Critical operational decisions for oil production and significant cost savings delivered with SMART Board™ interactive whiteboards. Tullow Oil is an international oil exploration and production company with operations in 22 countries, 37 oil producing fields and over 90 licenses. They are headquartered in London and employ over 1,400 people. Tullow Oil use SMART collaboration technologies to improve productivity whilst reducing travel and associated costs.

1. SMART story
Supporting Tullow Oil’s real-time operations
Critical operational decisions for oil production and significant cost
savings delivered with the SMART Board™ interactive whiteboard
The Challenge As Murtaza explains: “TAP not only
brings the data together, but processes
Managing the oil production process, it and sends it out. This takes a lot of
particularly the interaction between data management work away from
what is happening below and above engineers, so they can concentrate
the surface, is a technically challenging on using the data to make intelligent
business. For a company like Tullow decisions.”
Oil, it is critically important to know,
for example, how much oil is being This is where the SMART Board™
produced by a well and how the well interactive whiteboard comes into play.
and reservoir are behaving, but this Within TAP, the SMART Boards have
Tullow Oil’s oil production operations in is a difficult task as it is a very fluid, a critical role as a key visualisation
Ghana are monitored in real time using dynamic process. and collaborative tool. Murtaza
SMART Board™ interactive whiteboard explains: “Representatives from all of
This is where the need for real-time the technical disciplines within the oil
data and technologically advanced production team can now sit in one
“It was previously very difficult to get all the tools for data handling and team room together, show each other the
engineers together… Now that all the data collaboration comes into play. Tullow relevant data using the SMART Boards
comes in one room, our engineers come Oil not only needs to be able to capture and have an informed, joint discussion
together automatically every day without the data, but to interact with different to take pro-active, multidisciplinary,
formal meetings.” locations in using this data and share it integrated decisions.“
with head office.
Murtaza Amin, Production Technology To host these important discussions,
Team Lead, Tullow Oil, Accra, Ghana Murtaza outlined two particular Tullow Oil has a collaborative
challenges that Tullow Oil needed workspace in its Accra office, where the
to overcome: “Oil production SMART Board sits. The data is received
Tullow Oil is an international oil operations involve multifunctional in real time from their oil production
exploration and production company teams with geologists, production facility, displayed on the SMART Board
with operations in 22 countries, 37 oil technologists, reservoir engineers, and used by the multi-disciplinary team.
producing fields and over 90 licenses. process engineers, well engineers They also use SMART Bridgit data
They are headquartered in London and and others. Traditionally they work in conferencing software to collaborate
employ over 1,400 people. silos with very little interaction but it and share data with their Sub-Service
is important that they come together Group, their Well Engineering Team and
As Africa’s leading independent oil and understand each others activities, their Marketing Group in Tullow Oil’s
company, Tullow Oil’s major investment constraints and issues.” London head office.
and activity in recent years has been
in Ghana and Uganda. This includes “It is also very difficult to get data from The Benefits
the Jubilee offshore field in Ghana, the field. It used to be collected and
a world class oil field with up to 1 managed by hand, which was prone Tullow Oil is now reaping the benefits
billion recoverable barrels. Tullow to error and delay. This has led to of its SMART Board-enabled TAP
Oil’s vision is to become the leading automated systems of data collection system, as Murtaza Amin explains.
global independent exploration and and dissemination. As a result, we have “It was previously very difficult to get
production company. a huge volume of data coming in, but all the engineers together. It required
this presents a new challenge of how to a formal process just to arrange the
Murtaza Amin is the Production manage this data in order to optimise meeting, which might happen once a
Technology Team Lead, based in Tullow operations.” month, and these meetings were not
Oil’s main office in Accra, Ghana. His interactive; people spoke then left,”
The Solution
role is to understand and manage the says Murtaza. “Now that all the data
flow of oil and gas from the reservoir, comes in one room, our engineers
up the wells. At Tullow Oil, they have addressed
come together automatically every day
these issues through a system called
without formal meetings.”
‘Technology Assisted Production’ (TAP).

2. system that is helping Tullow Oil look
to achieve its business-critical goals of
looking after its wells, optimising its
production process, fixing any problems
at an early stage and reporting on
production qualities and quantities
faster and more accurately.
“Travel time and costs have been reduced, as
we can now share data remotely. This includes
travel to offshore oil facilities, which is resource
intensive. We estimate that the SMART Boards
and the TAP system deliver a saving of tens of
thousands of dollars in indirect costs.”
Murtaza Amin, Production Technology
Team Lead, Tullow Oil, Accra, Ghana
Tullow Oil’s SMART Board interactive Furthermore, within the oil and gas
whiteboards are an essential industry, uptime is everything. By
component of its TAP system, giving contrast, downtime, when equipment
its engineers and other colleagues not needs to be shutdown or taken offline “The SMART Boards and Bridgit
only the ability to view and share data, for maintenance and repair, is very conferencing software are making
but also to annotate, manipulate and costly, particularly when it is unplanned. a huge difference to Tullow Oil’s
write on the display, to use touchscreen operations”, concludes Murtaza.
commands and to instantly save and It is difficult to quantity the benefits of Armed with them as part of the
share the results. TAP in terms of the production gains, TAP system, we can visualise the
but Tullow Oil is working towards production data coming in, annotate
The multiplicity of benefits for Tullow estimating the uptime gain that the the information on the screen,
Oil from its SMART Boards includes system is delivering, including SMART’s collaborate in the room within a
substantial savings in travel time and role within it. Murtaza provides an multi-disciplinary team and share
travel costs, according to Murtaza: indication of what Tullow Oil is looking data remotely in real-time with our
“Travel time and costs have been to achieve. “We aim for 100% uptime colleagues in other offices.”
reduced, as we can now share data and typically end up with 95-98%. As
remotely. This includes travel to a result of using this system, we are It is a genuinely innovative solution
offfshore oil facilities, which is resource aiming to achieve an uptime gain of a within the oil and gas industry
intensive. We estimate that the SMART further 2%.” and something that is generating
Boards and the TAP system deliver a considerable interest from visitors to
saving of tens of thousands of dollars “Uptime savings come from being able Tullow Oil’s facilities, including the oil
in indirect costs.” It is also beneficial to proactively spot an issue within the majors. In due course, Tullow Oil is
from a health and safety perspective to data much earlier than was previously aiming to expand their use of SMART
reduce the need for offshore travel. possible. This allows us to alert the products and replicate this system
team on the ground so that they can elsewhere, including Uganda, where
However, perhaps more significant for fix a problem or make improvements its oil exploration project will soon be
Tullow Oil are the operational benefits to the production process far sooner, moving into the production phase,
that the SMART Board-enabled TAP which delivers huge operational and and London.
system is delivering. commercial benefits.”
“The data can be used to watch what “It also helps us to manage the onward
is happening at a very fine level of chain, as if we know our production
detail, such as what happens when a volumes more accurately, we can better
particular well is being opened up,” liaise with the teams responsible for the
explains Murtaza. “On the other hand, onward transit of the oil.” Steljes Ltd
it also gives us an overview of all Steljes is a SMART authorised distributor
operations. This helps us to make some All in all, SMART Technologies is for SMART Technologies
great operational decisions.” playing a pivotal role within the TAP info@steljes.co.uk
08450 724 800
www.SMARTmeetings.co.uk
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