This issue of Network Update focuses on PSTI's forthcoming International Petroleum Research and Technology Forum, arrangements for which are now well advanced. The aims of the event, to be held in Edinburgh on 14-15 November, are described in the main article. The confirmed full programme for the Forum will be available in July. The provisional programme is available for inspection on PTERIS.

Since the last issue of Network Update, the first steering committee meeting for JUNIPER, the Institute's reservoir uncertainty project, has been held and the objectives of the programme confirmed and approved by industry experts. Nineteen of PSTI's members contributed to the meeting, which is summarised in this issue.

Development of PTERIS, the Institute's research and technology information service on the World Wide Web, continues to progress with pace. The password membership part of PTERIS has proven popular with the growing number of members whose staff have Internet access. The number of external bodies accessing the public pages is also rising rapidly.

In This Issue

• Changing Markets and New Directions: the focus for PSTI's 1995 Forum

• New Recruits

• UK Foresight Panels Report

• PTERIS Update

• Engineered Depressurisation of Waterflooded Reservoirs

• Research Initiative in Seismic Imaging

• Juniper Update

• SME Scheme Continues to Expand

• NERC Sponsors Teaching Company Scheme

• Events Diary

• Bullet points

Changing Markets and New Directions: the focus for PSTI's 1995 Forum

PSTI's International Petroleum Research and Technology Forum, being held in Edinburgh on 14-15 November 1995, will highlight the Institute's strategic networking role on behalf of its Members in shaping the 'marketplace' for the development and acquisition of new knowledge and new technology.

The Forum will have three main objectives. Firstly it will identify the technical areas which the oil and gas industry will have to address in order to meet its current and future challenges. Secondly, it will examine the routes for gaining access to and linking with the science-base and technology delivery companies, and the pathways from research and technology development (RTD) to innovation. Thirdly, the Forum will consider the diffusion of global information on science and technology which contributes to competitive intelligence. These three areas will be addressed from both a UK and international perspective.

A number of recent trends in private and public sector strategies have implications for RTD and innovation in the upstream oil and gas sector. In industry there has been moves towards:

• a tighter focus on linking RTD investments with core business needs;

• re-assessment of the source of competitive advantage stimulating, amongst other things, a much stronger interest in collaborative RTD activity;

• changing relationships between E&P companies and their contractors, including contractors with high innovative capability, and the emergence of contractor/contractor relationships which can bring new technology into use more rapidly.

In government the trend is towards:

• a more explicit link between research investments from public funds and wealth creation;

• a recognition of the importance of technological innovation to the competitiveness of firms;

• an emphasis on the importance of small and medium sized enterprises to innovation and wealth creation.

The Forum proceedings will be set against a business background provided by keynote presentations by speakers from PSTI's Member companies in which technology requirements over different timeframes are outlined.

Presentations by the UK Department of Trade and Industry, the Office of Science and Technology, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Marine Technology Directorate Ltd on behalf of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) will outline research and technology funding policies and directions. An Australian perspective will also be given by APCRC.

Participation of speakers from the European Commission will ensure that European Union energy and innovation policies -especially in RTD and demonstration programme support- will be fully covered.

As an integral part of the Forum, a "New Directions" poster exhibition will provide a showcase for emerging science and engineering which has the potential to impact the upstream industry. This will provide an early opportunity for RTD providers to gain feedback from industry on their plans and activities. Research groups and companies working on emerging technologies, and who are interested in participating in the exhibition are invited to submit proposals to the Institute.

For programme details contact Dr Stewart Brown. For registration/exhibition information contact: Amy Middlemass [Tel: 0131 451 5231. Fax: 0131 451 5232].

New Recruits

UK Foresight Panels Report

The UK�s Office of Science and Technology (OST) Foresight Panels and the Foresight Steering Group have now reported on market opportunities and technologies likely to emerge in the next 10-20 years and on the investments in science, engineering and technology needed to exploit them.

Oil and gas issues were addressed by two panels, the Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment (ANRE) Panel and the Energy Panel, although the findings of panels on Chemicals, Materials and IT/Electronics will also be of long-term relevance to the industry.

The ANRE recommendations focus on generic topics and only closer reading uncovers views on oil and gas. It identifies opportunities and requirements for exploiting oil and gas reserves in small, difficult fields, in more hostile environments (in particular deep water and arctic production), and in enhancing recovery from mature fields.

Recommended areas for investment include:

• biotechnology for fossil fuel processing;

• robotics, in remote sensor and survey systems, and predictive modelling in the presence of uncertainty, in artificial intelligence and expert systems;

• prevention, reduction or elimination of exposure to toxic wastes, life cycle evaluation and management processes, and eco-design principles and practices.

By contrast the report of the Energy Panel gives sector specific issues greater profile. For oil and gas, it focuses particularly on the following:

• ensuring high hit-rate exploration;

• achieving fully automated, flexible and low cost drilling with extended capability to meet challenging conditions;

• obtaining increased oil and gas yields from existing fields; and

• developing low cost, automated and environmentally friendly production and pipeline facilities, able to handle aggressive fluids.

