Subsurface
Reservoir Management
Establishing the discipline, reviewing simulation practice, and connecting subsurface models to the decisions they are supposed to inform.
01
Where this comes from
A doctorate in reservoir simulation - fluid and heat modelling - from the University of Bath, and the initiation of reservoir management as a standing function inside Kuwait Oil Company, where I led the founding team.
The combination matters. Advice on how to structure the function carries more weight when it comes from someone who has also built the models the function depends on.
02
Establishing the function
Reservoir management fails as an organisational idea when it is created as a review body rather than an accountable one. If the team can only comment on development plans it does not own, it becomes a bottleneck that assets learn to route around.
The design question is where the accountability sits: which decisions the reservoir management team holds, which it advises on, and what happens when it disagrees with the asset. Settling that before staffing the team is what determines whether it lasts.
03
Reviewing simulation practice
Simulation models drift. History matches get tuned until they fit, assumptions harden into inputs nobody revisits, and the model slowly stops representing the reservoir and starts representing the last person who worked on it.
An independent technical review asks what the model is actually being used to decide, whether its uncertainty is honestly represented, and whether the people making development decisions understand what the model can and cannot tell them.
04
Connecting models to decisions
The most common failure is not technical quality. It is that a competent model informs no decision, because the development planning cycle runs on a different calendar and a different set of assumptions.
Closing that gap is usually a matter of sequencing and decision rights rather than of better simulation - the same conclusion the digital field work arrives at from the other direction.
Related projects
KwIDF - Kuwait Digital Integrated Field
A field-wide digital integration programme designed to go beyond the industry-standard Digital Oil Field. Where DOF projects instrument the asset, KwIDF was built on man-to-man and man-to-machine collaboration - the workflow and the decision rights were designed alongside the technology.
KOC Reservoir Management Function
Initiated reservoir management as a discipline within KOC and led the founding team, embedding simulation-led decision making into field development planning.
E&P Information Management
Led exploration and production information management, establishing the data foundation on which integrated field and reservoir workflows depend.