Minutes March 11-12, 1999

Minutes PWRI Semi-Annual Meeting
Rijswijk, The Netherlands
March 11-12 1999

March 11, 1999

The meeting began at 9:00 AM at the Shell facility in Rijswijk. In attendance were Laurence Murray and Luis Acosta of BP Amoco, Paul Jones of Chevron, Christine Valvatne of Conoco, Jim Hardy of Maersk, Atle Nordgaard of Norsk Hydro, Dave Rushford and Bill Beckie of PanCanadian, Gerald Sommerauer and Zara Kathib of Shell, John Shaw of Statoil, Bob Siegfried of GRI, John McLennan of TerraTek, Alistair Simpson of Triangle, David Davies of Heriot-Watt, Ron Harisch of Duke Engineering, Stephen Hope of VIPS, and Ahmed Abou-Sayed of Advantek.

GRI Report

Bob Siegfried presented an update on the administrative and financial aspects of the project. Thirteen companies have signed the participation agreement, although one company has indicated its intent to withdraw. Participants include BP Amoco, Canadian Petroleum (withdrawing), Chevron, Conoco, Elf Aquitaine, Maersk, Marathon, Mobil, Norsk Hydro, Pan-Canadian, Petrobras, Shell, and Statoil. AGIP and Total had expressed interest, but have not responded to recent solicitations. Ahmed Abou-Sayed reported that AGIP may still have an interest, and John Shaw reported that Phillips was very interested. Ron Harisch indicated that Husky in Canada may have an interest. Bob Siegfried will follow up with these potential additional members. All of the contracts are in place, and work is proceeding. According to GRI’s most recent records, four companies that have signed the participation agreement have not yet paid the first invoice. Bob Siegfried will follow up with these companies. Additionally, the second payment will be due on 31 March 1999. There are currently sufficient funds available to finance project activities through the end of July, so it will be important to collect all payments to ensure uninterrupted progress. A summary of project finances to this point was distributed, and is attached to these minutes. With the current level of membership (12), the project will collect funds of $1,800,000. The planned level of expenditure is $1,600,000, and the amount currently contracted is $1,373,792. An estimated $20,000 of additional funding will be available due to the participation of Canadian Petroleum through 31 March 1999.

Note added 18 March 1999. GRI has received the first payment from all sponsors, and the second payment has been received from Elf Acquitaine and Mobil.

Project Status and Summary

John McLennan reviewed the progress on the project tasks. His presentation will be posted on the PWRI website. He noted that field data provided by the sponsors were essential to the success of the project. Data have been provided by Pan Canadian, and the project contractors have been analyzing that data set. The focus has been on understanding the physical mechanisms governing injection of produced waters, as opposed to the application of existing models of the process.

Injection in Soft Sands is one of the key tasks, and there was some discussion regarding the meaning of "soft sands". It was agreed that this issue needs to be addressed. An extensive discussion of this issue was tabled, however it appears that this might be an appropriate subject for the discussion area of the website.

Database and Website

The database architecture was described by John McLennan. Samples of proposed database queries were presented for discussion. John also reviewed the status of the website and plans for the future. The presentation on this topic will be posted to the website. The following issues were discussed.

There has been a considerable effort to find a means of providing the desired functionality of the website, while still maintaining compatibility with the firewalls in the sponsor’s systems. A solution has been identified and is being implemented. Security that will restrict website access to PWRI sponsors and contractors is being put in place, and the information needed to access the site will be distributed when the security is implemented. The intent of the system is to protect the PWRI project information from unauthorized access, not to in any way restrict or control access by the sponsors. It appears that the system has a good deal of flexibility, and the sponsors are encouraged to contact John McLennan if the security measures initially implemented need some fine tuning to meet the needs of a particular company.

Database maintenance was discussed. Phalanx Software will provide maintenance on a trial basis during the development period, but we need to be thinking about options for longer term maintenance. In particular, the desirability of maintaining an online database after the termination of the project needs to be considered.

Tools for data entry and display via the website will be coming shortly. Issues such as the format for dates and units will need to be addressed. Since the data being input will use several systems of units, some facility for unit conversion should be incorporated in the database I/O tools. Some prototype displays will be distributed electronically to sponsors for comment.

A messaging facility is being developed. This is currently planned as a threaded bulletin board type of system, where messages are posted for discussion. The issue of "soft sands" definition could be one of the initial discussion threads. There was some discussion regarding the inclusion of a "chat room" capability for real-time discussions in the messaging. TerraTek will investigate this possibility.

POSC compliance was discussed. While the group agreed that POSC compliance was desirable, the first priority for the limited project resources is developing a useful database. TerraTek was directed to investigate the possibility of maximizing POSC compliance, while managing resources to meet the project goals.

