IPA Petroleum Exploration and Production

One of the many challenges facing the E&P business is the level of uncertainty inherent in most field developments. To be competitive and profitable, companies must dedicate large resources to field developments early, usually before sufficient data or analyses are available for sound decision making. Sometimes irrevocable, harmful decisions are made that lead to reduced profitability or outright disaster. Early during the project life cycle, when a company must make decisions based on limited data, is when IPA's database, research, and models can be of most value. To aid in the decision-making process, we offer early stage advisory services that capitalize on information from IPA's Upstream Project Database. These services cover two complementary areas: Appraisal Program Assessment and Early Asset Development Strategy Assessment. The objective is to help our clients design appraisal programs and asset schedule strategies to optimize the asset development. At IPA, E&P advisory services aid companies by:

Improving appraisal program cost and schedule effectiveness
Validating an appraisal agenda against historical industry performance to reduce reservoir uncertainty and to optimize the asset development
Optimizing the project schedule to shorten asset develop times and minimizing trade-offs on asset performance, such as well cost growth, facilities cost growth, reserve volatility, and production attainment

This service is designed to assist project teams—prior to project capital investment—to understand the level of reservoir definition at a time when reservoir uncertainties dominate project feasibility. For example, given a project's reservoir complexity and operating environment, what appraisal strategy (i.e., activities and data requirements) is necessary to reach a Best Practical level of reservoir understanding? Or, if I choose not to run a production test or not to collect fluid samples, what range of uncertainty should be reflected in the production rate and operability estimates? This analysis is focused on reservoir evaluation issues and appraisal drilling cost and schedule performance.

This service is designed to provide guidance in developing the appropriate level of appraisal and asset schedule strategy to meet business needs. We incorporate elements of the Appraisal Program Assessment combined with whole asset performance models to develop a strategy for optimal asset performance. We use our database of historical industry performance to screen and evaluate various development concepts and depletion plan scenarios and to develop an optimal schedule strategy to shorten asset development time without making trade-offs in asset performance. We can provide asset-level target metrics, such as cost per barrel of oil equivalent ($/BOE), to help with concept selection and to understand economic viability.