The cost of well engineering software?

[Rolento.]

Hi all,

This is my first post and I have to say that this forum is an awesome resource of information!

I am a junior completion engineering and I am trying to get a handle on how much it costs for petrotechnical software that spans the entire workflow. Effectively I am trying to understand better how much it costs (on average) for best in class software in the following domains:

1) Well Planning (e.g. Compass, DecisionSpace well planning, Drill Scan, ...)
2) Casing Design (e.g. WellCat, Stresscheck, ...)
3) Completion Design (e.g. WellBuilder, Mangrove, ...)
4) Well Reporting (e.g. WellView, OpenWells, ...)
5) Inflow/outflow analysis (e.g. Petel, NETool, ...)
6) Reservoir Simulation (e.g. Nexus, Eclipse, ...)
7) Production (e.g. OLGA, Pipesim, ...)

Im not saying the above software is the best in class, but hopefully this gives an idea of the type of software I think might be used. Also, I am not looking for exact costs, im just looking for a ballpark figure so I can understand how much a complete suite of software might cost.

If anyone can help by providing average costs for the above software that would be much appreciated.

Best regards,

Rolento

 

[zdas04]

Rolento,
There is surprisingly little overlap between the various disciplines that you listed. A production engineer working in production might use something like ProdOp from PLTech for a few hundred dollars or pieces of the Prosper/Gap programs for tens of thousands of dollars. But that same individual would likely never use a reservoir simulation or plant simulation or EVER use OLGA for any reason. So if you are never going to do a plant simulation it doesn't matter that HySYS is something like $20k USD/year/seat because it won't help you do your job.

For any of the fluids-related disciplines I would make damn sure I had a copy of REFPROP.exe from NIST. I think I paid $150 USD for it several years ago, and tend to use it somewhere during every project I do. Even if you end up in plants and use something like HySYS, REFPROP is a fantastic reality check on the huge EOS processor in HySYS (that can occasionally outsmart itself).

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[marcsant]

if you run a small engineering company probably you should evaluate alternatives, software expenses incur upfront but benefits maybe realized over a long period... a realistic financial plan is essential if you wish to survive during the first years, nowadays many companies allow to rent a license solely for the duration of a project and that is a possibility,
another possibility is to adopt, where possible, low cost tools such as Excel which can be surprisingly efficient for solving many problems...
here at eng-tips forum there are many threads discussing Excel applications for petroleum industry...
and you can improve Excel features with libraries (Excel add-ins)
for process simulation I use regularly Prode Properties which includes many thermodynamic models and operations except the network solver,
for reservoir simulations there are tools as ExcSim (2D simulation) which can solve many problems,
for financial analysis, modelling and forecasting there are many free and commercial applications for Excel...

if you plan to purchase many licenses I suggest that you contact the developers and evaluate the different alternatives available (pay per use, perpetual, cloud service etc. etc.)