Technology is central to achieving energy future and BPTT continues to invest hundreds of millions of dollars globally to deploy the best available technologies in its business and to continue to use the best minds to deliver energy now and into the future.
According to Claire Fitzpatrick, regional president BPTT is also using technology to transition to a lower carbon future.
Fitzpatrick was speaking on Monday at BPTT’s technology open house which featured technologies being applied across the company’s activities from exploration to production.
“We are changing the way we work to become more efficient, to increase production and to advance the energy transition,” Fitzpatrick explained.
Some of the technologies on display included applications to improve seismic acquisition and interpretation, digital twinning of facilities which improves production management by simulating different scenarios and conditions, ceramic screens which help with sand management and improves access to smaller and more challenging fields.
BPTT is already beginning to see benefits from its use of these technologies.
The company last week announced success at its Ginger exploration well. Ginger is part of an exploration programme which is based on new approaches to seismic acquisition and interpretation that has improved understanding of the subsurface.
Digitisation and the increased use of data were common themes among the technologies that are being used in BPTT’s operations.
“The world is becoming more and more data driven and the energy sector is no different. The question then becomes, how can we help prepare the coming generations for the workplace built around extracting value from analysing vast amounts of data?” Fitzpatrick noted.
The company shared initiatives to lower carbon emissions across its operations and indicated that BP was investing in technologies and new ventures in different parts of the world that can make a lower carbon future possible.
Fitzpatrick said that this is a challenge worth taking on, not just to achieve the country’s goals in relation to the Paris Climate Agreement, but because it is the right thing to do.
BPTT also plays an important role in BP’s operations, accounting for approximately 16 per cent of BP’s global production.
The T&T operations have also taken the lead in the application of some technologies in the upstream.
For example, Apex, a digital model of BPTT’s complete production system is the largest within BP, containing 15 platforms, three production hubs and the entire network of pipelines.
Different skill sets
As BPTT continues to advance technologically, the question of job loses arose.
Fitzpatrick however, said it was all about building new skills.
“I think we will need people working in different ways. I’m still going to need people to do the work I’m just not going to put them in harm’s way the same way. As we get more efficient in doing some of these things we are seeing some of the time reductions, that’s a good thing,” Fitzpatrick said.
She noted that employees can now use their intellectual capacity to actually develop more innovations and move into the carbon space.
“ I’m not doing it around fewer people but I will need different skill sets as I look into the future,” Fitzpatrick reiterated.
The Dual Challenge
The world is growing like never before, creating opportunity for billions of people.
All this growth requires energy and as the world demands more energy it also demands that it be produced and delivered in new ways, with fewer emissions.
BP is embracing this dual challenge, said Glenn Goddard regional carbon lead for BPTT.
He noted that T&T is an important part of that process by providing natural gas to replace coal in the world’s fuel mix.
Noting that since 1970 carbon emissions have been rising world-wide, Goddard described this problem as urgent.
He said while countries have introduced some positive measures like electric vehicles the effects of carbon emissions still remain devastating and can result in mass extinction and loss of cities due to sea rise.
“It’s really important to provide the dual energy needs and also to stay on top of the environment. We have legitimate concerns about the speed at which this is coming and those concerns are coming from within the organisation, from investors and from the general public,” Goddard added.
BP has set a target of 3.5 million tonnes of sustainable GHG emissions reductions by 2025.
This includes actions taken by its businesses to improve energy efficiency and reduce methane emissions and flaring—all leading to permanent, quantifiable GHG reductions.
The organisation is already well on its way to meeting this target with 2.5Mte of reductions achieved since the beginning of 2016.
BP is also taking action to minimise methane—the primary component of natural gas—from entering the atmosphere.
Methane has a shorter lifespan in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide but has been assigned a higher global warming potential.
Every methane molecule that BP can keep in the pipe helps keep atmospheric concentrations down, which is why it is targeting a methane intensity of 0.2 per cent.
This target refers to the amount of methane emissions from BP’s upstream oil and gas operations as a percentage of the gas that goes to market from those operations.
Overview of Technologies
Lytt, which has its own app, uses fibre optics to identify sounds in wells and paint a picture of the well conditions, including sand interference.
This kind of technology uses algorithms and sound waves to determine presence of solids, liquids or gas in the wells and provide real time data
Lytt is breakthrough in analytics to maximize production and long-term recovery of oil and gas.
Sand production is a global challenge for BP, in both the development and operating of wells.
In the Trinidad region, material gas reserves lay untapped as traditional development techniques to manage sand production have proven uneconomic.
Ceramic screens therefore help improve sand control within wells and enables the access to smaller and more challenging reserves and bring economic benefit since they do not require rig installation.
Ceramic Sand Screens (CSS), is a new product manufactured by 3M with less than 80 applications worldwide.
These screens consist of a pipe mounted lattice of circular ceramic discs and have exceptional wear resistance when compared to traditional metallic sand screens.
The CSS works to retain up to 90 per cent of the formation sand, allowing only smaller, less harmful, particles to be produced to surface while maintaining reliability downhole.