Schlumberger Finds Efficiency in IIoT-enabled Data Analytics

There has been an increasing level of activity in the oilfields for companies to embrace digital transformation and leverage IIoT-enabled data analytics to improve operations, increase production and recovery rates, lower cost per boe, and improve collaboration within both the internal and external ecosystems that comprise many upstream oil & gas projects. ARC has been blogging recently about the growing trend among oilfield service providers to leverage digital technologies to derive competitive differentiation and help their customers to improve their operations via enhanced oilfield services.

It was encouraging to read a recent article outlining some of Schlumberger’s recent activities that were highlighted during Rockwell Automation’s Automation Fair.

Schlumberger uses a business-led, outcome-focused and technology-driven approach when its software integrated solutions group thinks about how technologies such as IIoT-enabled analytics can impact the business results and performance of its customers.

Understanding the Power of IIoT-Enabled Data Analytics

The consumer technology world continues to change very fast and some of those changes can benefit oil & gas, so Schlumberger did its homework reviewing reports and studies on the potential of these technologies. There were a huge range of predictions, anywhere for 6% to 30% of total E&P could be affected by this technology. That's somewhere between $50 billion and $250 billion.

It was clear that a deeper dive was necessary to understand the technology, so in 2014 Schlumberger restructured to focus much more on this new wave of digital technology and how to extract the most value from it.

For the past 35 years, Schlumberger has been designing and building software applications for the petro-technical and engineering communities across oil and gas, with 70,000 active users of this technology. It supports these users with more than 4,500 domain scientists such as geologists, geophysicists and production engineers.

Both the user base and domain experts were engaged to understand which areas had the most potential. There were hundreds. Many were the basis for proof of concepts that were performed. "The best results we got were when we were able to connect the people who understood the technology with people who understood the science and domain and then focused them on an outcome," said Gavin Rennick, president, software integrated solutions, at Schlumberger. "Working together, it's amazing what they can do in a quick period of time." To make this possible, Schlumberger needed a simple way to connect across its customers’ companies and people to science and technology. It didn't exist in the industry, so it reached out to its partners in industry and created it.

"In September this year, Schlumberger launched an environment called Delfi—the cognitive E&P environment," said Rennick. "It has a tremendous level of security, and it's data-centric. It allows simple, frictionless access and manipulation of data. It allows collaboration across the enterprise between multiple parties enabling them to work together in an entirely different way while capable of being personalized to each individual in the environment. And, residing in the cloud, it was scalable and allowed tasks to be automated for efficiency."

Data Analytics Helps Ensure Accurate Simulation

The production of oil and gas is complex, and Schlumberger holds a number of pieces of technology in software that allow it to simulate everything that happens in an oil and gas reservoir. "With these computationally expensive simulators, we are able to create a full digital representation of this process. But the network of systems is changing all the time, making it difficult to keep the simulations accurate. It required a lot of work from production engineers and technical specialists to keep things adjusted."

As Schlumberger started to work in the production space, it kept running into Rockwell Automation. “We are excited with some of the things we are doing with them,” continued Rennick. "Rockwell Automation's production-automation solutions include self-declaring devices, as well as some capabilities with edge analytics that are super interesting."

These added capabilities allow Schlumberger to ensure it has an accurate network and real-time data flowing back to the simulation. "Changes are automatically recorded and fed into our simulation, adjusting it in real time, said Rennick. “We can deliver accurate insight into the process. We can see, as a result of device changes, if any problems are going to happen and then, using Delfi, predict and send an action to the field to fix the problem before it occurs."

A number of proof points validated the understanding and use of technology. "We have reduced the time it takes to plan and engineer a well in half," said Rennick. "We also found that 90% of the tasks petrophysicists and geologists were conducting could be automated, making them more efficient and able to focus on high-value tasks. We are also seeing a 30% improvement in service reliability; availability increased 15%; and there are many other real impact examples. The right tools are in place to make that happen."

ARC believes that companies benefit the most when they develop collaborative partnerships that benefit from the expertise and experience of both partners. More and more companies are proving the business value of digital technologies and IIoT-enabled solutions as they seek to find ways to thrive in the new “lower for longer” markets.