SPE-176798-MS

Fusion of Real Time Data Transmission and Visualization to Optimize

Exploration Well Testing Operations
Ramzi Miyajan, Musab Khudiri, Ali Wuhaimed, Harmohan Gill, and AbdulHakim Nahdi, Saudi Aramco;
Muhammad Kashif, and Hamood Meraj, Petrolink

Copyright 2015, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Middle East Intelligent Oil & Gas Conference & Exhibition held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, 1516 September 2015.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
of the paper have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect
any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written
consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may
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Abstract
One of the critical operations during the exploration phase is well testing required determining fluid type,
flow rate, and the sustainability of the production. With the right planning, technology and implementation, well testing can ensure reservoir quality and production such as, permeability, initial reservoir
pressure, hydraulic fracture parameters, near wellbore formation damage, geometry of the reservoir, and
reserve quantities.
Exploration Well Testing Operations require a complex integration of various services including
surface well testing, artificial lift via coiled tubing, downhole data transmission and on-site operational
activities. The increase in exploration activities involves various service companies proprietary data
acquisition systems that introduce a challenge for decision makers due to segmented data and information.
This calls for establishing an integrated unified viewer combining the operational data for engineers to
enable real-time data supervision, technical support and decision making from the headquarters to
well-site locations reducing operational risks and optimize required cost.
This paper highlights the progress of the real time data transmission interface to support highly active
exploration well testing operations in Saudi Aramco.

Introduction
Well Testing is a tool, which can provide valuable clues as to the condition of production or injection
wells. Despite the tremendous value of other formation evaluation methods, some doubt always remains
concerning the potential productivity of an exploratory well, and this doubt is not eliminated until a
sizeable amount of hydrocarbon has been delivered to the surface through well testing. The objectives of
well testing vary from a simple determination of the amount and type of fluids produced to sophisticated
transient pressure determinations of reservoir parameters and heterogeneities. Oil and gas wells are tested
to determine their ability to produce oil or gas under various conditions of surface, bottom hole tubing
pressure and reservoir pressure. Because the capacity of a well to produce into a well-bore is unique
characteristic of the well (its subsurface and surface flow system), field testing procedures have been
developed that allow the engineer to predict the manner in which a well will produce over its reserves
life span under the various operating conditions that may be imposed.

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The well testing package used in exploratory well testing consists of two main groups:
1. Down Hole Tools : (DST TCP)
2. Surface Testing Equipment: (Flow Head, Choke Manifold, Separator, etc,)
The down hole tools act as a temporary well completion and the surface testing equipment works as
a temporary production facility to allow us to obtain well control, flow control, and evaluate an
exploratory well in a new field without paying for normal well completion or production facilities, before
the existence of oil and gas and its economic feasibility have been proven.
Examples of measured data collected during the well test include:
Rough Gas composition (H2S, CO2), BS&W (Basic Sediments and Water), WHP (Well Head Pressure), WHT (Well
Head Temperature), OIL gravity, GAS gravity, Water salinity, Viscosity, etc.

During the interpretation phase, data acquired is used to make evaluations and effective interpretations
and calculation can be made to ensure reservoir quality and production. The accuracy of these evaluations
during the interpretation stage is closely related to the accuracy and quality of the data collected during
the data acquisition phase.
Previously there was no system in place for well testing engineers to monitor and optimize well testing
operations in real time. These operations were mainly supported by the well testing engineer on site and
the initial method of decision making was based on daily morning reports, sent by email and USB drives
opening the door to potential security risks and data confidentiality issues. Also there was no suitable and
stress-free method to communicate between well site personnel and well testing experts. Engineers
connected via phone, which becomes difficult when the rig is in remote locations where signals are
weaker.

Figure 1Showing Well Testing display with Rates and Pressure Key Parameters transferring in real time.

A progressive improvement has been made utilizing various views provided by different service
providers into a single viewer badged as AramcoLink. This system was introduced to deliver secure and
effective solution of all the requirements of well testing experts to maintain economic and effective testing
operations by providing real time data visualization compiled for all service providers data stream. In
addition to that this solution capitalizes on the industry-standards for well data transmission protocols
using WITS and WITSML. A combination of static files, near real time data and real time data streaming
have been through many improvements and customization to cater to the business needs of the Well Test
Engineers at the base. This makes AramcoLink the vehicle to transmit live electronic data directly from

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the site for surface and downhole parameters as well as facilitate transmission of essential manual data and
a sequence of events that occur during operations for engineering reference and utilization at base. Also
the communication gap has been filled by the real time communications system Rig Chat, a feature within
the well testing system providing a more appropriate and easy way for the well testing experts, engineers
and rig personnel to communicate with each other. Rig Chat allows communication directly with the
company representative and drilling foreman to monitor, guide and streamline complex well testing
operations, reducing non-productive time and increasing the efficiency of formation testing operations.

Figure 2Rig Chat intact with Surface testing

Real-Time Data Infrastructure

The overall architecture of the real-time infrastructure is as shown in the diagram below.

