Facilitating Risk Management in E&P Using Data Visualisation and Collaboration Tools

Abstract

Abstract Technological progress alone is insufficient in the E&P industry today given the wider administrative, legal and organisational challenges that E&P development Projects currently have to contend with. In particular, risk management has become fundamental to both operator and service provider companies. This paper presents two E&P case studies that illustrate how the use of collaboration and data visualisation tools provided significant assistance and support to E&P risk management activities. The first case study concerns a deep offshore E&P development project where the risk management activity had become virtually impossible to coordinate because of a very aggressive project execution environment. The implementation of collaboration technology for the project's executive management team established and sustained risk visibility at the appropriate level, whilst allowing all risk-related information to be seamlessly integrated with the rest of the project execution plan. The second case study concerns the collection and monitoring of safety and risk performance indicators (RPIs) at operational E&P sites of a major oil company. We will describe how analysis and feasibility work led to the design and development of a methodological tool capable of collecting and organising a diversified set of RPIs and then presenting them in an innovative graphical form for analysis and prioritisation. The added value for E&P projects is evident: risk management without risk. Introduction Exploration and Production innovation today is largely focused on technical challenges in areas such as enhancing subsurface imaging to improve exploration success and increasing recovery from existing and new fields using smarter operating systems. Such technological advancements and achievements alone, however, have become insufficient to ensure successful E&P operations given the widening administrative, legal and organisational challenges that field development and other projects currently have to contend with. In particular, risk management has become fundamental to the systematic mitigation of the increased operational and managerial liabilities to which both operator and service provider companies are now exposed. As such, risk management plans are now fully integrated into the overall E&P management systems and processes. However, all E&P operations are subject to the usual battery of day-to-day management problems, and all parties quickly become absorbed in a complex environment where the prioritisation of actions primarily depends upon the individual. This, compounded by the geographic dispersion of key personnel, site personnel rotation, and poor information circulation, can eventually lead to risk management activity losing "visibility". In the worst of cases, risk management activity may virtually cease altogether. Two recent types of technology bring innovative solutions to this problematic situation. The first type facilitates collaborative project management for virtual teams, allowing risk to be integrated as a key component during project execution, and thus be a source of action items, deliverables, milestones, time assignments and reporting, just like other project components. The second type uses hierarchical data representations to graphically represent heterogeneous risk-related information by highlighting importance criteria together with performance or deviation with respect to a target. Figure 1 illustrates how these technologies enable the implementation of a global risk management approach based upon a "risk portfolio" comprised of a "risk register" to drive mitigation actions, and a "risk indicator data base" for visualisation and analysis of performance. Using this approach, risk can be dynamically associated with the management of field development or operations, from a planning and execution perspective as well as from a performance and diagnosis standpoint. This paper presents two E&P case studies that illustrate how the use of collaboration and data visualisation tools provided significant assistance and support to E&P risk management activities:Use of collaborative project execution management technology (PEMT) on a deep offshore E&P development project with a significant risk management component and severe difficulties with coordination;Collection and monitoring of safety and risk performance indicators (RPIs) at operational E&P sites of a major oil company, using graphical representations to expose and prioritise critical risk factors associated with site production.