Koby Carlson

Background

About Koby Carlson

My primary interest is in making the DOF (Digital Oilfield of the Future) a reality today. The DOF is many things to many people. To the sensor person it may be sensors everywhere. To the IT person it may be network everywhere. The DOF to me is "Optimizing Assets to Their Economic Limit in Real Time". For example, a plunger or intermitted well may be controlled by a single open and close valve, the most basic control action. Deciding when to do it is a multi million dollar proposition. So the DOF is about optimization, something everyone talks about, but in reality is really, really hard to do. Processes fall into two broad categories, those that can be easily measured or predicted, and those that can't. For example, you can run a pump through its operating range and measure flow and power consumption in a few minutes. On the other hand, operating a plunger well at every possible on off time and pressure with appropriate settling time may take weeks, months, or even years. Optimization falls into two broad categories as well, those that can be solved with certainty, and those that can't. Take five pumps working together: Given current conditions, one can find the optimum way to operate them in a few minutes with certainty. With the plunger well example, you may not know the optimum solution, only the best solution you have found thus far The DOF won’t be a reality until every well, pump, compressor, and process is being optimized in real time. Therefore, DOF is not about huge budgets and massive efforts. It is quite the opposite, innovative people using low cost modern technology to solve real world problems economically. This is where technology has a roll to play. A $100 embedded system can run extremely complex algorithms such as real time process modeling and optimization that is practically impossible to do in a PLC. Once you have the right hardware in place, advancing algorithms is a task to be done and the key to success.