More than just a machine manufacturer, Weatherford has transformed itself into a fully fledged oil and gas production-solutions provider that offers more than just artificial lifts in the digital oilfield age
The oilfield is a complex entity that requires care and attention throughout its entire life cycle. Owners and operators are always faced with difficult decisions on how to best maintain and maximize their assets.
The growth of the oil and gas industry has led to the entry of a multiplicity competitors in the oil field service provision sector. The number of players within the artificial lift market alone can be overwhelming with specialists of every form of technology vying for contracts at any given point in time.
Faced with all these options, choosing the right service provider can be a daunting task, but even more challenging, is integrating these disparate systems into one network that owners and operators can manage and optimize.
“Take an offshore project for example,” says Jim Schlebach, global marketing manager of Weatherford.
“Different companies will bid on a project and eventually an owner or operator will have different things for expensive subsea wells that are often worth millions of dollars.
They get everything in there, they get something from company A, something from company B, something from company C; and they stick it all together, out where a shut-down well costs millions of dollars a day.”
“You take all these disparate systems and throw them all together and then something doesn’t work. And the first thing company A will do is blame company B, who blames company C,” he says.
“They spend more time finger pointing than they do actually solving the problem, eventually they’ll get in there and figure it out, it’ll be fine but meanwhile it’s been a costly exercise for the operator,” he adds.
It’s the last thing an owner wants, an operational nightmare. Incongruent pieces of a puzzle that amount to lost time and money. “The owner just wants his well on,” says Schlebach.
“This company said they could do this, this company said they could do that, which is great, but then you start putting these things together and sometimes there are problems.”
Amongst the numerous oil field service providers, very few offer the wide range of services available at Weatherford.
“We are one of the only suppliers that have solutions for all forms of artificial lift,” boasts Schlebach. “Some suppliers for example, might just be an ESP company so of course with every well they come up to, they’ll say “oh you need an ESP”, but that’s simply not the case,” he says.
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According to Schlebach, it makes more sense from an operational standpoint to work with just one supplier.
“Weatherford gets out there and we put a red eye technology with a gauge with something else, then if there is an issue, we’re there and we’re on that. We know exactly what’s happening because we manufacture our own equipment, we make our own pumps, we develop our own systems, we have ownership at every stage.”
The company recently exhibited its wide range of services and technologies at a recent artificial lift seminar organized by Weatherford at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Abu Dhabi.
The self-titled ‘lift-experts’, displayed its gas lift, plunger lift, hydraulic lift, reciprocating rod lift, progressing cavity pumping, electric submersible pumping, capillary technologies and production enhancement systems.
The general consensus at the convention and throughout the region’s oil and gas industry is that the days of the easy oil are gone, “It’s getting harder and harder to find oil, there’s still oil out there, but the easy oil is gone,” says Schlebach.
“The wells we drill now have to be in harder places to get too, deep offshore, way out in the desert,” he reveals.
But more sophisticated drilling technology in more remote locations will not be enough. These days, companies are focusing on how to best maximize the fields they already own.
“Operators are asking how they can get more out of the wells that they already have. They want new ways of producing from their existing wells, new ways of evaluating lift, you don’t just drill a well and stick any kind of lift on it,” says Schlebach.
“Yes you can just drill a well and you will get 400 or maybe 5000 barrels a day, but let’s start thinking ahead, about our business decisions and our buying decisions, so we can efficiently set what we need and think about it ahead of time, instead of trying to react to things happening in our well environment,” he says.
Different operators have different strategies and there are a number of operators who are looking to optimize the wells that they already have, by putting improved production systems there, changing artificial lift methods, and decreasing their cost, and optimizing production with a better lifting solution.
Likewise, different situations, pressures, depths and formations naturally require different types of lift technology.
When the pressure is high, operators might chose to use a PCP system, but after the pressure drops, it could make more sense to put a rod lift or a hydraulic lift in the well explains Jim.
Over the years, the ‘lift experts’ have become more than just a manufacturer and supplier. Before recommending a production solution, Weatherford’s drilling experts conduct analyses to determine the lift system most suited to and most cost-effective for the client’s specific needs.
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The company also supplies open solutions which can work with an operator’s legacy systems. And Weatherford’s services don’t just end with equipment delivery, the company is now offering the complete package in terms of drilling services.
“Customers are beginning to understand that Weatherford has changed,” says Rafael Bastardo, MENA regional business unit manager of production systems. “We’re moving towards being total production managers, helping to manage production, field management, instead of just product providers.”
And Schlebach agrees, “There’s a shift in the way clients are buying good and services,” he says.
“They’re looking for more integrated solutions, a value meal approach. They get more benefit from a cost standpoint, operation standpoint. If we go in as Weatherford and talk to a customer and drill their well, we’ve got all the data and collaboration. And we can use that data to make better decisions on how to produce from the well.”
This has naturally led the company to enter the digital oil field boom. “We’re going fully digital,” says Bastardo. “The digital oil field is about having the best solution on artificial link or natural flow or whatever you have in the well with modeling your well real-time, gathering data real time and closing the loop,” he adds.
“Closing the loop is important, not only because it helps you design, adjust and appraise your well, but also monitor and model real time.”
According to Bastardo, the operation cycle can be optimized through monitoring well activity and reservoir chances; quantifying data received; controlling well operation based on the well’s current state; analyzing the artificial-lift system related to the current well status; designing the artificial-lift system based on the well’s current and projected characteristics; and managing operations work flow.
Real time monitoring naturally increases performance and responsiveness. Weatherford has adapted real-time down hole monitoring which enables the integrated system to alert technicians of any problems before production begins to decrease.
Providing a fully integrated service has made Weatherford stand out in the region. “Customers are asking for one-face, one service company that can integrate all the tools in one portfolio and offer on solution, instead of just one product.
They don’t want sales people in their offices, they want solutions providers and that’s what Weatherford is,” says Bastardo.
This has also led to the production of Weatherford’s new software package, the Field Office 2012 software suite includes a number of programs for monitoring, analyzing and optimizing production assets.
Applications offered in Weatherford’s new suite include real-time well monitoring and analysis, field network optimization, wellsite activity capture, test simulation and analysis and an enterprise operation platform to pull all applications together.
“The I-Do software platform integrates and communicates with other software and manages other software to integrate the digital fields,” explains Bastardo.
The company also highlighted the new CygNet enterprise operation platform. The CygNet module is comprised of several building blocks which include the SCADA functions, protocol drivers, alarm management, security and a robust and efficient historian.
The newly added deliquification module in the LOWIS software monitors gas production as well as liquid loading using real-time engineering calculations. The Lowis software is a client-server, network-based enterprise-wide well management suite designed to maximize production.
“What customers need in the end, is not just to increase production but to maximize production,” says Bastardo.
“This can only be done with the minimal capex and opex, to get as much as possible from the field, while being Green, without damaging formations, taking the most advantage of your equipment life, and bringing the data and intelligence to the offices, instead of having to be down-hole on the field.
It requires bringing the data to the people who will make the decisions, so they can make the decisions faster and more accurately.”
For Weatherford, it is no longer just about selling equipment, “we’re selling a complete philosophy,” says Bastardo.
