Speaking at the OSIsoft Users Conference held in San Francisco earlier this year, Industrial Evolution founder and CEO Simon Wright explained how the seamless re-allocation of streaming production data has been realized in the Gulf of Mexico. Industrial Evolution’s (IE) WellShare ‘data as a service’ offering consolidates real time data streams from multiple offshore platforms, serving it up to entitled users from IE’s PI System-based secure data center. This has enabled IE to adapt to changing ownership as oil and gas assets change hands in acquisitions and mergers (A&M). A&M activity involves complex entitlement issues as shareable operational data may be mingled with proprietary data from other assets.
First up was the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) Shell-operated Bullwinkle platform where production from various fields was managed by one company but owned by another. Bullwinkle satellite fields’ ownerships have changed hands many times since the platform was installed in 1998. To manage evolving data visibility requirements, Shell deployed IE’s WellShare between partners. Shell used WellShare to receive real-time data from BP’s Troika field, tied in to Bullwinkle via BP’s nearby Brutus platform. BP and Nexen used WellShare to receive Aspen real-time data from Shell. Noble Energy installed telemetry devices from GlobaLogix to stream data from its Lorien field. Once data was consolidated to IE’s real time hub, partners could share data as per their entitlements. Shell accessed BP data on Troika, Nexen accessed BP data from Aspen and Noble Energy accessed data from Lorien.
But things got interesting in 2010 when BP sold Troika to Shell and severed the tieback to Brutus, rerouting production directly to Bullwinkle. BP also sold Aspen to Nexen and Shell sold Bullwinkle to Superior and new operator Dynamic Offshore Resources. DOR installed a PI Server, backfilling Shell’s historian, and redirected data from its Wonderware and Intellution interfaces.
Similar tweaks to the IE data hub allowed Marubeni Oil & Gas to access only the data it was entitled to in fields acquired from BP and Shell. As Marathon’s Droshky development came on stream, its subsea control system was piped directly to Marathon. Droshky’s topsides were controlled by Bullwinkle’s WonderWare system while IE routed the DOR PI System to feed Droshky topside data to Marathon. Today, Bullwinkle, Rocky Angus, Manatee, Troika Aspen Droshky and Lorien all run through the IE data hub. Wright concluded by enumerating some key project enablers—the low cost of the PI Server, the PI to PI history capture and, of course, IE’s WellShare service. Read Wright’s paper on www.oilit.com/links/1107_0 and more on IE from www.oilit.com/links/1107_1.
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