Emerson launches Total Uncertainty Management program

Emerson’s Roxar ENABLE software will help oil & gas producers gain better insight into reservoir production scenarios

Stavanger, Norway (October 17, 2012) -- Emerson Process Management is teaming with one of the oil and gas industry’s leading Exploration & Production operators, Statoil, in a Total Uncertainty Management program. The program will focus on how E&P companies can improve history matching and uncertainty management & quantification across the entire reservoir characterization workflow through Roxar ENABLE™, Emerson’s industry-leading history matching and uncertainty estimation software solution. The result will be more accurate and realistic production scenarios generated from numerous reservoir models.

The program is one of a number of commercial implementation projects Emerson is conducting for Statoil. Innovative solutions for horizon and fault uncertainty – both crucial to total uncertainty management – are expected to be unveiled in the first part of 2013.

The program’s enhancements to Roxar ENABLE, combined with the uncertainty management capabilities of Emerson’s Roxar RMS™ reservoir modeling software, will lead to commercial software applications that allow uncertainties to be quantified across the complete reservoir characterization and development workflow. By analyzing multiple plausible realizations and incorporating the data into their decision-making, E&P companies can better quantify the effects of uncertainties on volumes and cumulative production so they can improve risk management.

Key elements of the Total Uncertainty Management program, which will take place over three years, will include:

• Further improvements to the "proxy" based history matching technique behind Roxar ENABLE, based on research and field trials by Statoil. Proxy based history matching and uncertainty has been shown to be a very effective means of using historical data to reduce the uncertainty of production forecasts.
   
• The implementation of Statoil's innovative algorithms in EnKF (Ensemble Kalman Filter)-type history matching and uncertainty. EnKF is a powerful history matching technique, particularly successful in handling the production effects seen on 4D seismic.
   
• A continued focus on integrated workflows between geological modelling, simulation, the forward modelling of seismic and history matching – a workflow common to both proxy based and EnKF type methods.
   
• The maximizing of the use of cluster and cloud computing within history matching and uncertainty management -- essential for high volume and integrated workflows.

“Whether it be as input to field development and operational plans, investment proposals, or a future divestment, the ability to accurately generate future production estimates, quantify uncertainty, and minimize financial risk  is one of the industry’s greatest challenges,”  said Kjetil Fagervik, managing director of Emerson’s Roxar software solutions.  

“We are therefore delighted to be working with Statoil on such an important project and also delighted that they have selected Roxar ENABLE and our integrated reservoir modelling workflow as the best means of achieving the goal of greater uncertainty management – so crucial for maximizing production and recovery from each individual reservoir. From workflow integration to 4D seismic, the incorporation of new mathematical algorithms, and horizon and fault uncertainty, we look forward to seeing many innovative developments over the next three years.”

Roxar ENABLE, which is now integrated within Emerson’s reservoir engineering solution, Roxar Tempest™, is used by operators worldwide for better understanding and measurement of uncertainty in reservoir production performance estimates, speeding up the history matching process typically by a factor of four. Roxar ENABLE can be used at any stage of a field’s life, from bid appraisal to abandonment, and whether production data is available or not.