8.2.3 Benefits of Use of PVT Data Objects

Use of the PVT data objects will improve both the accuracy and availability of usable fluid and PVT data within and between upstream companies. Significant improvements are expected in:

• Simplifying the project management of a fluids analysis program while increasing efficiencies in the communication between the customer and the laboratory personnel.
• Simplifying the reporting of detailed laboratory results by using a common, self-validating XML format. Improving the quality and consistency of fluid property data created for use in technical applications by both systematically capturing the pedigree of fluid data in the workflow all the way back to sample acquisition and the standardization of input data structures.
• Increasing the quantity of fluid and PVT analysis data in systems of record by simplifying the workflow used to load field and laboratory measurements. Also, enabling standard PVT data storage and search and allowing the data to be exchanged between databases, fluid characterization applications, and end-user applications.
• Reducing mistakes in the communication of results caused by differences in technical understanding of the fluid property data and the consistent handling of details, such as reference conditions and units of measure.

• Making the field notes more available to laboratory analysts so that the quality of the experiments and measurements more realistically represent real-life conditions, and making field and laboratory notes more available to fluid property specialists seeking to characterize individual samples or to produce a system characterization.

As this standard is adopted, these improvements are expected to be realized in both service and software offerings from vendors and in operators’ internal workflows. Opportunities for additional impacts have been identified for workflows attempting to automate field surveillance and performance prediction because the use of these fluid data standards will support the consistent expression of fluid properties across multiple and diverse applications and workflows.

It has been difficult to estimate the impact of more accurate and consistent fluid data on the operational bottom line, but the quantification of its impact should include:

• Less risk for estimates of initial rates, final recovery fractions, and development/depletion strategies.
• Better assessments of peak capacities used to size surface operating facilities.

• Improved accuracy of subsurface flow potential and wellbore tubular design.

Other benefits may be realized through one standard by its interaction with other standards (i.e., Metcalfe’s Law). By delivering fluid and PVT analysis as useful data objects in PRODML, these can be readily accessed and used by other data objects in both RESQML and WITSML and by the flow network and completion/nodal analysis data objects in PRODML.