It was suggested that, wherever possible, references include links to web locations where the reference may be found or ordered (e.g. SPE website). Search capability, e.g. keyword searches, was also mentioned as a potentially valuable database feature. These possibilities will be evaluated.

Several additional features that should be considered for the final database product were suggested. These include:

Access to spreadsheets or macros that would allow a database user to actually perform analyses from within the database.

The ability to archive the results of some queries or analyses, for the benefit of later users.

Standard query and report templates.

Overview of the Available Data

Alastair Simpson reviewed the data that has been collected to date, and how it will fit into the project tasks. His presentation will be posted on the website.

A key piece of information that should be included for each well is whether the injection procedure achieved its objectives. This is planned for the "injection" screen. Issues to consider include not only whether the water was successfully injected, but whether it went into the desired zone. This information should be on an early screen for each well. While a success/failure flag would probably be useful, additional information will have to be included in a comment field.

The ARCO Prudhoe Bay data was discussed in view of ARCO not being a project participant. ARCO has offered to provide the data, if the group shares the results of any analysis that involves the data. This does not seem practical, since any meaningful analysis will include data from multiple companies’ wells, and it would not be feasible to separate out the ARCO results. Thus, we will not accept the ARCO data on those terms, although they should be encouraged to join the project.

Other companies that have data of particular interest to the project include Petrobras and Shell in Oman. The project contractors will continue to work with these companies to get access to their data, but any assistance from sponsor representatives with appropriate contacts would be appreciated.

Prototype for Data Evaluation

In order to provide the sponsors an opportunity to review the planned data collection and analysis process, the data from the PanCanadian wells was presented. Bill Beckie of PanCanadian provided the background on the 47 wells provided by PanCanadian. Ron Harisch of Duke Engineering then reviewed the preliminary processing and analysis performed by Duke on these wells. The intent was to provide the sponsors an opportunity to critique the proposed process based on a real-world example, and help them to evaluate the kind of data and analysis that would be most useful for the project. These presentations will be posted on the website.

Ron Harisch’s presentation generated a good deal of discussion regarding the presentation of the data, and alternative methods for analysis. An underlying theme of the discussion was the need for supplemental information beyond injection records to properly interpret the data in a way that will allow the development of reliable predictive tools. Some of the specific points raised follow:

Formation stress could be a critical parameter in the interpretation of injection data. Dave Rushford indicated that some dipole sonic and 3-D seismic data may be available to help characterize the stress field.

Paul Jones suggested some alternative means for looking at the data, including plots of the reciprocal of Injectivity Index.

Details of any workovers, stimulation treatments, etc. will be necessary to separate "natural" changes in injectivity from those associated with well interventions.

One of the goals of the project will be to develop tools and methodologies that will allow prediction of PWRI performance from special core analyses available early in the life of a field. In order to accomplish this, it will be necessary to collect similar core analysis data for some of the fields in which we have long-term historical PWRI experience. We should keep in mind that we need to predict PWRI performance, not just explain past results.

Tubing friction needs to be taken into account in converting wellhead pressures to bottomhole pressures.

Some wells seem to act like "check valves" and only flow in one direction. It was suggested that this may be due to incomplete cleaning.

It seemed clear from this discussion that the value of any particular data set to the project will be directly related to the amount of supplementary information regarding the wells and their operations and history that is made available to the contractors. It is therefore crucial to promote and facilitate the interaction between the contractors analyzing the data and those within the sponsor companies with direct knowledge regarding the data.

What Will the Final Product Be?

David Davies led a discussion of the options for final project output and deliverables. The issues raised are outlined below:

The PWRI project should not reinvent anything already existing. To the maximum extent possible, the web-based "toolbox" should link to pre-existing resources.

While a critical literature review is an important part of each task, there was generally favorable discussion of periodic updates to the literature review, with appropriate links and references being updated on the website.

At the termination of the project, all submitted data will be distributed to the sponsors in an electronic report. Ownership of the data, and any other information submitted by a sponsor, will remain with that sponsor, however, other sponsors will have a license to use the submitted information in their own operations. Sponsors will not have the right to distribute information submitted by other sponsors outside the project, e.g. to partners. These terms are covered in the Participation Agreement that each sponsor has signed. In addition to the submitted data, the electronic report will include the "engine" for manipulating and analyzing the data. This should allow each sponsoring company to build on the project results by adding additional internal information, irrespective of their participation in any continuing PWRI consortium or commercialization effort.

Alastair Simpson reported that Shell has submitted some reports to the project, summaries of which will be placed on the website. These reports will be made available to sponsors, but Alistair has been asked by Shell to maintain control of the originals. It is important that when a company submits information to the project, they understand the terms outlined in the Participation Agreement that cover the ownership and distribution of that information.

Laurence Murray will look into the possibility of getting access to the literature review that was part of the PEA 23 project for the PWRI project.

