Analytics has transformed big data at Shell Exploration and Production into sound exploration decisions producing high-quality wells, thus reducing costs and lowering environmental impact.

The company uses SAS Predictive Asset Maintenance software to extend equipment lifespan and run times, which can account for tens of millions of dollars in increased gas and oil production. Touching all aspects of operations, analytics helps Shell boost both efficiency and effectiveness.

“SAS eliminates guesswork from our business processes,” says Tom Moroney, manager of Technology Deployment and Geosciences at Shell Exploration and Production, Upstream Americas, Deepwater. “We analyze tremendous volumes of real-time data to improve process and asset efficiency, well performance and reliability. When our SAS alerts signal a performance gap, we can quickly diagnose it, interrogate the system and prevent or mitigate critical upsets.”

Shell engineers are using surveillance insights from analytics to improve performance of the company’s newest platform, the Perdido spar. Below 10,000 feet of water and another 9,000 feet of mud, salt and rock, lies an ambitious target, a swath of seabed the size of Houston that holds enough oil and natural gas to produce up to 130,000 barrels a day.

Moroney and a Shell taskforce continually look to apply analytical methodology to develop deeper insights into integrated production system performance for its entire deepwater portfolio across a range of business challenges.

 Source: Analytics-magazine.org