With increasing energy demands, stringent emission regulations, and the volatile oil price, the complexity of oil and gas production is increasing. Consequently, daily production optimization is becoming a challenging task, where the objective is to maximize the operational profits as well as to minimize emissions and optimize resource allocation (e.g., lift-gas, fuel-gas, power, instrument gas) on a day-to-day basis. The production optimization requires a detailed model of the system to determine the optimal operation of the entire field. This is also known as field-wide production optimization. However, as the complexity and the scale of the systems increases, the models used may not be accurate enough to capture the real production system. This may lead to a sub-optimal operation.

Several discussions have been conducted with the industry partners Kongsberg Digital and Aker BP to determine possible case studies to demonstrate a field-wide production optimization. Kongsberg Digital has provided access to use a K-Spice simulator completed with data from a real case production system. Aker BP has granted access to analyze operation data in one of their production fields. These resources are essential to construct case studies that demonstrate important aspects of the project.