Smart Platforms in Oil and Gas, Things Have Changed

The interesting aspect of covering asset management and IoT in manufacturing is the number of buzzwords or phrases being thrown around, such as digital transformation, big data, Industrial Internet of Things, Smart Manufacturing and, now, Intelligent Enterprise (IE). Intelligent Enterprise is the buzzword from a new survey of oil and gas professionals, called “AI 2020, The Oil and Gas Journey,” from Oil and Gas IQ and the Intelligent Automation Network (AIIA).

The study used, approximately, 200 oil and gas professional responses to forecast intelligent enterprise strategies for the next two years in this industry. The report includes both upstream and downstream applications within the industry. The big takeaway from the report is what most have been seeing, I included, that smarter asset management solutions have a good deal of momentum in an industry usually apprehensive about large automation investments.

Case in point, I wrote in 2013 about a Chevron thin-client application in the oil fields of Texas and how this new hardware update would provide a nice return-on-investment due to less servicing of older HMIs and the removal of operating systems — software updates not needed. This installation was primarily about cost-savings, not a large automation upgrade.

However, this AI 2020 report shows that things have changed. 81% of the participants are excited about Intelligent Enterprise and, most of all, better predictive analytics. The report below:

Straight off the bat, we can see that the impact of two IE techniques are deemed to have a far greater effect than any other according to half of the oil and gas professionals surveyed.

Predictive analytics applications have been a mainstay in asset management for facility-heavy industries for a number of years. The promise of deep learning for more precise anomaly detection and failure analysis in a high-risk, capital intensive industry is a persuasive one in the smart oil environment.

Applying intelligent automation systems will have the ability to integrate data across multiple platforms to execute functions that would traditionally be carried out by personnel. The resultant efficacy would allow those work-liberated, trained staff to concentrate on higher value tasks and drive further process efficiency.

The shift has occurred in some ways already, mostly at the top with supermajors moving away from large exploration projects in the Arctic to “operational excellence.” The report shows more than 44% believe IE applications could save more than 10% in Capex or Opex.

Behind cost-cutting, streamlining businesses and modernizing operations ranked 2nd and 3rd respectively in what IE applications could do.

Like just about every industry, deep changes are coming to the surface and with crude demand going down, things are changing.

>> For a copy of the report, visit https://www.oilandgasiq.com/strategy-management-and-information/articles/intelligent-enterprise-2020-oil-gas-and-the-future.