Surveillance turns production, pressure, fluid and well data into an evolving understanding of field behaviour, enabling engineering teams to diagnose problems and optimise recovery.
Continuous reservoir management
A field development plan is based on the best information available at the time. Once production begins, the asset continuously generates new evidence through rates, pressures, fluid behaviour, well tests and operating experience.
Surveillance compares that evidence with the current engineering understanding. Where the field behaves differently from expectation, the models, assumptions and operating strategy can be investigated and refined.
Surveillance workflow
Effective surveillance is a continuous cycle: measure, compare, diagnose, model, decide and observe the result.
Continuously track production, injection, pressure and fluid behaviour to understand how the field is performing against expectations.
Key activities
Identify changes in individual well performance and determine whether the cause originates in the reservoir, well, completion or surface system.
Key activities
Use pressure, production and fluid behaviour to update the understanding of reservoir depletion, movement and connectivity.
Key activities
Compare observed field behaviour with engineering models and forecasts to identify where assumptions need to be refined.
Key activities
Identify technically justified opportunities to improve production, injection, recovery and operating efficiency.
Key activities
Convert surveillance evidence into decisions that can be implemented, monitored and fed back into the reservoir-management cycle.
Key activities
Surveillance data
No single measurement explains an entire reservoir. Reliable surveillance combines multiple sources of field evidence and examines whether they tell a consistent engineering story.
Optimisation cycle
An optimisation action should be based on evidence, have a defined objective, account for uncertainty and be followed by surveillance to determine whether the expected result occurred.
Engineering decisions
Is the field performing according to the current reservoir and production model?
Which wells are underperforming, and what is causing the performance change?
Where is pressure support being effective or ineffective?
What evidence indicates water or gas movement through the reservoir?
Which intervention or optimisation opportunity has sufficient technical justification?
What new data is required before making a higher-consequence decision?
Engineering chain
Continuous feedback
What the field reveals during production can change reservoir understanding, well strategy, development decisions and recovery planning. Surveillance therefore feeds information back into earlier stages of the lifecycle.
Next stage
When conventional production and reservoir management are no longer sufficient to maximise recovery, improved and enhanced recovery methods can be evaluated using the accumulated field evidence.