Figure 3Real-Time Data Aggregation and Transmission

There are two main components in this infrastructure:

Data Aggregation
Data aggregation involves the collection of wellsite data from different service company data
acquisition systems (DAQs) present at the wellsite. Typically this data is from the rig drilling
sensors, mudlogging and downhole measurement-while-drilling (MWD) and logging-while-drilling (LWD) sensors. All the data received in WITS format and its converted at the wellsite to a
WITSML format as an industry standard. Real-time WITSML data stored consists of Log objects

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(time and depth), Mudlog objects (lithology and descriptions) and Trajectory (spatial coordinates
of the wellbore). The time log updates continuously once the rig has spudded and continues
updating until rig release or the end of service. The depth, mudlog and trajectory objects will
update usually only during the drilling phase and are indexed to depth.
Data Transmission
The collected data is transferred over Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) satellite links from
the rig site to the database through a secure virtual private network (VPN). This process involves
a replication between the local rig site WITSML store and the centralized Data Hub. Through the
use of multiple WITSML web service gateways running on redundant network segments and
sophisticated load balancers, it is possible to guarantee data delivery even when there are server
or network problems.

Figure 4 Rig Site data transmission - Data Flow

Real-Time Visualization System

The real-time visualization system which badged as AramcoLink consists of two major components:

The Drilling Real Time Data Hub (DRTDH) is a WITSML Web Services Interface on the back
end of Oracle Database. The DRTDH has been running since 2008 within Saudi Aramco and
populated with data from thousands of wells.
The Drilling Real Time Data Viewer (DRTDV) is a unique plotting engine that acts as a pure
WITSML Client Application to access the Data in the DRTDH. This viewer presents drilling data
and information from all service companies in a standard format to ensure that engineers are no
longer reqired to learn and use multiple vendor viewer solutions.
AramcoLink enables engineers to view the real time data from any contractor in a standardized display.
Displays are customized according to the individual support team requirements, and used specialized
displays for the drilling, geosteering exploration, and Real-Time Operation Center (RTOC).
Owing to the unique way in which the AramcoLink consists of separate widget modules running on
independent code bases, it is possible to build new displays in a short time frame, rather than having a
planned master compilation of a monolithic application. This gives Saudi Aramco considerable flexibility
as new technologies emerge.

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Standard of custom designed templates display real time well testing data, allows the well testing
experts to interpret and evaluate the reservoir quality. Each pattern of the display has its own importance
and use. The measurement of the bottom hole pressure and temperature versus time, during testing, will
allow instant characterization of the reservoir response. This is done by adapting the downhole gauges to
transmit reservoir responses to the surface in real time using a wireline conductor cable or acoustic
transmission methods. Coil Tubing Unit (CTU) is also used to liven, acid wash, and kill wells. This
system is designed to automatically gather, process, and display downhole data by incorporating a
computerized system to visualize the operations.
This new system provides a more efficient way to send the events and recovery event as a part of the
WITSML data feed, from the rig site to Saudi Aramco in near real time which the rig crew enters
manually. By providing additional information to optimize or confirm the impact of any change
mentioned in events or behavior of the formation (parameters). Well testing engineers can make key
decisions rapidly and can modify the testing plan by viewing results in real time to test the hydrocarbon
potential of the formation in efficient way.

Business Impacts
Continuous real time monitoring of the testing operation brings many business advantages such as leads
to lower operating costs by minimize logistical support and mobilization costs of testing operations for
onshore and offshore wells, manage multiple wells at one time making the operation more economical
overall by reducing well testing costs, and enhances business returns by reduce failures and workovers on
live wells, and hence optimizes well production.
Also this improve the safety by reduces the travel to-and-from testing sites and lowers direct physical
exposure to hazardous areas which may cause long-term HSE concern, in addition to provide data
confidentially via secure login and continuous encrypted transmission.
Another main key advantage of this new system is data verification which allows the service providers
to monitor and verify the RT data being transmitted to Saudi Aramco as rig site personal and service
providers are accessing the same data.

Conclusion
Saudi Aramco has been the industry leader in the use of realtime WITSML data for well over a decade,
and is committed to making the maximum use of Open Standards to reduce the reliance on vertically
integrated service company offerings. Having originally used real time WITSML data for pioneering
geosteering of wells for optimal well placement during field developments; Saudi Aramco wished to
further extend the scope of monitoring wells in real-time to drilling data, to reduce operational risk and
optimize the drilling process to reduce cost.
Exploration well testing has moved to more advanced and robust method with the fusion of real time
data transmission, which supports rapid decision making and effective interpretation in a timely manner,
avoiding delays in providing reports and results.
With the help of advance real time data integration and visualization for critical well testing operations,
the near future can support remotely monitored operations for the exploration well testing avoiding many
field trips and extra requirements of engineers on rig site to supervise the operations. This will save
valuable operations time and effective decision making under supervision of senior engineers in town
based on the real time data shipped to headquarter.
Also the advent of the latest technologies, the oil industry has put more emphasis on accomplishing
operational objectives safely and more efficiently than ever before. In pursuing these goals, operators and
service companies are designing more innovative applications to meet the oilfields operational and
business challenges.

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References
SPE 167813 An Innovative Approach to Select Shallow Casing Points Remotely, Utilizing RealTime WITSML Data