Website security was again discussed. An alternative to a userid/password system would be a system where users could only access the system from sponsor company networks. This would handle the problem of former employees of sponsors continuing to access the website, but may introduce difficulties for some companies when they desire remote access. John McLennan reported that the planned system has a great deal of flexibility, and will most likely be able to handle the security concerns of each sponsor.

March 12, 1999

Field Validation and Testing Opportunities

Alastair Simpson distributed a schedule of upcoming PWRI projects based on previous input from sponsors, and requested that the sponsor representatives update the list and return it to him.

He then distributed a blank sheet intended to capture information regarding PWRI operations in progress. The objective is to identify opportunities to leverage ongoing activities with additional data collection, etc. to allow us to enhance what we learn from these operations with little additional cost. The information collected about these operations will be shared via the PWRI website.

Alastair then led a discussion of various types of deposits that occur in injection wells. A videotape example of significant deposits on a WAG well using aquifer water demonstrated that troublesome deposits are not always the result of poor injection water quality. The discussion covered various examples of deposits, and their effect on surface and downhole equipment. Laurence Murray has some information available regarding reduced lifetimes for seawater injection pumps. The extent to which issues regarding production chemistry and surface equipment problems fit within the scope of the PWRI project was discussed. The consensus was that the ability to predict deposits was important, but that we did not want to rediscover knowledge already in the hands of people working with surface facilities. The objective should be to review the existing knowledge, identify the implications for PWRI, and disseminate the relevant information. This topic was identified as a likely candidate for further discussion when the messaging system is implemented on the website.

General Discussion

Laurence Murray questioned the operation of the task mentor system. He noted that the task mentors had not seemed to be involved in the project in a technical assurance capacity. This was acknowledged to be true, due to the early stage of the project, where the contractors are basically presenting a framework for the work that is planned over the course of the project. All agreed that as the project continues, it will be important to have the task mentors that are technical specialists in each particular task review the work on an ongoing basis, and provide direction and feedback prior to the presentation of results to the group as a whole. The group felt that having the capability for discussion groups on the website was an important tool to facilitate this interaction. Therefore, John McLennan was directed to ensure that implementing this capability was given high priority.

One of the key organizers of the project, Ahmed Abou-Sayed, is now available to contribute actively to the project. There was discussion of a potential role for Ahmed, with the result that the project manager, John McLennan, was directed to work with him to identify some specific opportunities where the project could benefit from his contribution. The proposed cost and added value for these activities would then be presented to the steering committee for consideration. It was noted that any additional expenditure beyond the amount currently authorized would need to result in specific additional benefits to the project. It was also noted that, if the current participants all remain until the end of the project, there are sufficient funds available to fund additional work without increasing the contribution from any company, or increasing the project cost specified in the Participation Agreement. This discussion and approval process should take place via email.

Presentations

Steve Hope of V.I.P.S. presented an overview of the VISAGE stress-sensitive reservoir simulation tool being used in the project.

John Shaw of Statoil provided an overview of a recent North Sea PWRI pilot.

Atle Nordgaard of Norsk Hydro discussed their experiences in the Brage field.

Laurence Murray of BP Amoco reviewed some of the issues associated with PWRI in horizontal wells.

Next Meeting

Planning for the next meeting revolved around the desire to keep the sponsors actively involved in the direction of the project, while providing enough time for significant accomplishments prior to the next project review. Two meetings were planned to address these goals. A working session that will focus on project direction and discussion of the submitted data will be held in Edinburgh in June. Representatives of all sponsors are invited, although the task mentors are particularly urged to attend. John McLennan will arrange this meeting. The next formal Steering Committee meeting will be held in September. PanCanadian has agreed to host the meeting in Calgary, and Bob Siegfried will be responsible for arranging the dates and organizing the meeting. The September meeting will be a full two days, and will be held on a Monday and Tuesday to allow participants to take advantage of lower fares that involve a Saturday night stay.

Costs of Produced Water

John Shaw reported that Jean-Louis Detienne has suggested that we pool our resources to evaluate the actual costs of produced water to the industry. AGIP has circulated a questionnaire directed toward accumulating data on these costs. Interest was expressed in using this group as a forum to collect, discuss, and disseminate this sort of information. The discussion group capability on the website will allow this effort to be organized. It was suggested that the AGIP questionnaire may be a good starting point for gathering information.

Parking Lot

Listed below are several topics raised during the meeting that may require more discussion or more information than was available during the meeting. These topics could form the basis for some initial discussion group activity on the website.

Definition of "soft sands."

Database issues - maintenance, units, date formats.

Compatibility of data entry with POSC.

Inclusion of spreadsheets, macros, etc. for data analysis in the "toolbox."

Use of standard query templates.

Handling of "Project Technology," and release of data and reports.

The Steering Committee meeting was adjourned at 12:30 PM on 12 March 1999.

Robert Siegfried
Gas Research Institute