A software system for oilfield facility investment minimization

Abstract

Minimizing investment in oil field development is an important subject that has attracted a considerable amount of industry attention. One method to reduce investment involves the optimal placement and selection of production facilities. Because of the large amount of capital employed in this process, saving a small percent of the total investment may represent a large monetary value. Algorithms using mathematical programming techniques that were designed to solve the proposed problem in a global optimal manner have been reported in the literature. Due to the high computational complexity and the lack of user friendly interfaces for data entry, model development and results display, decision makers are not willing to accept mathematical programming techniques. This paper describes an interactive, graphical software system that provides a global optimal solution to the problem of placement and selection of production facilities in oil field development processes. This software system can be used as an investment minimization tool and a scenario study simulator. The developed software system consists of five basic modules: An interactive data input unit, a cost function generator, an optimization unit, a graphic output display and a sensitivity analysis unit. The interactive data input unit allows users to enter cost, facility, andmore » constraints data; the cost function generator determines which cost function to use based on data input; the optimization unit allows users to select one of the two optimization algorithms: 0-1 integer programming with preprocessing and Lagrangian Relaxation; the graphic output unit displays the optimal solution graphically; and the sensitivity analysis unit allows users to perform if-then type analysis. Data from both on-shore and off-shore oil fields have been used to test the performance of the developed system. Significant reduction of computer run time and memory storage were obtained.« less