Apps and the Digital Oil Field

Abstract

App technology The oil and gas industry tends to be resistant to marketing fads. If a software phenomenon such as the app cannot help get oil and gas out of the Earth safer, faster, and more economically, then the industry will not use it. This may be why, of the hundreds of thousands of apps now publicly available, only a few dozen are devoted to the industry. Apps Developed for the Oil and Gas Industry None of the online app stores has a separate category for the petroleum industry. Oil and gas apps are primarily housed under app stores’ business, education, productivity, or reference headings. While an app must meet certain software standards to be included in an app store, the actual content receives no vetting. So, beyond the name and reputation of the company or person providing the app, no assurance is provided on the accuracy of the app’s information, mathematical formulas, or simulation parameters. Oil and gas industry apps comprise the following five categories: Those devoted to marketing materials—These marketing collateral materials take the place of printed catalogs, annual reports, brochures, and data sheets. While companies have made such materials available on their websites ever since the Web began rising in prominence in the early 1990s, the primary advantage of accessing them via a smartphone or tablet lies in the greater portability of the devices themselves, as well as the ability for updated material to be added at any time. For example, Aker Solutions recently implemented a smartphone app for its wireline tractor catalog. On a tablet, this is downloaded as a portable document format (PDF) file that is accessible through a book library app. In another example, Tenaris has created its own TenarisLibrary, featuring a complete and integrated package of its available marketing literature and videos. These appear in a variety of languages, and access can be tailored to individual interests. Calling it a “dynamic library,” Tenaris writes, “Each user is invited to create their own customized library to navigate the material once disconnected from the Internet.” Those that supply computations—Designing a drilling program and constructing, drilling, and completing a well demand input of a huge number of variables that can be manipulated using mathematical formulas and computations. Each variable rests upon a solid foundation of physical reality, including measured depth, pipe inner and outer diameter, downhole pressure and temperature, azimuth, mud weight, rate of penetration, and weight on bit. Some computationally based apps—including Halliburton’s eRedBook and eChartBook and Schlumberger’s Smith Bits Quick Calc Hydraulics—are of use in the field. Others—such as Wellcontrol.com.br’s Well Control, Leak-Off Test, and Drilling simulators—are useful as educational tools.