To increase exploration success:

• geophysical data acquisition and integration, based on remote sensing; data compression and storage; artificial intelligence and core analysis;

• geophysical data analysis, underpinned by high performance computing and pattern recognition techniques;

• geophysical data interpretation, with a particular emphasis on visualisation techniques;

• basin modelling, focusing on mathematical modelling, organic geochemistry, high performance computing and also aspects of biotechnology.

• reservoir inventory appraisal and geophysical characterisation, underpinned by work on for example seismic methods, geostatistics, and instrumentation;

• reservoir simulation, underpinned by high performance computing, numerical analysis, software engineering, chemistry and rock physics;

• reservoir status monitoring, with focus on the physics of fluids, seismic methods, instrumentation, biotechnology, gel and surfactant chemistry, petroleum and process engineering.

The Foresight Steering Group, overviewing the 360 recommendations made by the 15 individual Foresight Panels, identifies six cross-sectoral strategic themes which are:

• communications and computing power;

• new organisms, products and processes from genetics;

• advances in materials science, engineering and technology;

• getting production processes and services right;

• the need for a cleaner, more sustainable world;

• social trends, including the impact of demographic change in market creation and acceptance of new technology.

Members of PSTI wishing more information on the Foresight findings as they impact oil and gas should contact Dr Stewart Brown [Tel: 0131 451 5231. Fax: 0131 451 5232]

PTERIS Update

The recruitment of PSTI's new Information Scientist, Simon Burnett, has pushed the development of the PTERIS Internet project along considerably.

Most of the effort on PTERIS has been in the 'Members Forum' area under the direction of the industry development steering group. This now includes the full PSTI Members' Brief information on-line, details of the subscription funded research portfolio and a number of specific pages relevant to PSTI members. Electronic versions of Network Update are also on-line.

The Oil and Gas Resource Index (OGRI), which provides links to World Wide Web resources related to the petroleum industry has been re-designed and updated. At present users of PTERIS have easy access to approximately 800 unique links across the world.

The Institute is currently testing an on-line conference system, where interested parties can browse abstracts, retrieve information about conference locations and venues as well as register on-line and submit papers for consideration all through PTERIS. This system should be available for general access in the next two months.

The European Commission's Oil and Gas Technology Newsletter (O+GTN) is also available on the Internet via PTERIS. O+GTN, produced on the EC's behalf by the Institute, provides information on innovative European hydrocarbons technologies which have been funded by the THERMIE programme. Requests to be put on the mailing list for O+GTN can be made directly to the Editor via PTERIS.

For further information on PTERIS contact Jeff Riley [Tel: 01224 706600. Fax: 01224 706601].

Engineered Depressurisation of Waterflooded Reservoirs

Screening studies have suggested that reservoir depressurisation at a late stage of waterflooding could be an economic option for some ten reservoirs on the UK continental shelf (UKCS). The DTI estimates the overall potential for increasing hydrocarbon recovery could be as high as 800 million STB of oil equivalent at current oil prices.

Whilst a considerable amount of research has been performed to study natural depletion and solution gas release in virgin reservoirs, depressurisation of waterflooded reservoirs has received comparatively little attention in the literature.

A joint industry project (JIP) funded by BP, DTI, Elf-Enterprise, Enterprise Oil, Marathon, Mobil, Shell UK, Total Oil Marine -with work performed by AEA Technology, Heriot-Watt University and ICSTM in an integrated programme- is now starting to deliver high quality research results which JIP members can use in planning potential applications for using this recovery technique. The science programme integration is being performed by Professor R I Hawes under contract to PSTI.

The main objectives of the research programme are to:

• provide reservoir condition data and calculation procedures which can be used to evaluate UKCS depressurisation field applications;

• undertake a number of reservoir conditions depressurisation experiments using core materials and fluids taken from UKCS reservoirs;

• evaluate the effectiveness of existing reservoir simulators for predicting the performance of depressurisation field projects.

• simulation studies to identify the reservoir characteristics and fluid flow parameters that have the greatest influence on the viability of depressurisation field projects, and future requirements for simulator development;

• high pressure core experiments which will produce additional data at reservoir conditions;

• experimental and theoretical studies designed to create an understanding of the process involved so that experimental data can be translated to other reservoir situations.

Note: Late entrant participation fees will apply after 1 December 1995

Research Initiative in Seismic Imaging

The Institute's Science Advisory Committee has approved a proposal to allocate �180,000 over the next two years to research in the area of enhancing knowledge and technology related to seismic imaging for exploration of reservoir characterisation and management.

The funds will be targeted at higher risk, potentially high reward projects involving research groups in the UK or elsewhere in Europe. It is envisaged that up to three projects will be supported. To improve the likelihood of the new knowledge or technology emerging from the projects resulting in a commercial application, collaboration with technology delivery companies will be encouraged during the conduct of the projects.

A call for outline proposals will be issued later in July. Research groups wishing to receive details should contact Dr Stewart Brown [Tel: 0131 451 5231. Fax: 0131 451 5232]

Juniper Update

The JUNIPER Programme, PSTI's initiative on handling reservoir uncertainty, has moved forward rapidly. The First Steering Committee Meeting (SCM) held in April agreed the detailed deliverables and objectives of the Programme developed from Membership input via two previous technical meetings.

