Digital technologies, drones offers oil companies millions of dollars worth in savings
“Intelligent pipelines” able to collect data for predictive analysis, unmanned underwater vehicles checking well equipment, and drones flying around offshore oil and gas platforms detecting leaksare likely to become commonplace in the petroleum industry within the next few years, saving companies tens of millions of dollars a year.
GE Oil & Gas chief executive Lorenzo Simonelli said several elements of that future were already being put in place, for example, ConocoPhillips’ participation in a project using predictive analytics at its Darwin LNG project.
“Every industrial company needs to become a digital company,” Mr. Simonelli told reporters at the LNG18 conference in Perth. He pointed to the more than US$1 billion (US$1.3 billion) GE has invested to develop its Predix industrial internet system, which can be utilized across the industry and adapted by adding app-like software depending on the company and use. “The industrial internet is going to be far bigger than the consumer internet. Think about the opportunity that you can get now by being able to gather that data and reduce unplanned down time. That’s where the vision is.”
GE estimated that unplanned outages at LNG projects cost US$11 million a day, meaning the average producer loses on average US$150 million a year in unexpected stoppages that could be radically cut back. Just a 1% improvement in reliability and efficiency would achieve a 10% reduction in plant down time.
In Queensland, electrification and digitalization are being used to help drive maintenance schedules for gas-gathering equipment at the three coal seam gas-based LNG projects, helping reduce costs and improve reliability of operations, said David Pryke, regional head of oil and gas at Siemens. The ability to predict failure of equipment can allow action to be taken to avoid it, or preparations to be taken for a shutdown, saving time and money, he said in an interview. “With the oil price where it is, there is a lot more collaboration going on between our customers and ourselves,” Mr. Pryke said. “We’ve all got an interest in trying to drive down the cost of oil and gas production.”
On adopting digitalisation to predict plant behaviour, the oil and gas industry lags other sectors such as aviation, which has been using the techniques for about five years, GE’s Mr. Simonelli said. Only now, with the financial pain being caused by low commodity prices, is the energy industry appreciating more fully the benefits that could be achieved.
For the offshore industry, drones – which are already starting to be utilised to monitor operations – can collect data on performance and emissions, information that can be correlated with weather information and production data to create a “digital ecosystem” around the offshore platform. That allows remote analysis to be carried out to assess maintenance timing and needs, and optimise production.
Source: SMH