The Energy Consulting Group

The Energy Consulting Group specializes in

- evaluating the value and design of the Intelligent Oil Field

- quantifying volumes and risks associated with oil and gas supply fundamentals

- strategy insight for the E&P service sector

Click here for more information about the Intelligent Oil Field (also called Digital Oil Field, Smart Field, i-Field).  Also, please feel free to contact Bill Severns at insight@energy-cg.com for more information.

Click on the followig links for more specific Digital Oil Field articles/examples featuring the Intelligent Oil Field and Bill Severns role in defining the concept:
Intelligent Oil Field
Wall Street Journal article
Offshore Engineer article
Associated Press article

Elements of the intelligent oilfield concept

"The use of digital oilfields is sporadic but growing fast. According to Bill Severns, Managing Director of the Energy Consulting Group and the senior director at Cambridge Energy Research Associates (Cera), overseeing the Digital Oil Field effort, it has huge and largely untapped potential. "Companies could take 100 per cent of their fields, bring all that data back to one operation centre and bring in their best 300 technical people to run them." Virtual reality may be a familiar technology in other industries, but in the conservative oil industry it represents a breakthrough."

Improved Recovery

"Shell's need is greater than most given its reserves overbooking scandal last year. It claims that smart fields are helping. At the Iron-Duke field in Brunei, the technology has helped lift the amount of oil it expects to retrieve by 16 per cent. At Na Kika expected retrieval is up by one-quarter and daily production has risen 17 per cent.
According to Cera, average recovery from oil wells can be improved from 35 per cent to as much as 40 per cent through digital oilfields. Mr Severns says: "This may sound low, but in terms of global reserves it is a very big number."

Potentially astonishing cost savings

"Halliburton manages its drilling of 12 North Sea wells from its Stavanger real-time centre and has halved its number of offshore staff. Such moves can lead to "some astonishing cost savings", says Mr Severns. Advanced modelling techniques also increase the industry's attractiveness to graduates, says Hans Potters, head of Shell's reservoir surveillance team."

Full article

If the full article is no longer available, feel free to contact us at insight@energy-cg.com for a copy.

Click on the followig links for more specific Digital Oil Field articles/examples:
Intelligent Oil Field
Financial Times article
Offshore Engineer article
Associated Press article