How big data, analytics increase production asset uptime in oil fields

Although oil prices have recovered to above $60/bbl recently, Oil and Gas producers continue to be highly focused on reducing their operations costs to reduce their break-even prices in order to stay ahead of the curve; companies must continue to make investments in improving operational efficiencies to sustain and improve their profitability in the highly volatile business environment.

Where to focus to sustain continuing cost reduction...

According to ARC Advisory Group, companies could lose up to 5% of production due to unplanned downtime. The average impact of unscheduled downtime has caused process companies to lose more than $20 billion in production annually. As production assets in the oil fields -whether offshore or onshore- are always exposed to harsh environments, maintaining equipment to keep up with production is often challenging. Turbomachinery is one of the critical operating equipment in any oil and gas facilities. Due to the asset-intensive nature of the industry, any slight improvement in asset utilization can result in a huge gain in revenue and cashflow. Therefore, keeping these operating assets running as long as possible with minimum failure is key to improving profitability and maximizing returns on projects. However, maintaining uptime of these assets can get harder over time due to changes in loading profiles when oil and gas production rates decline.

Big Data and Analytics to reduce unplanned downtime...

Oil and gas companies have been generating huge amounts of operational data for several decades, long before the term IIoT was coined. However, the recent improvement in cloud technology, analytics and computing power has enabled the transformation of data into insights that can provide meaningful decision support to both the operational teams and processes, helping enterprises to gain the next level of operational efficiencies. Due to the clarity on the use cases and proven high ROI, predictive analytics has been getting a lot of attention in the oil and gas industry. Predictive Analytics crunches past performance data of an asset using algorithms and creates a digital replica of the operating model to predict its performance behaviours.

AVEVA’s Predictive Asset Analytics enables modelling of turbomachinery equipment performance using advanced pattern recognition and machine learning algorithms to identify and diagnose any potential operating issues days or weeks before failures happen. Operating models including past loading, ambient and operational conditions are created through advanced process modelling and simulation. A unique asset signature for each type of equipment is created such as turbines, compressors, pumps or any other critical piece of equipment. Real-time operating data is then compared against these models to detect any subtle deviations from expected equipment behavior, allowing reliable and effective monitoring of different types of equipment with no programming required. The early warning notification allows reliability and maintenance team to assess, identify and resolve the problems, preventing a major breakdown that can cost companies millions of dollars in production stoppages. In addition, setting up the analytics for different types of equipment requires no programming. This enables the maintenance and reliability teams to focus on what they do best – keeping their assets healthy and operational.

Benefits of enabling Predictive Analytics in Oil and Gas Production

Oil majors have already been reaping significant benefits using predictive Analytics to catch failures before they happen. This technology has transformed their maintenance strategies from reactive to proactive, effectively reducing unplanned downtime and improved asset utilization.

Are you ready to enable Predictive Analytics capabilities in your enterprise to gain higher profits?

Get ahead of your competition and accelerate your digital transformation journey with AVEVA today!