Digital Transformation Leads to Smart Production Surveillance in Amazon Brownfield

_ This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 221158, “Digital Transformation Evolution From Zero to AI/ML Smart Production Surveillance,” by Roberto Fuenmayor, SPE, Hugo Quevedo, and Christian Bonilla, SPE, SLB, et al. The paper has not been peer reviewed. _ The objective of the complete paper is to showcase the successful digital journey of a brownfield in which digital solutions are enhancing recoverable volume, production, and personnel and process efficiency; minimizing losses; and maximizing the return of investment in a field in the Amazon region. The digital journey implemented has reduced the response time for atypical events in the producer wells from days to minutes, optimizing production and waterflooding surveillance and reducing production losses significantly. Introduction The field’s digital transformation began as an initial idea to transform all manual data gathering to remote monitoring and surveillance of all equipment at the subsurface and surface levels, such as electrical submersible pump (ESP) downhole sensors, ESP surface equipment, surface pressure and temperature wellhead and manifold sensors, and flow-station equipment. In 2012, an integrated asset-monitoring center was developed that relied on both physical and logical tools (software and programming) for operation. The initial concept of the supervisory control and data-acquisition (SCADA) system was for it to operate in every flow station, connected through a fiber-optic communications network. In 2016, the installation and programming of the SCADA system began, along with the laying of fiber optics and the setup of equipment for each well in the field. In 2018, the SCADA system went live, bringing together more than 180 process programmable logic controller (PLC) nodes from stations and remote terminal units (RTUs) in well pads. By 2019, all producing wells in the field had been equipped with instrumentation and integrated into the SCADA system. Since then, the asset-monitoring center has progressively implemented functions such as monitoring wells and injection pumps, real-time monitoring of specific wells, and data and trend analysis, resulting in enhanced operational safety and increased production in the field. The implementation consists of an integrated digital solution performed in two stages. First Stage: Installation of High-Frequency Sensors and Transmitters. In 2012, no communication system existed to integrate signals from well pads or wells to stations, nor was there an electronic system to monitor and control well variables. Online monitoring was necessary because of construction or adaptation taking place in multiple locations and monowells during the same year. To achieve this, instrumentation was installed and signals were integrated into a system capable of transmitting information by RTU. The fiber-optic network installation began in 2016. Old and new wells in the field were connected using aerial fiber optics on electricity poles and buried connections to create communication rings.