Unified Oil Field Management

Client

The client is an American multinational energy corporation predominantly specializing in oil and gas that combines upstream, midstream, and downstream together. Within the oil and gas industry, the client is vertically integrated and is involved in hydrocarbon exploration, production, refining, marketing and transport, chemicals manufacturing and sales, and power generation.

As the third-largest oil field in terms of production, the client wanted an innovative oil and gas digitalization solution to track and manage several areas related to exploration, production, process safety and much more.

The need for digital transformation in oil and gas

Across the oil and gas industry, there is a growing need for collaboration and seamless workflows between various processes, particularly for oil field management, and this calls for digitalization. Adopting innovative technology for oil and gas digitalization is imperative for organizations to leave fragmented, manual processes behind that are prone to inefficiencies, errors and poor visibility that can impact revenue and profitability. It is also essential to adopt new technology that empowers a business to pivot quickly and seize new opportunities without being held back by error-prone manual processes that are difficult to update. In addition, evolving regulations require better reporting and visibility, and companies risk heavy penalties when they lack compliance. Thus, myriad factors are driving a shift in the oil and gas industry driving oil and gas digitalization to become the new normal in the future.

Challenges

The client faced an urgent need for a bird’s-eye-view of multiple assets for better control and navigation of systems that impacted revenue through daily operations. These challenges needed to be solved by oil and gas digitalization.

• Fragmented manual processes: Their processes were fragmented and manual spanning Excel, a few standalone legacy applications, and emails.
• Independent oilfields lacked unified control: The business unit had about six assets i.e., oil fields. Each asset functioned independently and had their own vendors and engineers who worked on them. 
• Need for regulatory updates: Regulatory bodies required regular updates as the well advanced through various stages.
• Heavy penalties due to NOV: Non-adherence to timelines led to notice of violations (NOV) with a heavy penalty. 
• Lack of visibility: No holistic view of the entire process. 

LTM’s approach and solution

We aimed to provide a unique oil and gas digitalization solution that spanned the client’s processes across all phases shown below.

We digitalized the client’s processes using Power Platform and built an innovative suite of apps that covered the entire lifecycle of a well from the ideation stage to well retirement. This suite of apps was called the ‘Smart Well Factory’ and it enabled:

• End-to-end automation: Fully automated all existing activities and processes of the business across all six oilfields.
• Centralized cloud-based solution: Implemented a cloud-based and mobile-enabled solution that centralized data.
• Visual analytics for better oversight and decision-making: Provided a graphical representation of metrics dashboard using Power BI. These graphical dashboards improved data quality and accessibility, supporting better decision-making and operational oversight, which are critical in a digitally driven industry.
• Improved compliance:  
  • Regulatory compliance: Implementation of automated processes and centralized data management helped ensure timely and accurate reporting to regulatory bodies. This was crucial for avoiding penalties and maintaining compliance with regional regulations, which vary significantly across different geographical areas.
  • Environmental regulations: By improving process efficiency and reducing manual errors, the project supported adherence to stringent environmental regulations. This was particularly important in regions with strict environmental laws, helping the client avoid violations and associated fines.
• Leveraged geological data 
  • Resource management: The Smart Well Factory solution provided a holistic view of multiple assets, enabling better control and navigation of systems. This was essential for managing complex geological formations and optimizing resource extraction.
  • Mitigating geological uncertainty: Advanced digital tools and real-time data analytics helped mitigate the risks associated with geological uncertainty. The project’s use of technologies like Azure Data Factory and Databricks allowed for better modelling and analysis of geological data, leading to more informed decision-making
• Enabled democratized, low-code development: In addition, we went a step further than the project scope, acting as SMEs and trainers for business users enabling democratized, low-code solution development.

Tech Stack

Model-driven and Canvas PowerApps, Power Automate, Power BI, Azure Data Factory pipelines, Azure functions, Azure SQL, Dataverse and Databricks

Benefits

Our solution provided an automated single entity solution with centralized data and workflows enabling efficient resource management. This resulted in a plethora of benefits including:

• ~$20+ million savings through the Notice of Violation app that avoided hefty penalties.
• ~15 minutes reduction in efforts due to the Notice of Intention app.
• ~55 minutes effort reduction for summary of wells.
• ~500 hours/month man hours saved.
• Democratized, low-code solution development so business users could develop their own apps and solutions with ease.

Conclusion

The project exemplifies the industry trend towards digital transformation in the oil and gas sector, especially for drilling, well utility and operations, by automating manual processes and integrating advanced technologies. It enabled the organization to step into a new age of unified oil field management with holistic visibility of all oilfields in a single centralized, cloud-based and mobile-enabled solution. This was a massive shift towards greater operational efficiency, regulatory compliance and significant cost savings and efficiency gains, as evidenced by the $20+ million savings and reduction in manual efforts. Moreover, our low-code, democratized solution and training empowered the business so that business users could develop their own low-code solutions to pivot swiftly, adapting to needs and opportunities as they arose. Thus, oil and gas digitalization is a crucial step for organizations to position themselves for greater profitability and long-term success in an increasingly complex industry.

Testimonials

I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for the support the team has provided me during the program. The new tool, which is built on Power App, has been a great success and will be widely used by asset development and facility organizations to replace the current Excel tool. It is a mandatory step in their workflow to go through the OE screening process and has greatly improved our ability to centralize project information and make it more user-friendly. This tool will be accessed by FE, SSD, Permitting, HSE, Land and construction teams. Your support makes our workflow more efficient.
Your dedication and hard work, even during your personal time, did not go unnoticed. Your contributions have made a significant impact on our operations, and I am grateful for your efforts.
Thank you again for all that you have done.

– Lead Environment & Regulatory Specialist

Thank you to the LTM team for collaborating with Well Utility Team (WUT) to process thousands of idle wells during the past two years and in the process saving millions in OPEX for idle well compliance testing. Please extend WUT’s appreciation to all team members as they were vital to this effort.
You did great work and I’m looking forward to continuing to work with everyone!
– Sr. Petroleum Engineer

I am so grateful we had the Citizen Development (CitDev) Cohort program. I have my app in production and it’s working great since it went live. More and more users are learning about the app and using it. Now we have our whole administrating team aware when a request comes in so requests are taken care of right away. Only positive feedback has been received from users who have submitted requests. SO HAPPY!
We would have all been lost without the great work by the LTM SMEs who helped the Well Utility Team (WUT), not only with their technical skills but also their training and empowerment approach! The participants leaned on them (probably too much) not just during the training weeks, but definitely in between. I’m still not sure how they got their day jobs done during these 4-5 months. They are the unsung heroes that helped all of us advance in our skills but especially helped my team and I get our apps completely ready and pushed to production.
– Surveillance, Analysis & Optimization Technical Assistant