Improving PEMEX’s Operations with Real-Time Solutions

Last year was an active one for the development of real-time monitoring in drilling activities, as exemplified by Petrolink’s involvement in projects in Burgos and in the Southwest Marine Region. Much of Petrolink’s past growth has come from its implementation of IT monitoring solution for PEMEX operations in Chicontepec. 2013 saw Petrolink roll out some of its new technologies designed specifically for well-fracking and multi-stage fracking. “The latter is a new feature that has helped PEMEX across the entire production chain, from employees at head office, down to the people designing the operations themselves,” says Samuel Pérez, Country Manager of Petrolink. Innovation was not the sole highlight of the endeavor, as the IT enterprise capitalized on this success to build valuable relationships with top-tier companies such as Pason, Halliburton, and Weatherford.

Throughout 2013, Petrolink focused on minimizing unproductive time in drilling. Pérez says his company strengthened interoperability and made progress with the implementation of the Wellsite Information Transfer Standards Markup (WITSML) format of industrial standards. WITSML was developed over two decades ago to provide a common language for the seamless exchange of geotechnical data among companies working on drilling projects. “Real-time software and the integrated services it conveys represent savings of about 1-2% of the total cost of a project. In a deepwater well, for example, reducing 24 hours of operation in an 80-day program generates savings of about US$1 million,” says Pérez. “This is significant when compared to the investment required for Petrolink’s technology and services.” Even though this type of software has a lot of competition, the Petrolink team considers its products to be the best market choice due to the inclusion of WITSML 1.4.1, and for maintaining a process that displays the information in real-time without disrupting PEMEX’s traditional working methods. “We want to automate certain data interpretation processes so decisions can be made in less time during drilling operations, and to allow possible events to be anticipated based on our knowledge of drilling engineering,” says Pérez. “Our knowledge can significantly impact a client’s performance. Petrolink’s realtime technology and data interpretation expertise optimize faster decision-making, saving time and therefore money.”

Unconventional drilling is an area of great interest to Petrolink as it wishes to become more involved through multilateral operation, multi-stage fracking works, and well completion operations. “We believe that even if well completions are not the most profitable activities, in addition to presenting complexities due to the infinite variables that this service implies, this is virtually a virgin market that our company can capitalize on. We want to focus our efforts on PEMEX’s needs,” says Pérez. He explains that the Energy Reform will hopefully attract new players to the Mexican oil and gas industry, giving drilling companies more autonomy. The company also has an innovative solution known as the Digital Well File, an oilfield data distribution service supported by Petrolink’s global network of secure web servers and support centers. The Digital Well File standardizes the way files are transferred, distributed and integrated into corporate data systems. All well and project data is captured in one centralized database to be shared, managed, categorized, and searched in a secure and logical manner. The South Region is where the Digital Well File is being used the most, specifically in production operations. An interesting feature of Petrolink’s current services is the inclusion of historical data in its analysis of PEMEX’s operations.

Mexico is a huge priority for Petrolink and the number one country within its portfolio. “We believe that a whole new world of opportunities will come with some of our new clients, such as BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, and Petrobras.” Petrolink has also shown its prowess in monitoring activities in the Middle East, one of the world’s most important oil hubs, a confidence that stands it in good stead here. “We have challenged ourselves to deliver a more innovative, effective, pragmatic, and economical service to PEMEX’s drilling unit in order to increase our work volume in data and productivity monitoring by 300%,” states Pérez.