What oil and gas producer doesn’t want to be efficient, to “achieve maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense”? In fact, in an effort to survive a market of unpredictable oil and gas prices, efficiency is on the mind of most VERDAZO users. That’s why we have been equipping them with “diagnostic workflows”.

Diagnostic workflows allow people to identify, prioritize, assess and investigate the greatest opportunities to optimize … in just seconds. The three main areas where our clients have deployed diagnostic workflows will be the focus of this blog series:

1. Production performance --> reduce downtime and identify reoccurring patterns
2. Financial performance --> optimize netback and minimize operating expenses
3. Performance to forecast --> ensure cash flow is there to support upcoming activities and avoid potential reserve write-downs

A diagnostic workflow can be applied to any optimization effort. The structure of the workflow is quite simple and relies on charts and/or reports that fulfill each of these steps in order:

1. Identify & Prioritize
   • What are the biggest opportunities?
   • Which opportunities have the greatest impact?
2. Inform & Assess
   • What is the cause?
   • Can I do anything about this?
3. Investigate
   • Support decisions and actions with the necessary detail

To illustrate the concept I’ll walk you through these three steps as they pertain to a Production Performance Diagnostic Workflow.

1. Identify and Prioritize

This chart shows:

• • The Diagnostic Measure (on the y-axis) is Lost Production (which is described in a previous blog).
  • The Contextual Measure is Capability, that is the production rate I should expect from the well on days when it produces for 24 hours
  • The wells have been Categorized by the Last Downtime Reason to help identify the greatest opportunities
  • We will select the well with a Broken Rod that has the highest Lost Production and launch our next chart to “Inform and Assess". 

2. Inform and Assess

This chart shows that the Lost Production due to Broken Rods has occurred twice in the last month. Further investigation is required.

3. Investigate

This chart provides supporting details to better understand the issue before making an informed decision about what actions to take

Our next blog will focus on a Financial Performance Diagnostic Workflow.