Here's How Technology is Revamping Oil & Gas Industry

Here's How Technology is Revamping Oil & Gas Industry

By Energy CIO Insights | Thursday, October 10, 2019

Oil and gas companies need to invest in emerging technologies that allow companies to make faster and better decisions, minimize costs, and improve efficiency and profits.

FREMONT, CA: Over the years, Big Oil crashed on digitalization and new techniques of banking, e-commerce, and retail sectors to improve productivity. But in the past year, Big Oil, together with many upstream and downstream firms, has begun implementing an increasing number of digital technologies to achieve cost savings through innovation and new technology.

Many oil and gas companies, particularly the largest worldwide, have already started using data analysis, cloud computing, digital oil fields, digital twins, robotics, automation, predictive maintenance, machine learning (ML), and AI. Emerging robotics and automation technologies are potentially able to improve oil and gas operations by reducing costs and increasing process safety, performance, and speed. The innovations have made breakthroughs in various processes consisting of robotics, AI, IoT, analytics, and other hardware and software resources.

However, the oil and gas industry has been digitalizing less gradually than others; modern innovation and transformation is now the forefront of any discussion in the oil industry anywhere in the world. The number of companies that use advanced digital technologies for their companies will only increase in the future, according to engineering consulting firms. Now petroleum and gas companies have started to develop collaborations with oil field service providers and Big Tech to digitally transform businesses.

Safety and Oil Price Cost Considerations

The oil and gas industry is one of the most vulnerable and dangerous sectors. The system requires regular inspection and maintenance to protect the environment from collisions and explosions, as well as from leakage. Because the oil price affects economies, operational costs must be held within acceptable levels. Most other industries depend directly or indirectly on energy and transport oil and gas products. This ensures that reducing the costs of production is a way for oil, gas, and other sectors of the economy to benefit. However, using old technologies is sometimes a challenge. There is a great deal of work and caution in mining, refining, and selling oil and gas products.

Older methods increase operating costs, and thus reduce revenue for the company. The industry should look for ways to reduce its overall costs to remain competitive. Today more oil and gas companies use emerging technologies that are healthy, effective, faster, and cheaper to reduce downtimes and improve productivity.

Robots and Autonomous Vehicles in Oil & Gas Industry

Robotics and other new technologies are joining the petrochemical, gas, and oil industries, where they have a wide range of advantages. The unique robotic machines conditioned for both land and underwater, delivers incredible capability to do what people could, without much time and resources. By using this automated tool, human interaction, costs are reduced, while health and operational efficiency is increased. They offer services in inspections, storage, prospection, exploration, extraction, and other related activities. Many emerging technologies allow for self-sustaining drilling, remote access, automated testing, evaluation, and other operating costs reduction activities.

Intelligent and mobile instruments like robots and drones reduce human interference while enhancing the oil field, production facilities, and pipeline safety and operational efficiency. Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) provide engineers with the ability to manage from a central location and instruct workers to spread over several locations. Its additional advantages include reducing non-productive time in oil plants and other fields. Technology devices like robots, autonomous vehicles, and drones collect data on oil and gas facilities, fields, and wells, on an array of sensors in real-time. After that, businesses will use computational and automated data processing methods. It gives them the ability to determine what people can do automatically even faster than humans.

Many robots for the petrochemical, oil, and gas industries can withstand extreme weather, temperatures, and other severe conditions. This makes checks on the premises in unsafe and remote areas safer and less costly. However, the robots can do tough work such as lifting oil plants to improve their operations. Besides, the drones and small robots will inspect the pipelines and other infrastructures by transmitting images to field engineers or in real-time.

Utilization of Drones in the Oil and Gas Industry

Drones are playing a more significant role in a wide range of industries. The accessible interfaces, mobility, ease of access, and introduction of sensors are indispensable to the gas and petroleum industries. With continually increasing sensors and better technology onboard, the drones continue to have higher capacities. The drones also track, monitor, and inspect a wide range of facilities onshore and offshore – allowing companies to identify signs of disasters and stop them from disastrous effects. Drones are useful, for example, on storage tanks and flare stack inspections. Organizations also have other features, such as Wi-Fi Internet connections, for drones. It helps drones to link to the cloud to allow more people to view and share almost in real-time the information the drone collects.

Big Data and AI in the Oil and Gas Sectors

The data collection on a single platform is carried out utilizing digitalizing oil and gas pipelines, refineries, utilities, fields, and exploration sites. Analysts and AI will support organizations with accurate data in decision-making. Oil and gas companies gather vast quantities of exploration data on offshore children, imagery systems, and other software with thousands of sensors. Data is collected through an extensive range of sensors and micro-sensors installed in refineries, pipelines, and rock formations, as well as other gas and oil infrastructures. It helps to track and relay a variety of field data, such as movements, vibrations, leaks, corrosion, and more. Therefore, businesses collect various market data and international petroleum patterns to know the course of the industry.

The organizations can use data analysis tools to identify trends and draw helpful insights to help them respond quickly to changes or possible faults. However, technology instruments such as AI will greatly help oil and gas companies make better decisions on exploration, production, and management. The analytics and AI allow oil and gas companies to exploit their full potential by turning field and market information into operational data. Companies may evaluate their data through their internal and external knowledge and networks.

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