24.1 Usage of Product Volume vs. Simple Product Volume Reporting

The Product Volume data object is used as the standard for reporting production on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). It has been used elsewhere for volume reporting, and also for production surveillance.

However, it has often been found to be overly complex for the task of volume reporting, which is a core requirement for PRODML in order to support production management. Product Volume is very flexible and can be used for many purposes. The drawback to having this flexibility is that it is somewhat complex to understand, and it sometimes can be found to offer multiple ways of achieving the same result. In the case of the NCS, by dint of a central regulatory authority defining exactly how Product Volume is to be used by reporting companies, the data standard has been successfully deployed and rolled out across a major oil province.

Because of the drawbacks mentioned above, and the desire to have a simple standard for volume reporting, the Simple Product Volume Reporting (SPVR) capability has been added to PRODML. It is believed that parties wishing to exchange volumes data without needing the additional data and flexibility allowed by Product Volume will chose to standardize on SPVR. See Chapters 3 Introduction to Simple Product Volume Report Objects to 7 Appendix for Simple Product Volume for full details on SPVR.

The main additional functionality provided by Product Volume (PV) compared to SPVR is:

• PV works with the Product Flow Network (see 25 Product Flow Model ) so that flows can be reported at precisely defined points within a network. Time Series (see 26 Time Series ) can also reference the Product Flow Network making detailed production surveillance data exchange possible. SPVR uses a list of Reporting Entities (e.g. well, platform) and then reports volumes against these. It is possible to arrange reporting entities in hierarchies, but there is no sense of a network. SPVR does not support time series data.
• PV has the concept of flows of fluids which can have function (e.g., production, gas lift) and which can be broken down into products which describe the composition of the fluid. SPVR only deals with products.

• PV also supports the transfer of Facility Parameters which are non-flow data of any facility. SPVR again only supports volume related flow, although it does have a Well Production Parameters data object for exchanging well parameters (the most common requirement).