How It Works

The Remote Data Acquisition for Well Production (RDAWP) Project will provide appropriate security using proven commercial technology.

The RDAWP Project works in the following manner: 

The RDAWP Project seeks Industry well production data to be “pushed” from the Operator data collection source directly to a government-furnished, secure “black box” called a Gateway. At that point, the BLM takes possession and responsibility for maintaining the security of the RDAWP data. The well production data should be pushed to the Gateway upon receipt at the Operator Production Data Collection Point and at a minimum rate of once a day. The RDAWP Project does not anticipate Gateway installations at wellheads but more likely downstream of Operator Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems at Production Collection points.

The RDAWP Project will have restricted access. BLM Inspection and Enforcement (I&E) personnel access the RDAWP data via secure Internet connections and have read-only access to the well production data assigned to their respective field office – i.e., no I&E personnel have access to all RDAWP data. It is anticipated that Industry Operators who voluntarily participate in the RDAWP project will have access to their company’s respective data only. Any and all access is based on pre-defined roles and as submitted to BLM – RDAWP administrators in writing.

The RDAWP Project is designed to use legacy Industry systems with minimal impact to industry operations. To this end, the RDAWP will be programmed to accept only data “pushed” from Industry as dictated under the negotiated Access Agreement between the BLM and each Industry RDAWP participant.

The RDAWP Project seeks Industry production data in raw, unedited format. Raw data is provided to RDAWP by Industry at a minimum frequency of once per day. We anticipate production data can and will be acquired from data aggregation or collection points (i.e. servers and not at individual well electronic flow meters/computers) as described above. The project will provide a detailed list of production data that is sought in the near-real-time data push described above. It is anticipated that some of the requested RDAWP production data will likely not be available from industry. However, the BLM – RDAWP Project seeks to negotiate agreements for initial and future production data requirements as part of a formal Access Agreement form with each industry participant to the RDAWP project.

Upon receipt of industry raw production data, the RDAWP Project will provide assigned BLM I&E personnel access to specific well and case production data and then perform BLM standard calculations for total gas volume with attendant factors such as meter calibration, composition, onsite usage and sensitivities to complete the BLM production data validation process. It is anticipated that the RDAWP Project will provide the production data validation and methods which may become a standard.

The diagram below illustrates and summarizes the well production data flow from the wellheads to the BLM I&E staff via the RDAWP Project.

Click for larger image