Hydrocarbon Accounting System for the UK and Dutch Sectors including Production Reporting, Commercial Allocation and Emissions

Disparate systems and obsolescence concerns

In early 2020, our client, an operator in the UK and Dutch sectors, enlisted Accord ESL’s services to prepare a comprehensive statement of requirements for a new, company-wide hydrocarbon accounting system. The existing hydrocarbon accounting function was executed by multiple disparate legacy applications, many of which faced significant obsolescence issues and necessitated extensive support to remain operational. This resulted in complex data transfer operations between legacy systems and functionality was often performed offline and in spreadsheets.

The initial engagement was to create a statement of requirements to replace the legacy applications with a new, singular, integrated system. In addition to the hydrocarbon accounting functions, the scope of the new system also included:

• Production forecasting;

• Production loss reporting and root cause analysis;

• Environmental reporting, including emissions trading and oil in water disposals monitoring;

• Tracking of production chemical usage and recording of lab analysis results;

• Claims Validation Agency (CVA) and general finance reporting.

Subsequently, the statement of requirements was utilised in the procurement exercise to select a new system.

PHASE 1 — STATEMENT OF REQUIREMENTS — FEB-AUG 2020
PHASE 2 — PHASED SYSTEM IMPLEMENTED — DEC 2020 - FEB 2023

Axis was selected as the platform for the system implementation. The project delivery team comprised of experts from both Accord and Adept Solutions (the Axis application vendor), supported by dedicated members of the hydrocarbon accounting team.

The project was divided into phases based on asset areas. The first phase was for an offshore gas platform. In parallel, a new metering system was also implemented for this asset, delivering new data sets from those used in the legacy systems.   Accord collaborated closely with the hydrocarbon accountants to develop an allocation workflow that complied with the existing agreements whilst utilising these new data sets. 

The second and third phases focussed on remaining assets. 

The largest asset involved both offshore production operations and onshore gas processing. As multiple applications and spreadsheets previously provided this functionality, a significant challenge was the standardisation and streamlining of data into a single, reconciled data source. Delivering on this objective has freed up significant time in the day-to-day hydrocarbon accounting process.

A notable benefit of this streamlined data set was simplifying the process for production loss reporting, which enabled automatic allocation of production loss events to actual calculated daily losses, even following later re-runs to apply mismeasurement corrections.

For the remaining assets, the implementation for each field was smaller (many of these being non-operated ventures) but the source data for these fields came from multiple reports provided by external organisations.  This phase utilised our knowledge of external systems across the North Sea and focussed on mapping and loading third party data onto the standard company data sets.  The team also defined and delivered a methodology to determine provisional data sets to substitute for late-arriving data.  This approach provided a standard template for consolidated internal reporting.

The project team adopted an Agile approach for rolling out system features. This approach allowed for the incremental delivery of new functionality, with Adept providing the Scrum Master and technical resources. Accord consultants, in close collaboration with the relevant business teams, took on the Product Owner role and focussed on asset configuration, data mapping and calculation definitions. Business and IS teams undertook acceptance testing and managed the deployment and data migration activities.

This approach was especially beneficial during the last phase of the project, where the smaller non-operated assets were implemented and rolled out sequentially and in quick succession.

Prior experience of the delivery of organisation-wide, multi-asset hydrocarbon accounting solutions was vital in ensuring the success of this project. With its expertise in this area, Accord was able to frame the system requirements and design in a way that allowed for the definition of standardised and consolidated data sets, whilst also accommodating the unique complexities of each asset. Furthermore, by being involved throughout the entire project, for requirement definition to end delivery, Accord was able to maintain consistency in the approach, leading to a successful delivery of the new system.

Our client commissioned a further phase from Accord to review requirements for emissions to meet the requirements of ETS, SECR and total emissions corporate reporting. Working with stakeholders across multiple assets and business functions, we developed a standard approach on emissions forecasting, calculations, allocations to fields and reporting across the organisation.