Emerson Exchange 365

Activity

Jim Cahill
- 12 Nov 2018
Proxy Digital Twin for Oil and Gas Subsurface and Surface Operations

The Society of Exploration Geophysicists recently held their annual meeting. Emerson’s Hassane Kassouf shared his thoughts on how digital twin technology can transform operational efficiency in oil & gas production in a daily news article at this meeting, Connecting Subsurface Intelligence with Surface Operations . Hassane opens the article citing this statistic on the digitalization trend: By 2020 well over...
Jim Cahill
- 25 Oct 2018
A Sharper Look into the Subsurface: High-resolution Tomography

Author: Gali Dekel , GeoDepth and EarthStudy 360 Product Manager 3D seismic datasets are growing in size. In addition, oil & gas producers are merging legacy and new datasets into single mega-datasets. These trends pose challenges in terms of both performance and memory requirements. Updating the subsurface model increasingly requires more powerful memory handling and storage capabilities. In addition to these...
Jim Cahill
- 22 Oct 2018
Automation in LNG Supply Chain

I was copied on an email exchange about the outlook for the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. Emerson’s Chuck Miller shared some great thoughts that I wanted to highlight in this post. From a global perspective, China became the largest gas importer this year with 40% growth/anticipated growth between 2017 and 2023. With the shale revolution occurring here in the United States, shale gas production accounts for...
Jim Cahill
- 19 Oct 2018
Top Quartile Performance in LNG and Gas Plant Production

At the recent 2018 Gastech Conference in Barcelona, Spain, Emerson’s Patrick Deruytter presented on ways for gas plants and liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facilities to drive operations to top quartile performance. The focus of the presentation was to look at the operational opportunities in the current gas & LNG plants to improve the reliability of the equipment and the process. By improving the current process...
Jim Cahill
- 17 Oct 2018
Maintaining Pipeline Integrity through Effective Leak Detection

Pipeline infrastructure here in the U.S. and in many parts of the world go back many decades. With the rapid technology advancements in oil & gas exploration and production and increasing production levels, some of these pipelines are at capacity limits and new pipelines are being planned & built. Maintaining the integrity of these pipelines is paramount for safety and the environment. I received a great presentation...
Jim Cahill
- 12 Oct 2018
Sharing Expertise at Society of Exploration Geophysicists Annual Meeting

Next week, October 14-19 is the Society of Exploration Geophysicists International Exposition and 88th Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California. Many members from the Emerson Exploration & Production Software team will be there to present to the attendees. Let me highlight a few of the lunch and learn sessions. On Monday, October 15, Henry Posamentier will present, Seismic Geomorphology – Mitigating Lithology Prediction...
Jim Cahill
- 3 Oct 2018
API Manual of Petroleum Measurement Standards Updates

Part 2 of Marc Buttler ‘s Emerson Exchange conference presentation was on regulatory and standards changes in US onshore custody transfer and fiscal measurement. API MPMS Ch. 4.8 – Operation of Proving Systems has recently opened to provide clarification on proving meters on single-phase liquid hydrocarbons. The change makes it clear that is more flexibility on more runs to prove out the flow meter. Chapter 6 deals...
Jim Cahill
- 3 Oct 2018
US Onshore Oil and Gas Fiscal Measurement Regulatory Updates

Emerson’s Marc Buttler joined two oil & gas professionals in a 2018 Emerson Exchange conference presentation, US Onshore Regulatory Compliance & Measurement Standards Update. Their abstract: Regulatory compliance, perfect execution, cost of ownership, and industry acceptance are important topics to upstream and midstream operators in the United States. The development and implementation of new technology has led...
Jim Cahill
- 27 Sep 2018
Detecting Sand and Sediment Accumulation

Basic sediment and water , or BS&W. It’s what comes along for the ride in most oil & gas producing wells. The goal is to separate these from the oil and gas for proper disposal. The sediment portion, often consisting of sand, can collect and accumulate in the product & test separators as well as the production tanks. This quick, 1-minute YouTube video, Rosemount 2140. Sand Detection Made Easy , shows how this accumulated...
Jim Cahill
- 5 Sep 2018
Enhanced Reservoir Modeling Precision through Orthorhombic Anisotropy Analysis and Imaging

Author: Gali Dekel As both the amount of acquired data and the power of computers continue to increase exponentially, there is a natural demand for higher exploration precision. Acknowledging the complexity and richness of subsurface media properties is one way to attain accurate modeling and imaging. In the past, analyses performed using traverse (vertical, horizontal, and tilted) or even full isotropy assumptions...
Jim Cahill
- 4 Sep 2018
Gas Production Corrosion Mitigation

As an oil & gas reservoir ages, the composition of the production often changes. For gas wells, this change is often from dry gas to a wetter gas. The wet components can be quite acidic due to CO2 and organic acids contained in this liquid phase. In an Oilfield Technology article, Mitigating corrosion in ageing gas fields , Emerson’s Chris Burke describes how technology has become available to better address the corrosion...
Jim Cahill
- 29 Aug 2018
Finding Permian Basin Oil-Filled Packstones

I read an article today about how the Texas/New Mexico Permian Basin shale region is driving extreme frack sand demand . This article references an IHS Markit study indicating the value of this market has grown from $1.3B to $4B USD over the past two years. This growth also likely means that a lot of geologists, geophysicists and many others in the oil & gas business are extremely busy and could use some help. Machine...
Jim Cahill
- 22 Aug 2018
Workflows Using Machine Learning Boost Interpretation Confidence

