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Digital oilfield offers new model for production optimization

By BusinessNews Staff on May 7, 2015

Technology continues to evolve at a record pace, causing oil and gas producers to increasingly rely on a secure, robust communication network to support exploration, production, and wellhead operations. Transitioning to a digital oilfield is paramount for these companies to help realize and establish an effective connected enterprise and continue to drive innovation both offshore and onshore.
Energy-Pix-3-gas_processingThis transition relies on new technologies, such as mobile devices and the cloud that already enable a myriad of other applications to connect production with enterprise systems for greater output, better use of assets, and improved decision making.
As new digital technologies are continually cultivated and implemented into daily operations, oil and gas companies need a way to better access, understand, and analyze the wealth of data coming from these assets. Remote-monitoring solutions can now unlock well diagnostics and other real-time data generated by countless intelligent devices.
With this increased data access, oil and gas operators can translate important asset-management information to optimize production, and reduce downtime, unplanned maintenance, well visits, and other operational costs. The operation-management solutions depicted are used to help convert data from multiple assets across the digital oilfield into easy-to-comprehend information.

Remote monitoring

Traditionally, accessing information from pumps, lifts, wellheads, and other equipment was a labor-intensive process. Onshore, workers had to drive from platform to platform and physically gather data. Offshore, one person stationed at each platform monitored performance. Field engineers made assumptions regarding the actual oil and gas, such as pressure, the amount being pumped, etc., at each platform. These procedures not only put people at risk, but also they were time-consuming and introduced the potential for data tainted by human error.

That is why automation providers are bridging the information gap with fully automated and integrated systems to help capture and send data from a remote site to a centralized location. Oil and gas companies can now remotely access and monitor machine data and oil and gas analytics by leveraging wireless communication and visualization solutions. As the benefits of automation, communications and information technology converge, these wireless solutions help merge disparate oilfield data into streams of actionable information, regardless of the source.
By investing in digital oilfield remote-monitoring technologies, operators can access and manage equipment, production data, and asset analytics across multiple applications from one single location, which can be hundreds or thousands of miles away from the platform itself. This technology seamlessly integrates software, hardware, and sensors to extract important operational information – such as daily oil production, energy usage, oil pressure, and more – across a variety of wellhead applications and feeds it back to a centralized location in real time.
Operators can then continuously monitor current operating conditions, troubleshoot any potential issues, and make process adjustments at an earlier stage to help increase uptime – all without leaving their workstation. They are also able to more accurately monitor their most critical asset to rationalize what is coming out of the ground, effectively allocate resources, predict changes in well data, and make assumptions based on the continuous process data variables.

Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Co. (ADMA-OPCO) was looking to increase production from its offshore operation. Many of the company’s operating fields contained a large number of water-injection wells. Without access to offshore data, reservoir engineers could not properly manage the water-injection process. The company attempted several times to install wireless supervisory control and data acquisition systems, but they were unreliable and unable to deliver data from wells more than 20 km (12 mi) from the main platform.

[Vanguard]

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