In summary, the Programme will:

• develop a generic model of risky decision making;

• concentrate on the sub-surface but hook into facilities, economics and management issues as they impact on the sub-surface;

• focus on project sanction as a key starting point but work back to address exploration uncertainties and forward to production uncertainties;

• assess recoverable reserves and production profile with sparse data, with the Aberdeen group concentrating on parameter uncertainty, while the Bristol group address system uncertainty and the decision making processes;

• pay particular attention to the communication of concepts of uncertainty together with ways of visualising and managing uncertainty to Members and their personnel not involved directly with the project.

It is intended to establish an electronic network through PTERIS to assist rapid communication to all members throughout the course of the programme. In the meantime, for further information on JUNIPER contact Dr Alistair Fletcher [Tel: 0131 451 5231. Fax: 0131 451 5232].

SME Scheme Continues to Expand

The PSTI SME (small to medium sized enterprises) Membership Scheme, supported by Scottish Enterprise, was formally launched on 28 March following the success of last year's pilot. The scheme is designed to operate at the project level (technology development and innovation) while also raising the UK and international profile of SME Members and their capability to provide innovative solutions to industry technical problems.

The response and take-up of the scheme has been excellent. Current SME Members are as follows:

Aberdeen Petroleum Consultants
Altra Consultants
Concept Systems
Directional Drilling Dynamics
Edinburgh Petroleum Services
IKODA
Oilfield Chemical Technology
Oilfield Production Analysts
Oilphase Sampling Services
Oilfield Systems
Petrotechnics
Phoenix P.A.
Prism Technologies
Prodrill
Res-Source
Reservoir Research
Sysdrill
Z&S Geology

For information on how to join the SME Membership Scheme please contact Graham Stewart, [Tel: 0131 451 5231. Fax: 0131 451 5232]

NERC Sponsors Teaching Company Scheme

Geoscience companies involved in delivering new technology to the E&P industry are now able to take advantage of the UK Government�s Teaching Company Scheme (TCS). Through a TCS partnership with a university department, a part government-funded Associate member of staff - usually a young graduate - is placed with a company to work on a specific technology transfer project. Projects funded under the TCS are aimed at strengthening the competitiveness and wealth creation of the UK by stimulation of innovation in industry through partnerships between businesses and academia.

TCS programmes, which are complementary to LINK schemes, are very effective vehicles for technology transfer through the placement of high calibre, state-of-the-art skills directly into companies. The decision by NERC to sponsor the TCS means that oil and gas sector companies looking to strengthen their sub-surface technologies can approach the scheme with confidence that the NERC-supported geoscience research base can respond positively.

Other sponsors of TCS, which now covers the full range of science and technology applicable to the oil industry, are BBSRC, DTI, DoE, EPSRC, ESRC, MAFF, plus the Scottish Office, Welsh Office and the Northern Ireland Department of Economic Development.

Management of the scheme is carried out by the Teaching Company Directorate (TCD). When approached with a potential TCS partnership, the TCD decide "with the absolute minimum of fuss" whether the project can be supported under the scheme. Assistance is also given by TCD in preparing the grant proposal which is submitted jointly by a company and the academic partner.

If awarded, the grant is used to support the graduate associate and the university supervision, to which the company contributes �9,300/year, if it has fewer than 250 employees.

Details of the TCS can be obtained from:

Teaching Company Directorate
Hillside House
79 London Street
Faringdon
Oxfordshire SN7 8AA
Tel: 01367 242822

Details of the Teaching Company Scheme will soon be available on the Internet.

EVENTS DIARY

• Artificial Intelligence in the Petroleum Industry, 13-15 September 1995, Lillehammer, Norway.

  The first AI Petro, incorporating CAIPEP and EUROCAIPEP, will cover a wide range of application topics pertinent to the petroleum industry. various concepts, techniques and their application will be covered including fuzzy-sets, case-based reasoning, neural networks, object-oriented systems, expert systems and knowledge management.

  AI Petro is an event for both petroleum and computer professionals. For further details contact AI Petro [Tel: +47 66 90 20 24. Fax: +47 66 90 20 24]

• Oil and Gas Tyumen, 12-15 September 1995

  PSTI is organising the European Union's stand at Oil and Gas Tyumen. Approximately seven companies will be invited to participate on the EU�s stand at this event. Any companies interested in taking advantage of free stand space at this growing international event should contact Jane Kennedy [ Tel: 01224 706600. Fax: 01224 706601]

• International Petroleum Research & Technology Forum, Edinburgh, 14-15 November 1995

For details see theChanging Markets and New Directions: the focus for PSTI's 1995 Forum article.

Bullet points. . .

• Network Update is now available on the Internet via PTERIS.

• The Office of Science and Technology has approved an NERC bid for additional funds to support the OSO/NERC Hydrocarbons Reservoirs LINK scheme. A further call for proposals is expected shortly.

• The next call for proposals under the THERMIE programme is expected in September 1995.

To be placed on the Network Update mailing list e-mail [email protected] or fax Lesley Dumayne on +44 (0) 131 451 5232.