Author: Lorena Guerra Uncertainty is an intrinsic property of the oil & gas exploration & production industry. A major goal in any interpretation project is to reduce uncertainty to the minimum, and one way to do that is to work in an integrated fashion, using as much data as possible. With the huge amounts of subsurface data available to interpreters (well logs, core samples, prestack and poststack seismic data...
Jim Cahill
- 16 Jul 2018
Digitally Transforming Subsurface and Surface Oil and Gas Production

Big data is not just a phenomenon on the surface of oil & gas production producing areas. It’s growing rapidly below the surface as well. In an article from the 2018 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) show daily, Facing the Digital Deluge (p19) , Emerson’s Hassane Kassouf describes how this reservoir data and analytics-driven intelligence is driving a new, digital operations model. He opens noting that IT programs...
Jim Cahill
- 2 Jul 2018
Is Your Company Ready to Start Exploring Deepwater Again?

Author: Peter Wang The global oil industry has certainly turned a corner since January 2016, and nothing says it like Brent Crude spot prices: January 2016 – Brent low $27.10 May 2018 – Brent high $80.5 A difference of 197% These higher prices are here to stay for a while, because global crude stocks have fallen below the five-year average, according to a senior OPEC source, speaking to S&P Global Platts...
Jim Cahill
- 21 Jun 2018
Natural Gas Distribution Smart Stations and Networks

Earlier this week we previewed Emerson’s Marc Buttler’s presentation on reducing lost and unaccounted-for gas to be presented at next week’s World Gas Conference . Also presenting will be Emerson’s Sergio Pasquali . His presentation, New Technologies Drive Operational Performance by Connecting Smart Stations to Distribution Networks, will be on Friday, June 29 at 1pm. Sergio collaborated on the paper for this presentation...
Jim Cahill
- 18 Jun 2018
Reducing Lost and Unaccounted-for Gas with Coriolis Flow Measurement

Every three years, the World Gas Conference convenes. It is : …the most important global gas industry gathering of influential leaders, policy-makers, buyers, sellers and experts. Emerson’s Marc Buttler will present at this year’s conference, June 25-29 in Washington DC. His presentation, Calibration Options for Coriolis Meters in Natural Gas Measurement, will discuss how: Coriolis meters are creating...
Jim Cahill
- 14 Jun 2018
Midstream Oil and Gas Operator Digital Transformation

In several of the upstream oil & gas-related blog posts we highlighted digital transformation opportunities and activities. But what about in the midstream sector including gas processing facilities, pipelines and storage terminals? In a Pipeline Industry Report article, Emerson Committed to Digital Transformation , Emerson’s Chuck Miller describes the opportunity for businesses in the midstream sector in the Middle...
Jim Cahill
- 12 Jun 2018
Improving Oil and Gas Exploration Performance

We often discuss aspects of the production side of the upstream oil & gas business, but less so with the exploration side. In December of last year, Emerson completed the acquisition of Paradigm . An array of software tools enables oil & gas producers to gain deeper insight into the subsurface, reduce uncertainty and support responsible asset management. Emerson’s Peter Wang is a very active voice in the geophysical...
Jim Cahill
- 1 May 2018
Taking on Digital Transformation in Steps

Emerson’s Jose Jimenez pinch hit for Jonas Berge who was unable to make it to the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) to present, Digital Transformation and IIoT for Oil and Gas Production. Jose opened highlight the need for oil & gas operating companies to address four key areas: safety & compliance, production, reliability & maintenance, and energy & emissions. We’ve been undergoing a digital transformation...
Jim Cahill
- 1 May 2018
Driving Operational Improvements in Oil and Gas Production

Emerson’s Jose Jimenez presented at the 2018 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) about how leverage field intelligence to advance an Operational Certainty strategy. He explored the role of automated procedures in improving operational performance. Jose opened sharing a statistic that global oil & gas producers lost over $300B in profitability from operational problems—safety, reliability and efficiency. Top quartile...
Jim Cahill
- 30 Apr 2018
Valves for Frequent Cycling, High Pressures and Temperatures

David Leavitt described an application of high-cycling valves in a dehydration process at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas. I recapped his presentation last week in a post, Triple Offset Valves and Molecular Sieve Adsorption Applications . He compared rising stem ball valves and triple offset valves (TOVs) used in these applications. David describe a concentric butterfly valve design, a dual...
Jim Cahill
- 30 Apr 2018
Connecting Experts from Afar for Oil and Gas Producers

Here at the 50 th annual Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, Emerson chief technology officer Peter Zornio joined a technical session on Digitalization in offshore and onshore oil & gas production. Peter talked about how traditional control room has greatly expanded geographically using Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies and more secure communications. IIoT is comprised of sensors,...
Jim Cahill
- 25 Apr 2018
Triple Offset Valves and Molecular Sieve Adsorption Applications

Adsorption , different from absorption, is the process of the: … adhesion of atoms , ions or molecules from a gas, liquid or dissolved solid to a surface . [1] In process manufacturing operations, adsorption is sometimes used in dehydration or purification processes. In the oil & gas industry, this method is used to dehydrate and remove contaminants from natural gas. At next week’s 2018 Offshore Technology...
Jim Cahill
- 24 Apr 2018
Simplifying Oil and Gas Production Site Installations and Operations

Consider the flow path of oil & gas production from the well head. The first stop is typically the production separator where the oil, gas, condensation, water, brine and other fluids and sediment get separated. Traditionally, for multi-well sites, there is a test separator so that each well’s production composition can be assessed. In this arrangement the wells are connect to both a test and production manifold,...