FSOFT Oil and Gas
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Upstream - Oil and Gas Exploration and Production
Upstream sector includes searching for and all subsequent works to brings crude oil or gas from underground to the surface.
Nearly all of the more commonly known activities in the oil and gas industry happen in the upstream sector.
Upstream activity usually start with performing neccessary survey to idenfity potential field, then drilling wells to acquire data for analysis. If the field has economic value, it will be developed to produce oil (and/or gas). When the production declines to below the economic value, decision will be made to stop production and decommision is done to safely shut down the field.
Seismic Exploration
Seismic Acquisition | Seismic Interpretation
Seismic surveys produce detailed images of the various rock types and their location beneath the Earth’s surface. This information is used to determine the location and size of oil and gas reservoirs.
The seismic method is based on the propagation of elastic waves in the earth and their reflection and refraction due to changes in the earth’s velocity-density distribution. Active sources of energy are required; dynamite, air guns, and chirp signal generators are the most widely used sources. Detection of faint pressure or particle motion at or near the surface is achieved by use of sensitive pressure gauges or geophones. The received signal is amplified, recorded (usually by digital methods), processed (usually in a computer), and displayed in a form that is interpretable in terms of geologic structure, stratigraphy, and hydrocarbon content. Read more about it here.
Exploration and Development work on the oilfield
With the oilfield available as working asset, the oil company will conduct various type of operation on the field to investigate its economic value. This earlier stage is called “Exploration”. This usually involve bringing in a drilling rig and drill one or more “exploration wells”.
When the field proves to have economic value, works will continue to get the field ready for production: bringing the oil, or gas, to surface. This stage is called “development” and “production”. More wells will be drilled at various location around the field, platform maybe placed on top of those wells to facilitate the extraction, storage and transfer of oil and gas.
Below are some of the most common works and services that maybe carried out during the drilling of wells and their related activities.
| Drilling | Drilling fluid | Gyro survey | Well control
| Mud logging | Logging - while drilling | Logging - Wireline
| Casing service | Cementing | Well Integrity | Perforation
| Testing | Production logging | Completion
Production and ongoing maintenance
During the production phase, various other works maybe carried out in the wells which aim to improve the field’s production rate. Some of the common services to be done during this phase is listed below.
| Artificial Lift | Well Intervention | Enhance Oil Recovery
| Coil-tubing | Slickline | Production monitoring
Software services
Software is a vital part of the oil and gas industry. Software is used to analyze vast amount of available data, making sense of it all, and to assist the company in making the right decision. During the exploration and development phase, there are many type of software package used to perform data analysis. Below is the list of some of those common softwares.