as a requirement for subsea pipeline maintenance works. However, it was found that Well A failed to restart while Well B successfully resumed production after the pipeline maintenance works. Flow assurance team is called in order to understand the root cause of the failed re-start of Well A to avoid similar failure for Well B and other wells in this region. Through failure analysis of Well A, key root cause is identified and associated operating strategy is proposed for use for Well B, which is producing through the same subsea infrastructure. Transient multiphase flow assurance model including subsea Well A, subsea Well B, associated spools, subsea pipeline and subsea riser is developed and fully benchmarked against field data to ensure realistic thermohydraulics representations of the actual asset. Simulation result shows failed restart of Well A and successful restart of Well B, which fully matched with field observations. Further analysis reveals that liquid column accumulated within the wellbore of Well A associates with extra hydrostatic head which caused failed well restart. Through a series of sensitivity analysis, the possibility of successful Well A restart is investigated by manipulating topsides back pressure settings and production flowrates prior to shut-in. These serve as a methodology to systematically analyze such transient scenario and to provide basis for field operating strategy. The analysis and strategy proposed through detailed modelling and simulation serves as valuable guidance for Well B, should shut-in and restart operation is required. This study shows the importance of modelling prior to late life field operations, in order to avoid similar failed well restart, which causes significant production and financial impacts.

Land Consumption of Delivery Robots and Bicycle Couriers for On-Demand Meal Delivery Using GPS Data and Simulations Based on the Time-Area Concept

Regulating the curbside usage of delivery vehicles and ride-hailing services as well as micromobility has been a challenge in the last years, a challenge which might worsen with the increase of autonomous vehicles. The contribution of the research outlined in this paper is an evaluation method of the land use of on-demand meal delivery services such as Deliveroo and UberEats. It evaluates the effect parking policies, operating strategy changes, and scheduling options have on the land consumption of bicycle couriers and sidewalk automated delivery robots (SADRs). Various operating strategies (i.e., shared fleets and fleets operated by restaurants), parking policies (i.e., parking at the restaurant, parking at the customer or no parking) and scheduling options (i.e., one meal per vehicle, multiple meals per vehicle) are simulated and applied to New York City (NYC). Additionally, the time-area requirements of on-demand meal delivery services are calculated based on GPS traces of Deliveroo and UberEats riders in two UK cities. The simulation in the paper shows that SADRs can reduce the time-area requirements by half compared with bicycle couriers. The effect of operating strategy changes and forbidding vehicles to park at the customer’s home is small. Delivering multiple meals in one tour halves the time-area requirements. The time-area requirements based on GPS traces is around 300 m2·min per order. The study allows policymakers to learn more about the land use of on-demand meal delivery services and how these can be influenced. Hence, they can adjust their policy strategies to ensure that on-demand meal delivery services are provided in a way that they use land effectively, reduce external costs, improve sustainability and benefit everyone.

Design and evaluation of an engine-in-the-loop environment for developing plug-in hybrid electric vehicle operating strategies at conventional test benches

Due to a large number of degrees of freedom and connected powertrain functionalities, the development of operating strategies for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles is an especially complex task. Besides optimizations of drivability, noise, vibrations and harshness as well as energy efficiency, the main challenge lies in ensuring emissions conformity. For this purpose, test vehicles are typically applied to achieve a realistic test and validation environment. However, operating strategy calibration using test vehicles has the drawbacks, that (i) it is very time consuming and cost intensive, (ii) it can only be conducted in late development phases and (iii) cannot be applied to reproducing driving loads for a valid comparison. To overcome these issues, this paper presents a consistent engine-in-the-loop approach combining real engine hardware and multiple software elements to represent PHEV behavior at the engine test bench. Thereby, an environment is created, which allows for realistic, flexible, cost efficient and reproducible testing. The effectiveness of the presented framework is evaluated by comparing relevant on-road measurements with their reproduction at the engine test bench. The results show that the vehicle on-road behavior can be replicated using the described testing environment. Particularly engine start/stop behavior and load levels—the core functionalities for operating strategy calibration—are matched. The proven level of realism in powertrain behavior enables further use cases beyond on-road measurement reproduction, i.e. varying individual component properties and observing real-world consequences at the test bench without the need for vehicle tests.