N444 Development Planning For Mature Fields

Mature fields differ from greenfield developments in that major infrastructure is in place, static reservoir data has accumulated from development drilling and a growing volume of production data has become available. Decisions therefore relate to incremental projects, which may be small in scope and are often economically marginal. A firm understanding of the technical fundamentals associated with reservoir, wells and surface facilities is therefore required to make quality decisions in this environment, supported by an understanding of incremental project economics.

Challenges of mature field developments

• Open discussion covering smaller target sizes, costs, efficiencies, perceptions

Mature field development strategies

• What is strategy? The difference between green and brownfield decision making
• Framework (choices, boundaries, selection criteria, framing decisions)
• Evaluation methods
• Workflows, overview of tools

Mature oil fields

• Subsurface: getting insights from data (surveillance mapping), recovery mechanisms, modelling options (analytical, sector, full field), history matching, EOR
• Wells: understanding well data, typical late life issues (flow assurance), drilling and completion options (including workovers)
• Surface: understanding surface data (including allocation), surface options e.g. debottlenecking

Mature gas fields

• Subsurface: insights from data, modelling options, gas condensate issues e.g. condensate banking
• Wells: gas issues e.g. liquid loading
• Surface: gas issues e.g. late life compression

Economics

• Typical economic decision making criteria
• The importance and pitfalls of incremental economics
• Finding the optimal development strategy

Decision making

• Evaluation methods
• Dealing with risk and uncertainty
• Biases in decision making
• How to make the best decision

Implementing and development managing the selected plan

• Building the plan
• Managing the plan when it goes off track

Wrap-up