Projects

Best Practice Project

Phase 1 - FUN Best Practices and Methods project

A project was conducted in 1999-2000 to make an inventory of the current practice and recommend a best practice regarding Hydrocarbon Resource Estimation, Production and Emissions Forecasting, Uncertainty Evaluation and Decision Making. The findings have been documented in a report (ref. 1). Circumstantial evidence for a direct relation between economic performance and sophistication in decision making is given. Apart from promoting the fully probabilistic Decision & Risk Analysis (D&RA) approach, the report also discusses the company’s and government’s points of view, including their mutual information flow. Phase 1 was sponsored by Norske Shell, Amerada Hess Norge, BP Amoco, Elf Petroleum Norge, Enterprise Oil Norge, Norsk Agip, Norsk Hydro, Norsk Chevron, Norske Conoco, Norwegian Petroleum Directorate/Ministry of Petroleum & Energy, Phillips Petroleum Company Norway, Saga Petroleum, and Statoil.

During this first FUN Best Practices and Methods project the current practice was scored in terms of the penetration degree of full-workflow and probabilistic methods, both with the company’s staff and the management. A correlation was postulated between this degree and the company’s economic performance, whence a “best practice” was formulated. It appeared that in most companies significant gaps existed between their current and the “best” practices. The need of narrowing this gap and fostering the development of a common language in project /asset / portfolio evaluation and decision-making became apparent. This again should help a better data flow between the various aggregation levels and communication between the various parties (company / company, and company / government).

Phase 2 - FUN Best Practices and Methods project

As from the onset of the phase 1 project, a second project was foreseen to bring the recommended best practices to the end-user. Phase 2 was sponsored by Norske Shell, Amerada Hess Norge, BP Amoco Norge, Enterprise Oil Norge, Fortum Petroleum, Norsk Agip, Norsk Hydro, Norsk Chevron, Norske Conoco, Norwegian Petroleum Directorate/Ministry of Petroleum & Energy, Phillips Petroleum Company Norway, RWE-DEA Norge, TotalFinaElf Norge, and Statoil.

A primary concern of the FUN Board was the long-term sustainability / durability of the methods and practices recommended in the phase 1 project. The FUN Board therefore requested that the Team of lecturers would involve Norwegian universities in the project in order to develop an awareness level at the grass roots and to foster the development of a full technology-transfer chain. The university engaged in the phase 2 project was NTNU, the Norwegian Technical University in Trondheim.

The key features of the phase 2 project are:

Moreover, a project web-site was delivered according to specs.

Phase 3 - FUN Best Practices and Methods project

The objective of the FUN-BP phase 3 project is further dissemination of the recommended best practices (BP), as documented during phase 1, to all disciplines involved in E&P asset management & decision-making. Through pre-reading material, a course and exercises, based on the FUN-BP phase 2 programme, the lectured topics will emphasise:

Moreover, as a new feature, a 2 - 2.5 day seminar to senior management shall be prepared to teach the general concepts of Decision & Risk Analysis, and focus on the decision-making and asset team management process.

The project will recommend best practises for hydrocarbon resouce and emissions estimation, forecasting, uncertainty evaluation and decision making. The Netherlands Institute of Applied Geoscience (TNO) has established its own sub-website for the project which is available from http://www.nitg.tno.nl/funbpp.
Here you will find general information, news and specifics about the project. A public discussion area will be developed and a password-protected member area is being established.

Forecasting Atmospheric Emissions

The annually reported emission estimates to the NPD through the revised national budget has proven to be resource intensive for license operators. The results from this work have to some degree demonstrated inadequate consistence, quality and accurancy.

In order to coordinate an improved process for the industry a FUN Work Group, consisting of Statoil, Saga, Norsk Hydro, Phillips, NPD and the consultant Novatech, is preparing directions to achieve acceptable and consistent reporting standards among operators. This work will end up in a report and a simple spreadsheet that matches the NPDs updated requirements and form of the revised national budget 2000. The report is available to all FUN-members.