1.0 Introduction
Oil wells are the practiced means to extract oil and related components form beneath the earth’s surface. In order to determine if any location contains gas or oil, it is to undertake a drilling project, and that implies a team effort to design a sophisticated oil tracking system. Petroleum engineers projecting the early stages of approval all through oil production formulate a simulation context. Designing oil drilling tracking system involves several skilled minds in the oil industry entailing job performances, engineering schematics to field operations, and project management. Each team member on any oil-drilling project shall understand the production cycle in tracking newly discovered oil wells from approving the initial stages of drilling throughout its production. Supplying and installing an oil drill may not suffice without all parties understanding the flow of the project. To maintain an accurate schedule and desirable system with all departments keeping track of the oil wells, a few of the main alliances are required. The oil company, normally categorized as the operator, provide the proposed equipment necessary suitable for the specific environment of the oil well. The drilling contractor shall follow the manufacturer’s instructions and design recommendations of the drilling rig. Some service companies are invited into the project to provide specialized equipment throughout the various stages of the project.
The production of new wells tracking depends upon the characterization of the drilling project’s team collaboration, the agreements made between the companies involved in the project, and the number of staff contracted to work on the drilling project. Each team member requires understanding of the drilling objectives. The chemical engineers shall design oil-tracking systems while capturing drill safety, use compatibility and suitability, and minimization of well costs.
2.0 Project Workflow Systems
Oil and petroleum exploration have led to the location and recovery of oil supplies from reserves not normally easy to detect. In order to improve industry performance, collaboration by chemical and environmental engineers is required to derive a tracking system to reduce losses or leakages of oil besides locating oil reserves. When it comes to oil reserve discovery, engineers need to retrace a few steps to recover or retain oil tracking in order to design a sustainable tracking system. The oil and gas industry are integrated into a definite information technology (IT) systems that illustrates a targeted framework enabling companies toward informed decisions (Nate, 2015). In distant locations, which oil companies are known to perform, IT workflow systems follow key operational metrics and updated well mapping systems for comparison between current and previous oil well locations.
A configurable workflow system such as the K2 is one prime example as the solution to manage the consistency when it comes to information sharing of the interfaces between scheduled departments. The selected workflow is not only used to identify the well process, but to also track and coordinate as many corrective efforts as possible for declining wells, which often proves as a challenge. A management platform compatible with Microsoft platform architecture, oil companies will be able to upgrade efficient and company-wide, field-level activities without leaving the actual platform of the Microsoft application. The major benefits of the K2 provide oil companies involved in various well locations with efficient processing designs and related project executions with centralized well tracking abilities. As a multitude of parties are involved with the well tracking on the field in distant locations, the K2 operates from a central dashboard to monitor all progress from a remote location encouraging oil companies to maximize their efficiency while simultaneously providing simpler methods of understanding the current situations on the field.
3.0 Features of Oil Well Tracking Interfaces
One example of a tangible interface system is the Doodling Well. This interactive system is similar to the early Logo Doodle drawing modelling system for rough illustrations except in the 3-D mode for forecasting by preliminary oil well tracking. To reduce complications of a minimally mapped oil territory, the already known physical features of the oil well tracking in question are digitally reconstructed and then computerized specific files identifying them separately as existing wells and distinguishing them from the new wells. The digital representations of the physical properties are calculated mathematically similar to automatic computations such as floor area calculations. The tangible interface is coupled with water piping and oil consumption for older wells. The advantage of the tangibility interface is to also manipulate the digital surfacing as part of the oil well design stage and compare them with existing earth surface models. The user can alter the digital representations of the well tracking. But one disadvantage is the limited scaling of the digital mapping discouraging the physical locations prompting engineers to retrace their steps by a traditional approach to proceed toward advanced interfacing. When it comes to physical simulation feedback, tangible user interface is to be utilized to replicate the physical and natural features. Property flow simulation and dynamic drilling can demonstrate by digital motion, the forecasted occurrences of the oil wells to integrate into existing oil wells.
4.0 Administrative and Field Procedures to Oil Drilling Approval
In order to receive approval once an oil well is found, a complex procedure involving oil and gas drilling and production regulations is to be submitted and certified prior to the commencement of well operations. Each discovered well is coupled with an approved copy of the drill site in question. All vital information concerning a specific well is submitted for record keeping and tracking. The vital information includes the well names and type, drilling unit number, operating licence number, location, and land structure to name a few. Depending on the nature and components of the oil well, as much as at least 50 steps may be required for drilling, domestically or offshore drilling. For companies drilling offshore, oil well access can be more difficult because of unfamiliar territory.
An average of 20 different service companies with specialized skills is required for virtually every activity. Every company proceeds precisely on schedule usually for most hours of the day. Some activities require around-the-clock activities and shift changed to ensure safety and environmental protocols. The engineers partake in the design of the oil well access and the geological aspects to prepare for all parties, but the number and tasks of related crews can be immense and can vary. A crew dispatched by a civil engineering crew constructs a road or to access the oil well in order to clear the area to make room for the well. The engineer designs the infrastructure to admit water and electricity, which are common procedures on a construction site. The crew makes an incision into the pilot initially marked by a survey team. An oil rig usually requires a crew of between 50 and 75 people and requires between 35 and 45 semi-trucks to assemble or place the drilling equipment. But prior to any drilling commencement a site inspector surveys the area and usually inspects the well at critical stages throughout the drilling. As aforementioned more than one complete shift crew tends to the oil well especially because there are two stages to the drilling. A concrete and drilling crew runs and cements the cases and continue until the drill bit reaches the hard pan or depths where they cannot penetrate.
Engineers require scheduling and critical path methods to maintain the crews involved before and after the drilling of the oil well. They provide a source of data for the oil well. As many wells are explored by various companies, they manage well-related data and keep it centralized to facilitate collaboration between crews during the planning and drilling stages. On the filed engineers shall oversee the batch scheduling of drilling and the completion activities. Ideally similar crews on each project partake following the drilling, but in the event complications arise, a specialty crew is sent to handle any hazardous materials that shall be removed prior to continuing exploring the wells. Once well drilling is completed, streamline completion is conducted to expedite the first production.
References
Nate. “Oil and Gas Software: Decision Making and Forecasting”. Entrance. 13 Dec 2013.
Available from: <http://www.entrancesoftware.com/2013/12/13/oil-gas-software-decisions/>. Accessed 07 Jun 2015.
Somanath, S. “Doodling Wells: Tangible User Interface for Inputting Oil Well Trajectories”. University of Calgary. 17 Mar 2011.
Available from: <http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~ssomanat/pdf/DoodlingWells_CourseReport.pdf>. Accessed 07 Jun 2015.
Lieskovsky, J. & Gorgen, S. “Drilling Efficiency is a Key Driver of Oil and Natural Gas Production”. U.S. Energy Information Administration. 04 Nov 2013.
Available from: <http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=13651>. Accessed 07 Jun 2015.
