SPE's Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in Denver was billed as the "Mile High Meeting of the Minds." In a typical engineering need to be precise, the meeting was convened at 1 mile above sea level, (at least according to a bronze plaque prominently displayed at Colorado's State Capitol). Visitors and delegates were treated to a lofty view of the industry's needs for the near- and long-term future - a mile high wish list.

Let's start with gas. According to the National Petroleum Council's 2003 Gas Study, a balanced energy policy featuring conservation, demand flexibility, supply diversity and infrastructure reliability should be at the top of the industry - and the national - wish list. Details include improvements in energy efficiency, enabling legislation for the Alaskan gas pipeline, removal of roadblocks for siting of LNG terminals, streamlining drilling and development of gas fields on public lands, specifically the Rocky Mountains, a revamped infrastructure and a review of new industrial and power plant demand.

Development of unconventional gas was the subject of several excellent papers and discussions. With Denver sitting right in the middle of most of the nation's coal bed natural gas reserves, interest was high. However, despite the large volume of conventional wisdom on the subject, several new wishes surfaced, including the need for faster, cheaper logs to determine the amount of gas in place and coalbed permeability, as well as improved fluids for drilling coalbed wells. More efficient horizontal completion technology is required, including multi purpose wells that can be used to simultaneously produce gas while serving as water disposal wells. Producers are seeking ways to improve cementing and hydraulic fracturing effectiveness in coalbeds and to model complex systems of lenticular sandstones interspersed with continuous coal seams that may contain several different gases besides methane - ethane, propane and CO2 for example.

Four Schlumberger presidents held a panel discussion in the exhibition hall where they outlined a broad variety of "wishes." High on the list was Brownfield development, which according to the company represents 60% of their potential business. "We must improve production efficiency in Brownfields," Mark Corrigan, president of Well Services, said. "And not just incrementally, we need a step-change." Corrigan outlined the company's efforts to develop a new generation of high-pressure/high-temperature hardware as well as new coiled tubing stimulation equipment and techniques, including viscoelastic surfactant relative permeability modifiers, zonal isolation techniques and intelligent technology for process control.
Deepwater got its share of wishes including the need for better subsea completions, simple, reliable intervention tools and advanced fiber optics technology for monitoring of wells and flowlines. Wellbore stability and flow assurance issues in deepwater were listed as major areas needing attention.

A recurring theme in both the technical presentations and at the exhibition was reduction of uncertainty and risk. We learned how geomechanics knowledge can help avoid everything from catastrophic well failures to sanding problems or ineffective fracture treatments. The geomechanics gurus had their wish lists out as well. "Geomechanics issues are a very costly industry problem," declared Dr. Fersheed Mody of Shell International E&P. "The technology to solve it exists, but the biggest problem is getting people to believe that with a sustained effort in this area they can save their companies millions. To win over peoples' minds, we need 'CATS'-Competence, Attitude, Technology Transfer (or Training)," he said.
And the list goes on. Relevant-time, not necessarily real-time, answers are desired. Behind casing formation evaluation, intelligent artificial lift systems, permanent well monitoring and downhole chemical sensors are needed now. Some are available today. In fact, at every turn we heard the producers' plea, "Don't just give us data! Give us timely, consistent and actionable information."

Corrigan said, "This is the decade of production optimization. It's not about single technologies, it's about system solutions. In the future, we must be able to measure things that we cannot measure today. We need new, more efficient downhole sensors complete with relevant modeling and software." Corrigan called for more emphasis on candidate recognition to prioritize production optimization projects. The candidate recognition stage is where raw data are turned into valuable information with economic relevance, and this has had a huge impact on oil company profitability, he concluded.

As a journalist, my wish list is short. The technical program provided such an array of excellent papers on such a wide variety of interesting topics, I wish I could figure out how to be in several sessions at once.

Well, whoever said wishes come true?

Comments