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Hands up if you have compiled a large spreadsheet for a contractor project, trying to gather the right people from subsurface and drilling to get the inputs right. Keep your hand up if you think this was a daunting task and you compromised on quality to get the job done. Ok we see you, you can take your hand down now.
Asking the contractor what data they are working on is like asking a bird what seed they got from you
Contractors do all kinds of work for the oil companies, from fluid compatibility checks to rig qualification, or they take on all the well planning in well management contracts. You trust them with your money and data, and you trust their results will add value to operations.
Sharing Data with Contractors
As this article started, there is room for improvement here. In data sharing there are two important principles:
- Share the correct data
- Update when changes occur
These might seem obvious, but without a modern platform for handling data sharing, this can be almost impossible to achieve. Let's look at how it often is done today.
Filling out a Form (how not to share the correct data)
The contractor is likely an expert in her domain and presents you with a list of data needed for the task. Say, for a cement plan, she needs pore pressure data, trajectory, casing data, fluid data, temperature and formation data. And maybe some operational experiences from previous jobs. And you get a spreadsheet or form to fill out with row after row of empty spaces. You have detailed knowledge about a few of the topics, other rows you can make some assumptions on, and some you don't even know who to ask.
So you start calling for help. Chatting, checking calendars to gather the information you need. Meeting next week with two people, another one the next week after. In the meetings, you learn that parts of the data is only in draft mode, so it is left to you to make decisions. So a couple of weeks later you are still working on these rows, trying to summarize what you got from your colleagues.
It strikes you that when an expert didn't want to share their data because it is in draft, you end up making decisions for them and hand this over to the contractor.
Status meetings for updates (wiping out the facts)
Now the contractor work can begin, and soon you are in periodic meetings for progress sharing and issue solving.
In the meetings and the follow-up e-mails the contractor asks for more data and updated data. On your side, you call for more meetings with your team, make decisions and communicate with spreadsheets and documents, illustrations and presentations to get the results.
Turn around and look out of the window, and you see that the facts you handed over in the initial dataset is being replaced by new documents, spreadsheets, emails, presentations, discussions, and meeting memos.
And now the specialist you asked for data initially has matured their work from draft to complete, and you look forward to updating the contractor with the new data. But unfortunately, your need wasn't covered by the specialist data, so you have a meeting, and you write a conclusion of the discussion, and forward this to the contractor.
Again, you realize that it's not the expert, but you who are making in-depth decisions
Project Delivery
All that great work you have done, thousands of chats, e-mails, meetings, presentations, and phone calls. Status reports, issues, data transfers, inspections, and updates.
But the well design has recently been changed due to an updated geology model, and the conditions for the contractor work is not fully applicable. You wonder what to do, and end up making a new decision on the cementing based on what you learned from the project.
When you think of all the data management you did in the project, it hurts a bit that the result wasn't more spot on.
Work with Contractors in the Pro Well Plan platform
We solve all the problems of data management with contractors. They login to the platform with your users, and they have access to the relevant data. From there they can see and create well designs, they can read and create experiences, and speak well with the team in your company. When they add data and create value, you get it right away, and you can take the learnings to the next project.
Take a look at the images below to see how easy it is
Share well paths, reveal dataset errors visually
Share experiences and reference wells
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