EPDC: Unlocking Complexity of E&P Operations in Egypt

EPDC: Unlocking Complexity of E&P Operations in Egypt

Schlumberger and Sensia have celebrated the inauguration of the Egypt Production Digital Center (EPDC) during an event hosted by Petrojet at its headquarters in Cairo on July 14. The new digital center came as a part of Egypt’s Petroleum Sector Modernization Program, where a digitalization pillar aims to provide solutions that enable taking proper decisions across E&P operations.

EPDC aims to digitize production data from Egypt’s producing assets. Now, through EPDC, the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and all its joint ventures (JVs) are interconnected with a strong production data management system covering all Egypt’s assets. The opening ceremony was led by Abed Ezz El Regal, Chairman of EGPC and was attended by Karim Badawi, Enterprise Digital Performance Director at Schlumberger, Alan Rentcome, CEO of Sensia, Andrea Monte, VP of operations of Sensia in addition to senior officials in the petroleum sector and chairmen of national oil companies (NOCs).

In his inauguration remarks, Ezz El Regal stated that “it is an honor to reflect our ultimate goal to have a fully automated process for all activities of EGPC and the whole sector.” He declared a similar plan for the refineries as well. EGPC’s chairman said that the corporation has projects such as EPG and GPS to control and audit all the production processes. Ezz El Regal expressed his wish to have a full image for each individual well from the downhole which will allow evaluating all reservoirs and the remaining reserves.  During his opening note, Badawi highlighted that “Schlumberger’s purpose is that together we can create amazing technology that unlocks access to energy for the benefit of all. Schlumberger has been in Egypt for almost 84 years and we feel very proud to be a strategic partner for the sector.” Badawi noted that “EPDC is a key enabler for the Modernization Program.” He described it as a good example for how the teams connected together to bring forward the modernization of the sector for many years to come.

Badwai added “EPDC is one of the key enablers to bring up the visibility in terms of production in Egypt to help realize the success of the self-sufficiency in terms of gas and to bring this in terms of oil as well.” For his part, Mohamed Baydoun, Deputy of Production at EGPC, asked the chairmen of the companies to support their teams to leverage this fully integrated tool, as he described. Monte, the VP of operations of Sensia, opened the speech expressing his pleasure for participating in such an event. He praised the project as it is important for EGPC and the joint ventures (JVs).

Rentcome, CEO of Sensia, said that “It is really interesting to understand more about the complexities of Egypt’s oil and gas operations. With  39 JVs and more than 5,000 wells, huge amounts of data being produced on a daily basis.” He Indicated that Senisa has a strong belief in the importance of data for the petroleum sector to provide technical analytics and performance insights.  Also, Sherief Hassaballah, Undersecretary of Production at Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, expressed his pride in this project.

Delving into EPDC

During the ceremony, a presentation was introduced to give more information about the EPDC project. It was provided by Toufik Djeradi, Global PMO Manager and EPDC manager from Sensia and Mohamed Abbas, EPDC Project Manager from EGPC. Toufik started the presentation saying that “We teamed up towards a common goal through a shared vision and a culture of collaboration to successfully deliver the full Integrated EPDC project in a fraction of its initial planned schedule where we reduced it from 18 months to only 5 months allowing an early value creation and recovery 4000+ hours of NPT back to EGPC as well as laying down a foundation for overall Egypt oil sector digital transformation and training more than 500 engineers”

The presentation included a quick introduction about Sensia, the business drivers behind this initiative, the journey of implementing this project with its milestones and its value. Abbas explained that this project started in 2016. In 2017, they started to study how JV’s will interact with this platform and how their role will look like in the future.  In 2018, they started a strategic collaboration with Sensia by gathering two teams from EGPC and Schlumberger to start designing and analyzing the future platform.

In 2019, they started to build the EPDC data hub software. They also, audited and evaluated the process they are going through. Then, they started their project data hub focusing on enhancing the data. Abbas noted that this process took a lot of time as they have to customize this software to fit EGPC. He declared that this platform will change the workflows within the Egyptian petroleum sector. “Now, we have the capability to supervise all the assets [across] Egypt and we have an integrated workflow between the departments of EGPC”, Abbas stated.

Awards and Optimism at the End

The presenters also, introduced a demo for how the platform is working. At the end of the celebration, EGPC’s Chairman, Abed Ezz Regal has honored the team, who developed this project. He also toured an exhibition that showcased another two projects developed by Sensia. The first project is OFM software which offers quick and easy access to important information about the well. It performs production analysis and forecasting. The second solution is Avocet Expansion which provides users with technical insight into the reasons for production interruptions and shortfalls.

On the sidelines of the event, Chairman of Rashid Petroleum Company (Rashpetco), Mohamed Samir, expressed his pleasure for this software noting to Egypt Oil and Gas (EOG) that “the achievement will benefit upstream companies and JV’s especially in determining the policies and plans. The integration will facilitate business for all companies.” Operation General Manager for South Dabaa of Qarun Petroleum Company, Ahmed Abdel Wahab, told EOG that “we have already applied this technology in Qarun in cooperation with Khalda petroleum Company and Schlumberger and its generalization across the sector will be a great milestone.”

Also, Chairman Assistant for Operations and Board Member at Pharaonic Petroleum Company, Sayed Selim, said “This platform will facilitate decision-making process. Pharaonic has already started to link the wells to this system.” The guests expressed their pleasure for attending the event, which was the first physical event since the start of the pandemic, praising at the same time the precautionary measures that were taken during the event.

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