Excelling in Subsurface Unscheduled Deferment: Showcasing Best-In-Class Performance in Field X in the Southern of Oman

Abstract

One of PDO operated field in southern Oman (Field X) was seeing an increase with time in subsurface unscheduled deferment reaching 3.7% of total field potential in 2020. This percentage of subsurface unscheduled deferment was far away from local (2%) and global (1%) top quartile. Field X considered is one of the oldest fields in southern Oman and currently producing over 90 K bbl/d of net oil from over 2200 oil producers, distributed across 23 fields. The oil is being processed by 5 main stations. Very dynamic operation taking place in Filed X with more than 1600 well interventions yearly. Due to these facts, Subsurface unscheduled deferment management in Field X is a real challenge. And If this business pain not resolved, an average of 3,800 bbl/d unscheduled sub-surface deferment will continue and accumulate. In a phase-wise approach, a dedicated workshop on subsurface deferment reduction was carried out with all the stakeholders in 2020 to reach the potential solutions to reduce unplanned subsurface deferment in Field X. The four main elements for this pain are Fail Less, Restoration cycle time, resources management and data visualization. Since 2020 Field X subsurface unscheduled deferment has been decreasing dramatically to 2.9% in 2021 and 2.4% in 2022, approaching local top quartile (2%). A historical record has been achieved in September 2022 by reducing the unscheduled subsurface deferment to only 0.8% beating both local and global (1%) top quartile. This paper will discuss the methodology and best practices that led to achieve such results.