Selecting a solution to manage oil and gas measurement data is a critical investment. This selection demands a multi-faceted decision-making process beginning with a complete understanding of your company’s assets, internal processes, and overall reporting needs. Further, the sponsoring board approving the selection will need to understand how the solution provides tools to ensure your organization’s measurement strategy is successful.
Quorum had the opportunity to partner with the Industry Measurement Group (the “IMG”), for a panel discussion on why measurement matters in Canada and the role software plays in providing tools to ensure successful measurement solutions for Canadian oil and gas companies.
The IMG is part of a larger organization called the Canadian Institute of Hydrocarbon Measurement and is recognized by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) as a formal voice for measurement. The objectives of the IMG include:
- Identification of areas of common concern relating to measurement and encourage cooperation to resolve these concerns.
- Increase awareness of measurement issues and foster beneficial relationships.
- Act as a driver and sounding board for changes to measurement regulations.
- Participate in the developing and establishing industry accepted standards for measurement activities.
The Importance of Measurement Data
The discussion kicked off with our panel of experts exploring the importance of data in general and its relation to measurement. The panel commented that while flow computers do capture the factors required for determining the volume, energy, and mass it is imperative to understand what goes into the determination of these totals. In order to calculate your volume, energy, and/or mass you must recognize the
- fluid thermodynamic and chemical properties,
- meter characteristics,
- the needed correction factors,
- etc.
The panel further explained that data becomes a tool to your organization and in order to use that tool for good, you need to be able to identify and correct errors. Unfortunately, these errors often go unchecked and unresolved causing long term problems, especially for accounting.
Creating a Tactical Strategy for Delivering Measurement Efficiency
As we continued to discuss the importance of not just measurement data, but VALIDATED measurement data, to the overall organization we asked the panel to share their thoughts on how to establish better practices for validating the data. Ultimately the panel believed that in order to create a strategy for measurement validation you first have to understand:
- how much product you’re producing/gathering/processing/transporting/etc.
AND
- what is the value of this product(s)?
When you establish this as your baseline you can then interpolate the potential $ lost due to anomalies or errors. This begs the question; how do we identify these pesky anomalies or errors that are causing seemingly insignificant percent differences that actually have significant cost implications to the bottom line.
By ensuring your organization is equipped with a strategic measurement solution to manage the validation, correction, audit compliance, balancing, reporting, etc you can automate the review of your data, which ensures you can continue meeting corporate and contractual goals/commitments. In sum, with a strategic measurement data management solution your organization can know the exact quantities of product being produced, gathered, processed, transferred, etc and can verify that you are billing or paying for the correct volumes, rather than bleeding profit or working through numerous PPAs months later.,
Leveraging Software to Unify Workflows and Data Management
As we wrapped up the discussion we touched on a familiar pain point for many companies in the industry. Today it is incredibly common to have disjointed and disorganized data management resulting in interrupted and complicated workflows. Due to the many manual processes and disparate data sources many orgs have in place, it is all too common that the point or truth the data set is showcasing becomes lost in the exchange. This can result in mistakes as well as introduce human error as data is re-entered from system to system or spreadsheet to spreadsheet further diluting the truth.
In our discussion it was clear that our panel experts encouraged groups to investigate software specifically designed to manage these data sets that can provide automated integration and/or interfaces for users to quickly access the data as well as distribute it across the org effectively. By implementing an automated software solution designed to manage measurement data validation, correction, recalculation, balancing, and reporting your company can eliminate overhead, duplicative processes, and the need for manual work to be done. Further the panel highlighted that the percent differences previously perceived as inconsequential or irrelevant can now be highlighted .and more quickly be addressed. This allows the team to improve efficiency and prevent unnecessary time and talent waste.
In summary, the panel encouraged the industry to review their processes and look for opportunities to improve and reduce manual work with automated measurement management systems. We ended the discussion by reminding the measurement community and industry at large that by improving the quality of their data through the use of automated measurement management systems, i.e., software, they can quickly review issues, correct said issues, and ultimately improve their bottom line. These improvements can allow stakeholders to better forecast needs for future projects as well as make overall better data-driven decisions .
For a more detailed walk-through on why measurement matters in Canada and how you can establish or improve your measurement strategy watch the full webinar here.
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