The last 18 months have shifted collaboration forever. So how effective has the upstream sector shift been?
They say necessity is the mother of invention and the limits of all sectors, including our own, have certainly been tested over the last year. The unprecedent challenges have been many; from restrictions on travel to rig sites, to limits on on-site meetings and events.
Looking back on the last 18 months on the whole, operators and service companies alike have risen to the task – streamlining workflows, accelerating remote operations in summed up in one word – innovating.
In all areas, from offshore installations to offices and workshops and everywhere in between, teams can now work with much less friction. In a business where key decisions need to be made quickly and accurately for the success of project optimization is essential. Be that an exploration well or frack job, all these operations require vast volumes of data to be processed. But all those petabytes count for nothing if staff cannot gain quick insights which they can act on. This means asking questions such as – how was the flowback on the last connection? Are we approaching the reservoir sands? Is there excessive torque acting on the BHA?
Examining the history books shows that our industry has thrived because it understands the importance of effective collaboration. From our clients’ perspective that means having the ability to manage wellsite data through the whole cycle – from collection to analysis.
Here we highlight four of our key products and what our customers love about them:
Traditional Workflow | Challenges | Product | The end result |
Email chains with tens of team members copied in on the daily geological report. | A small change is needed and a whole new email needs to be distributed. Leaving questions like – Is this the latest report? |
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Just provide us with the access list and we do the rest. Simply upload your files with the first part of data management and organization is looked after. |
Relying on composite produced twice a day at the rig site. | A lot can change in 24 hours. |
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Unlimited well logs at your fingertips. |
Monitoring several wells simultaneously and having to cycle between switching attention. | It is impossible to remember all the thresholds which cannot be breached and spot all deviations indicative of losses or kicks. |
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Receive instant notifications of well changes with fully customizable alerts. |
A pre-spud correlation panel hidden away at the back of the drilling plan document. | Wells continuously surprise even in the most heavily drilled fields – tops can come in much higher or lower than expected. |
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Integrate real-time data with historical offset data. Plot and adjust formation tops all in sync with the office team. |
The common factor all operators are striving for is bringing as many experts together as possible to make a mission critical decision. Remote working aided by tools like Slack and MS Teams is here to stay. The last 18 months have been a sea change and as we emerge of the pandemic, companies will simply not be going back to the old ways of doing things.
Organizations of all shapes and sizes that will thrive in the years ahead will put streamlining collaboration at the heart of what they do. The winners will be the ones that break down siloes between businesses, bring in diverse voices to have their say and prioritize a digital strategy with an emphasis on smarter data management.
Getting together
We should not overlook the importance of industry events. Market gatherings like the SPE ATCE and smaller ones such as DEVEX provide not just means for knowledge sharing but also a setting where informal side discussions can thrive.
The next few years will bring great change for the industry and a host of new challenges. From navigating through the energy transition, here at Petrolink, our staff reflect the diversity of the industry and we draw on a pool of talent. Data scientists, geologists and operations managers all contribute to our product development to ensure a well-rounded approach.
We are confident that diversity of talent and minds in the industry and integration of leading technology tools will pave the way to a new level of resilience.