Publications

Zona Rokan has been producing oil for more than 60 years with approximately 11,000 active wells; oil is produced from brown oil fields at which many active oil producer wells are currently declining. Increasing unit production cost is apparent and urgency to improve operational cost efficiency is now critical to maximize the company’s profitability. At the same time, Zona Rokan continues to arrest production decline with new oil producer wells from development drilling and idle well reactivations which contributing 13% and 5% of total production respectively and result as much as 22% in additional produced fluid processing requirements at the surface facilities. Therefore, Zona Rokan needs to find quick wins to optimize production within current constraints.

Zona Rokan develops a well profitability model (WPM) workflow, that quantifies the amount of revenue on a well basis and is offset against its direct and indirect expenses while factoring in gross split PSC details. The identified non-profitable wells are shut in to avoid unnecessary production cost and to provide additional fluid processing capacity at surface. Monthly WPM assessments are conducted with input from multiple stakeholders and managed through an Integrated Exception Management System (IEMs), which records, tracks, and approves actions, while also flagging future profitability opportunities as oil prices rises.

Benefits realized along 2024 year-to-date from WPM has led to 311 nonprofitable or nonpotential wells shut-in, saving 17.5 MW in power, increasing fluid capacity by 504,000 BFPD, and avoiding $17 million in potential revenue losses. This also supports further optimization activities, such as drilling and well interventions, generating profitable results.

Well profitability model (WPM) assessment is proven effective in enhancing operational efficiency and overall profitability by leveraging strong data-driven assessment, digitalization, and contextual information. Finally, this model can be technically adapted for other Pertamina upstream subsidiaries according to operational uniqueness and economic fiscal framework.