A simulation-based reservoir management program

There are more than 5,200 independent oil and gas producers operating in the US today (based on current IPAA membership figures). These companies are playing an increasingly important role in production of hydrocarbons in California and elsewhere in the US. Pacific Operators Offshore, Inc., in a historic collaboration with its government royalty owners, the California State Lands Commission and the Minerals Management Service of the US Department of Interior, is attempting to redevelop the Carpinteria Offshore Field after two-and-a-half decades of production and partial abandonment by a previous operator. This paper will describe a project which focuses on the distribution of advanced reservoir management technologies (geological, petrophysical, and engineering) to independent producers like Pacific Operators Offshore, Inc. The evolving information highway, specifically the World Wide Web (WWW), serves as the distribution medium. The project to be described in this paper is an example of the implementation of a reservoir management tool which is supported by distributed databases, incorporates a shared computing environment, and integrates stochastic, geological, and engineering modeling.