Improved Mature Reservoir Management and Brownfield Operations

Companies active in the mature oil and gas fields need to understand the specific challenges as well as the opportunities for improvement in this environment. A primary challenge is changing from a greenfield to a brownfield mindset.

Many companies operating mature assets find that they create major challenges as well as significant improvement opportunities. These key challenges include:

• The need for faster, more effective collaboration within and across organizations while developing and operating the assets.
• Finding and accessing the right solution for the asset—with rapidly expanding data/ information flows and multiple, inconsistent data sets.
• Coordinating complex projects within shorter cycle times.
• Capturing and leveraging expert knowledge, best practices and lessons learned.
• Changing the company mindset from a greenfield to a brownfield focus.
• Maintaining a focus on reduction of asset development and production costs.

Running a brownfield site successfully involves developing a mindset of "affordability and collaboration."

Affordability involves identifying opportunities for improving mature assets, including:

• Following a mainly inorganic portfolio strategy for asset acquisitions.
• Acquiring assets to establish a production hub.
• Gaining operatorship of other key assets.
• Exploring areas close to the hub.
• Exploiting low-risk opportunities.
• Tying satellite operations back to existing infrastructure.
• Building a position as a major operator

Just as important are the people, process and change management skills needed to create the appropriate mindset. These include:

• A back to basics, pragmatic approach.
• Addressing interface issues through the creation of small and focused teams working closely with oilfield contractors.
• Focusing on actions and solutions being linked closely to value.
• Ensuring that good operators have key program management processes embedded in their work practices.

Brownfield operators and managers are being challenged to solve and optimize a multivariable equation:

• To reduce capital and operational expenditures.
• To reduce development and operational risks.
• To stabilize production.
• To improve economic returns.

Companies solving these challenges are seeing improvements in critical energy and petrochemical metrics, lower comparable costs, increased production volume and higher shareholder returns.