WPC 2002

Knowledge Management in North Ghawar

Emad H. Bu-Hulaigah and Nansen G. Saleri, Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia Abstract
This paper addresses issues regarding Knowledge Management challenges of the future. The effective management of complex reservoirs is becoming increasingly dependent on the efficient and speedy utilization of vast amounts of data and information, which can, in turn, be used in real-time, or near realtime decision-making. North Ghawar presents an interesting case example for Knowledge Management during the coming decade. It spans an area of 130 X 30 Km., includes 1500 wells and has been on production since 1953. A reservoir knowledge management tool named SMARTS, custom designed and built for Saudi ARAMCO, will be the main vehicle to access diverse streams of geo-engineering data. The system will be linked with five drilling rigs via satellite communication systems for real-time geo-navigation of wells. Other real-time features include down-hole monitoring of conventional as well as intelligent wells with down-hole intervention capabilities. Knowledge Centers equipped with telecommunication and audio-visual systems will provide the theater of operations. The scale of data to be managed adds an additional challenge to knowledge management in North Ghawar.

Introduction Ghawar Field

The Ghawar Arab-D oil field was discovered in 1948 in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. It is the worlds largest oil field. It extends 230 km along a north-south axis with a maximum width of 50 km. The Arab-D reservoir belongs to the Arab Formation, Upper Jurassic, sealed by the massive overlying Hith anhydrite Formation, dated Tithonian and providing a final Jurassic regional, stratigraphic datum as discussed by Al-Husseini1 (1997). North Ghawar was placed on stream in 1951 and development progressed southwards by stages. Due to the lack of aquifer support, peripheral water injection was initiated in the late 60s to maintain the reservoir pressure above the oil bubble point pressure. The field has been primarily developed using vertical wells on a 1-km spacing. During the last five years, the use of horizontal drilling has intensified especially in the southernmost areas of Ghawar. The North Ghawar Arab-D reservoir history extends over more than fifty years of production. The area has, as of year-end 2001, approximately 1500 wells, including producers and injectors, conventional and horizontal. About 40,000 logs, including openhole and production logs have been acquired from this part of the field. The reservoir is actively being monitored through data monitoring and surveillance programs encompassing static pressure surveys, formation evaluation measurements and production and injection data as summarized below.

Information
Bottom Hole Pressure Surveys Production/Injection Rate Tests Openhole and Production Logs Productivity Index (PI) Tests Injectivity Index (II) Tests Cored (Arab-D) Wells Monthly Allocated Production Rate by Well Monthly Allocated Injection Rate by Well

Total Number
100,183 110,350 39,690 3,795 5,175 400 197,354 54,541

A variety of geologic, reservoir engineering/simulation, laboratory, production and facilities studies have been performed and reported for the field. 3-D seismic has been run, processed and interpreted for the area. A total of 3254 workover, stimulation and water shut-off jobs were performed on the wells. Data is still being gathered from the field utilizing real-time down hole pressure gauges and array electromagnetic tools for saturation monitoring. Drilling rigs are connected to the office through satellite links for continuous navigation and steering of horizontal and multi-lateral wells. Plans are underway to drill a number of smart wells with down hole monitoring and remote intervention capabilities. There are thirteen dynamic reservoir simulation models ranging from 100,000 to 4,000,000 cells with corresponding geologic models ranging in size from 1 to 50 million cells, each containing, on average, 14 bits of reservoir information. The current and future challenges facing North Ghawar engineers and geoscientists can be best expressed as: How can the field be managed smarter utilizing the wealth of knowledge faster and better?

Knowledge Management in Reservoir Management

Knowledge is the combination of critical information and collective intellect that enables people and teams to make a decision, create a solution, or change a position2. Knowledge management is a process that involves two elements, connecting people to people, and connecting people to information. Reservoir Management is a continuous process that seeks to optimize the development and operation of oil and gas reservoirs for the purpose of maximizing economic resource recovery over the reservoir life cycle utilizing the most appropriate engineering and earth science technologies, while complying to environmental and safety regulations3. The reservoir management process involves goal setting, planning, implementing, monitoring, evaluating and revising plans. It is a process that involves continuous learning and optimization. From discovery until abandonment, knowledge about a reservoirs behavior continually increases and reservoir characterization improves. A key attribute of a successful Learning Reservoir Management Process4 is real-time decision-making. Decision-making involves learning and adapting. The learning process occurs along a knowledge spectrum, which is repetitive in time as shown by Figure 1.

Repeating Knowledge Spectrum

Data Information/ Knowledge

Continuous
Continued Learning & Improvement Informed Decisions & Actions

Performance Indices

Post-Action Analysis/Feedback

Figure 1: Repeating Knowledge Spectrum

In essence, the success of the learning model depends on the speed with which discreet data units evolve into informed decisions and then to performance indices (i.e., control points) for continual improvement. Knowledge management accelerates the transfer and use of existing know-how which in turn boosts productivity and enhances profitability and growth through timely and effective decisions. To develop an effective knowledge management system, the processes, tools, and skills involved in reservoir management decision-making need to be easily accessible. Another element for a successful knowledge management system is to facilitate expert or cross-disciplinary communication and knowledge exchange while making decisions. This implies what is referred to as Communities of Practice where knowledge is shared among disciplines to make a decision. North Ghawar reservoir management offers an ideal case for knowledge management application to optimize development and production of the remaining reserves. The field has a long history, a vast amount of data and a collection of intellectual experiences. New development and evaluation/observation wells are yet to be drilled in the undeveloped areas of the reservoir to sustain the production targets. Existing wells are to be worked over to maintain their productivity/injectivity at desired rates. Facilities are to be modified to handle expected increases of water production and to maintain deliverability of the total fluid volumes. Data collection will continue from the field to enhance our understanding of the reservoir behavior, calibrate our models, validate or help modify our strategies and monitor sweep. Minor improvements in any element of the process translate to huge cost savings due to economics of scale.

