MARKET FOCUS
25
oilandgasmiddleeast.com AUGUST 2019
M
onitoring & response has
high potential for disruption;
that is simply the nature of
the segment. What used
to be accomplished by pen
and paper shift ed to spreadsheets and, now,
can be done with a high degree of autonomy
thanks to artifi cial intelligence, the internet
of things, and machine learning, among other
technologies.
Most upstream oil and gas companies are
quite familiar with the benefi ts of sensorising
their assets, and are learning the importance
of connecting those assets to a central
monitoring hub, presenting a wider view of
operations, greater transparency across the
organisation and allowing employees to more
quickly identify problems.
Large national oil companies, like the Abu
Dhabi National Oil Company, have devoted
plenty of resources towards this increased
transparency and capability. ADNOC’s
Panorama Command Centre connects
data from all of its companies to give one
overarching view of the group’s operations.
It is the fi rst step towards predictive
maintenance, which is where the real
opportunity lies.
“Streamlining and visualising our entire
operations and critical business information
on a single 50-metre video wall in one secure
facility puts big data at the fi ngertips of our
sharpest minds and enables us to uncover and
recommend new pathways to optimise our
assets and infrastructure, as well as facilitate
faster and more-informed decision-making,”
said Abdul Nasser Al Mughairbi, senior vice
president of digital at ADNOC. in a December
2019 interview with Oil & Gas Middle East. He
also described it as a precursor to predictive
analytics.
Responding to incidents quickly is
important, but being able to predict them and
resolve issues before an incident is priceless.
Reduced downtime, availability of spare
parts, and increased safety for workers in the
fi eld are some primary gains from predictive
response. Simply put, it is not enough to
monitor assets passively, especially when
advances in technology enable much more;
artifi cial intelligence allows companies to set
a baseline for ‘normal’ behaviour of an asset
based on historical data, and when it deviatesfrom that baseline, it would alert them that a
breakdown could be incoming.
Small companies are helping to enable
these changes across the industry. One
example is Tachyus, which develops artifi cial
intelligence applications for oil and gas
projects. Its technology combines artifi cial
intelligence with data physics and modeling
to predict asset failure, production responses
to stimulation an other parameters. Machine
learning means that its technology only
improves with time.
Seven Lakes Technologies, which takes
monitoring and response in a diff erent light.
The company, founded in 2009, develops
enterprise analytics and workfl ow soft ware
specifi cally for the upstream segment. The
company uses electromagnetic technologies,
originally created to detect explosives, to
collect data inside wells.
Seven Lakes Technologies also developed
soft ware to schedule workers’ time on
specifi c rigs, which adds another layer of
transparency and insight to help operators
better understand the issues that they
face and the best ways to resolve them.
While some might associate monitoring
and response with physical assets, it also
crucially encompasses safety applications
for workers, and technology vendors have
created sophisticated solutions to monitor
workers, from their location to their heart rate,
breathing, and surroundings.
The anatomy of monitoring is changing,
in part because of small companies that are
trying to do things diff erently. For example,
Toku’s system allows tank level monitoring,
pump jack effi ciency monitoring and water
injection management, centred around an
internet of things application integrated with
a pressure-sensing device.
Meanwhile, other companies are using
lasers, ultrasound imaging, and other atypical
technologies for inspection and monitoring.
While some of these technologies are not
yet integrated with the internet of things,
and might not be leveraged for long-term
monitoring, each of these companies is
working on a specifi c pocket of the larger
market, and combining some of these
solutions could create a well-rounded solution
to improve the industry and the status of
monitoring and response.xxxxxxxxxxxx“RESPONDING TO INCIDENTS
QUICKLY IS IMPORTANT, BUT
BEING ABLE TO PREDICT
THEM AND RESOLVE ISSUES
BEFORE AN INCIDENT IS
PRICELESS.”