MANAGING
LATE LIFE
PRODUCTION
W
ith the current pressured market conditions, the focus on
cessation of production (CoP) followed by the decommissioning
of installations in the North Sea is becoming ever more
prevalent not only in an operator’s radar but across the industry as a
whole.
Significant progress has beenmade in the area of decommissioning
fromsafe and cost-effectivewell plug and abandonment (P&A) to full
decommissioning of offshore installations, however, the industry still
requires clarity around how to smoothly close out the subsurface and
productionmanagement of assets.
LR Senergy recently took over the reservoir and production
management of two subsea Central North Sea (CNS) fields for a client and
the company’s experience shows that a smooth transition is possible and
that it is actually beneficial for the operator in terms of reducing costs and
allowing the redeployment of essential staff tomore value-adding and
strategic assets, without detracting fromoperator responsibilities for the
asset approaching CoP.
At the beginning of a field’s life, efforts are clearly focused upon
generating long-termdevelopment plans andmaximising hydrocarbon
recovery. Numerous technical tasksmust be performed and dedicated
technical specialists are required to carry out studies in areas including
seismic interpretation, geological modelling, petrophysical evaluation,
reservoirmodelling and production optimisation. However, at the end
of the field’s life and particularlywhen a field is approaching CoP, with
remaining opportunities available but perhaps not economically feasible
to execute, day-to-day production and operationmanagement takes
precedence andmany of the geoscience and reservoir engineering tasks
become less important or simply not required. At the end of the field’s life,
the relentless focus on production optimisation and operational efficiency
is fundamental tomaintaining production and extending the life of the
field until CoP.
Subsurface and productionmanagement can be achievedwith
a pre-CoP teamcomprising a projectmanager, a reservoir engineer,
a production/operations engineer and an ad-hoc collaboration of other
subsurface discipline experts if necessary, allowing the original full
subsurface teamto be organically reduced and reassigned in linewith the
lower number of tasks required tomaintain production until CoP. Activities
such as gathering data for the final well and reservoir status, which need to
be collatedwithin decommissioning plans and CoP documents required
by the regulatory authorities, can be effectively performed by this small
team, as can preparation of the CoP document itself. Some tasks such as
reserves booking, short and long-term forecasts, revisiting opportunities
for final close-out and other forms of reporting, which are particular for
each project, can also be effectively transferred to the smaller pre-CoP
team. Outsourcing the teamalso provides the operator with real
confidence in delivery in that the risk of losing contracting resources hired
Celeste Pastorini and Russ Gilbert, LR Senergy,
UK, explain how to achieve a smooth transition
from production to CoP.
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