Recent Developments in Application of Artificial Intelligence in Petroleum Engineering

With the recent interest and enthusiasm in the industry toward smart wells, intelligent fields, and real-time analysis and interpretation of large amounts of data for process optimization, our industry’s need for powerful, robust, and intelligent tools has significantly increased. Operations such as asset evaluation; 3Dand 4D-seismicdata interpretation; complex multilateral-drilling design and implementation; log interpretation; building of geologic models; well-test design, implementation, and interpretation; reservoir modeling; and simulation are being integrated to result in comprehensive reservoir management. In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI), in its many integrated flavors from neural networks to genetic optimization to fuzzy logic, has made solid steps toward becoming more accepted in the mainstream of the oil and gas industry. In a recent set of JPT articles,1–3 fundamentals of these technologies were discussed. This article covers some of the most recent and advanced uses of intelligent systems in our industry and discusses their potential role in our industry’s future.