Small improvements compound, and the oil and gas industry is using artificial intelligence (AI) to amplify the impact of other technologies as it works to improve production rates.
At a time where energy abundance can be defined by security, affordability, and sustainability, innovative technologies are critical when it comes to producing oil and gas, industry experts said during the 21 October opening session of the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) in Houston.
“One of the biggest opportunities that we have at the moment is accessing more resource from our discovered undeveloped portfolio,” said Peter Larden, senior vice president for ExxonMobil’s upstream conventional and heavy oil business line.
“All the technologies that have improved us over the past 20 years or so—extended reach drilling, horizontal drilling, advanced completions, primary and secondary recovery techniques—all of those can be really important to improve our recovery factors and therefore supply of oil and gas,” he said.
EOG Resources Chairman and CEO Ezra Yacob emphasized the idea of engineering resources, not simply producing them. “Resources are really only worth anything if they’re actually produced safely and economically. That’s the biggest thing. It’s kind of a low bar if we’re just trying to produce more, but the whole idea of trying to engineer it is you’re trying to engineer something that’s repeatable and economically viable.”
The heart of that goes to better imaging and subsurface descriptions and understanding what part of the reservoirs are contributing to production, he said.
Yacob said another key question is how to get more out of the reservoir. “How do you exploit that? How do you identify where the oil’s coming from? More importantly, maybe, is where you’re actually leaving the oil behind,” so secondary recovery can be planned to recover that oil.
And applying technologies that enable even a small bump in recovery can be meaningful, he added. “Let’s just say we’ve got an average of about a 10% plus or minus recovery factor on these unconventionals. If you can just move that a percent, again, across thousands of wells, across the oil in place we’re talking about, that’s significant.”
ADNOC Onshore CEO Ahmed Alebri said balancing energy affordability, security, and sustainability is a difficult equation. “The trick is how we make that balance in our operations.”
He offered an example of sustainability in practice, in which one of ADNOC Onshore’s fields is near steel mills, which produce CO2 that ADNOC Onshore then injects into the reservoir for enhanced oil recovery.
“Is it the only thing that we are doing? No. One of our fields is producing more than 700,000 barrels a day with the water that’s 100% reinjected again to the reservoirs,” he said.
Energy Mix Pragmatism
Sustainability is only one part of energy abundance. When it comes to the energy mix, Baker Hughes Chairman and CEO Lorenzo Simonelli said it’s important to be realistic about the fact that developing countries will use what they have access to.
“It’s only fair that we utilize what’s available. So, if you’ve got a lot of wind, go for it. Wind turbines make a lot of sense. Wind power makes a lot of sense. If you’ve got no wind, but you’ve got sunshine, solar makes a lot of sense. If you’ve got hydrocarbons, it makes a lot of sense to be developing those hydrocarbons. If you’ve got coal and that’s the only thing you have and you can’t get LNG, then you’re going to utilize coal and you’re going to look to ways to reduce the emissions of that coal,” he said. “The only way we can have a balanced discussion going forward with regards to making sure affordability, security, and sustainability is there is by acknowledging the fact that it’s not an easy equation and you can’t have winners and losers. You’ve actually got to look at it from a pragmatic standpoint.”
Amplifying With AI
When it comes to using AI, Alebri said ADNOC couples AI with technology to drive efficiency. “In ADNOC, we do not just implement AI for the sake of AI,” he said.
The company has used AI to reduce subsurface data interpretation by 30% to 40%. “We have better understanding, faster decision making,” he said.
Larden said the industry is already amplifying existing technologies with AI. Over the past 20 years, technologies like 3D seismic interpretation, digital and remote operations, and extended-reach drilling have helped the industry access more resources at a more competitive cost, he said.
“What we’re looking to do through AI is really amplify the impact of all of those technologies into the future. Again, really with the ultimate goal of increasing resource recovery and improving capital efficiency,” he said.
Yacob said the industry is using machine learning to help increase equipment uptime, manage environmental performance, and schedule preventative maintenance.
“All these little things that incrementally, when you’re talking about thousands of wells across a basin, deliver a significant amount of value,” he said.
And while AI can amplify the impact of technology, it may cause oil and gas workers to worry about the stability of their chosen careers.
Larden said it’s important for workers to embrace AI technology and learn how to use it.
“How I work today is very different from how I worked 20 years ago when I started in this industry. And I’m sure in 20 years’ time, we’re going to be working very differently from how we are today. But what I have seen through my experience is the engineers, the accountants, the professionals that support oil and gas, the ones that do best are the ones that lean into the technology available at the time, apply it to their business in the most high-impact ways, and advance both our industry and their own careers,” he said.
Alebri said jobs will still be around, but competition for those jobs will likely evolve.
“The competitiveness will be for the ones who will change their minds to adapt for the future,” he said. “We are also supporting these initiatives with our workforce by applying different multiple training courses, by putting the team under that stress to make sure that also they’re equipped. You have to keep pushing the team.”
Yacob urged the next generation of oil and gas workers to ground themselves in subsurface fundamentals, to understand how to work with data, and to gain an appreciation for the reality of field operations.
“No matter where your career takes you, a lot of it, it’s going to start with subsurface understanding,” whether it's carbon capture, geothermal, helium, oil and gas, or critical minerals, he said. “It really starts there. So, make sure that you’ve got a good source of fundamental understanding on the subsurface and how that works.”