Approach
The objective was to develop a system that accommodates the reservoir management decision-making process and knowledge management for a specific asset or field. One of the tools involved in reservoir management decision-making is reservoir simulation. The reservoir simulation process is a continuous learning process. It requires repetitive tasks that were identified as areas that could be streamlined and simplified to reduce process time and make it more efficient. A system was custom designed and developed to handle the scale of data requirements as commonly encountered in Saudi ARAMCO. The system was named SMARTS, an acronym for Simulation & Modeling Advanced Reservoir Technology System. Connecting people to data and people to people was the principal design basis behind its development. Some of its key features include the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Capacity to handle large volumes of data. Speed of data access, analysis and interpretation. User-friendliness. Flexibility. Accessibility to multi-disciplinary groups.

SMARTS has a database that contains all geo-engineering data relevant to the asset in question. 3-D seismic, geologic models, simulation models, open hole and cased hole logs, pressure, production rate, water cut and PVT data are examples of the data stored in the asset database. The database is linked to the corporate database for continuous updates of allocated production rates data. It also contains reports and archives of individual geoscientist interpretations for reference and learning. The database is connected to tools and facilities to help in the visualization, interpretation and analysis of data. SMARTS would be linked to drilling rigs via satellite where well and reservoir data would be monitored in real-time to facilitate optimization of horizontal/multi-lateral wells placement. Well trajectories and reservoir data would be input in real-time into geologic and simulation models of the area to facilitate updates and continuous optimization. Figure 2 is a simplified schematic of the overall knowledge management model. This model represents a 3-tier approach to knowledge management asset data pool, asset knowledge pool, and asset management center all tightly linked to the user community of teams (geoscientists, executives, service providers, etc.). The user communities are assumed to be geographically distributed but fully linked among themselves through a live information-highway.

Knowledge Management Model

Web-Enabled Information Highway
S M A R T S

Geologic Model Dynamic Model Well Data Field Data

Asset Data Pool

Financial Model Surface Model

Lab Data

Other

Performance Indices Technical Studies Field Trials

Best Practices

JIPs

e-Library

Asset Knowledge Pool

Asset Teams Project Teams Service Providers

Mission Control Rooms Training Simulators

Business Analysis

Asset Management Center

Figure 2: A 3Tier Knowledge Management Model The knowledge management model outlined above as well as the concept discussed by Greenes2, Saleri4, and Buczek5 point to a different way of conducting business in the future. What are the defining elements of the new knowledge management systems? Figure 3 presents a simple schematic describing its three main aspects: 1) Enablers, 2) Competencies and 3) Activities/Products. Enablers Mission Control Rooms (MCR) will be the main theater of operations linking people, data, knowledge that may be thousands of miles apart. A video-game environment that provides a virtualreality setting will be the norm for making operational, planning, strategic, or business decisions. In fact demarcations among these four functions will become progressively less distinct. Displays and analysis will be in multi-media formats (digital, graphical, text, etc.). Competencies Real-time or near real-time in decision-making will be its strongest attribute. The new knowledge management systems will require a multi-disciplinary culture. Just as English is the common language of the INTERNET, business analysis will be the common language of multi-disciplinary asset teams. CEOs, engineers, and geologists will experience virtual tours (and business analysis) of their subject fields with equal ease and speed. Activities/Products Asset management activities in the proposed knowledge management model would entail a variety of items: field and well intervention decisions, business analysis, video animation

Where Are We Heading?

based training, etc. The probable scenario is that the projected advances in telemetry, communication, and computing will enable future asset teams to tackle highly complex problems routinely, easily, and in near real-time.

Three Aspects of Knowledge Management Enablers

Mission Control Centers Video-Game Environment Graphic Driven Web-Based Search Engines/e-Library

Activities
Monitoring Control Point/Performance Indices Forecasting & Business Analysis (What if, $) Intervention Decision Making Feedback Video-Animation Based Training

Competencies
Real-Time Learning/Adaptive Multi-Discipline Culture Nurturing Knowledge

Figure 3: Three Aspects of Knowledge Management

Conclusion
Knowledge management is an essential element of a successful learning reservoir management process. Applying knowledge management concepts to reservoir management would result in enhancing decision making, speed up the process and add value. This paper proposes a 3-tier knowledge management model as a means of more effectively leveraging huge volumes of data in better managing giant fields like North Ghawar. The proposed model links various data and knowledge pools with asset teams via Mission Control Rooms in a virtual-reality environment. One of the key components of the knowledge management model is a tool named SMARTS that is designed to manage diverse streams of geoengineering data in real-time. The model, if successful, will pay huge dividends in North Ghawar because of the economics of scale, at hand.

Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Saudi Aramco management for permission to publish this paper. Special thanks to S. M. Al-Mubarak, K. A. Al-Alawan, A. A. Al-Nasser and R.J. Pratt for their assistance and contributions.

References
1. Al-Husseini, M.I. 1997. Jurassic Sequence Stratigraphy of the Western and Southern Arabian Gulf, GeoArabia Vol. 2, No. 4, Gulf Petrolink, Bahrain. 2. Greenes, Kent A., Science Applications International Corporation. Presentation at Saudi Aramco eKnowledge Forum, Feb. 5, 2002, Dhahran. 3. Saudi Aramco Reservoir Management Standards and Guidelines. 4. Saleri, Nansen G. Learning Reservoirs: Adapting to Disruptive Technologies, JPT, March 2002. 5. Buczek, David A., Sapient. Combating Brain Drain: Retraining Intellectual Capital in the Energy Industry, JPT, January 2002.