Benefits of IoT in the oil and gas industry

Did you hear before about the intervention of IoT technologies in the oil and gas industry?

If yes, how new technologies can influence this industry?

And what are the benefits of IoT in the oil and gas sector?

During the 20th century, the oil and gas industry was the most powerful in all industries.

This power comes from that oil was (and still) the main fuel for every machine in any other industry.

This happened after the Industrial Revolution when every process started to be done by machine.

The oil field seems to be so important for leading countries.

And to the extremes, obtaining oil and gas has led to lots of wars until today.

In the oil and gas industry, there are lots of processes to get the final fuel.

In each process, the intervention of any new technology is necessary.

Any technology before IOT, get its importance because of making the process of finding petroleum easier.

With the new technology IOT, it does not just help with obtaining processes, but it improves health and safety and amplify profits.

Oil and gas IoT applications will become necessary for a competitive edge among rising geopolitical and the tendency of climate change.

Let us discuss how IoT can benefit the oil and gas industry.

Benefits of IoT applications on Oil and gas

According to McKinsey’s reports, the internet of things (IoT) has a potential economic impact of $ 930 billion from mining and oil and gas (O & G) companies in the next ten years.

That is why the whole industry has to interested in IoT and try to apply it.

The most advantage of IoT applications lies in creating value through the integration of different strategies.

IoT will allow the industry to digitize, optimize, and automate processes that were previously unconnected to save time, money, and increase safety. Shannon Lee

Drilling Management

Drilling is the most important part of oil and gas procedures.

IoT applications minimize the risk during the drilling process and carry out tough operations.

Also, smart devices alert concern personnel in advance when any error happens by using the data received from the sensors.

Data management

Data management and analytics from oil fields, pipelines, and other energy sites can be considered as critical to guaranteeing the success of the oil and gas industry.

As data plays a significant role in improvements, better decisions, and enhancing capacity.

Using IoT technology enables millions of connected devices to collect lots of data.
Therefore, it allows oil and gas companies effective and efficient practices to maximize their revenue.

Besides, IoT provides these integrated data in a real-time base.

This data virtualization makes it unnecessary to have a central physical store location for the data.

Which minimizes the cost of storing and traveling to know any data you want.

As the data are digitalized, it provides an on-demand concept of it, you can have access at any time and wherever you are.

Asset tracking and monitoring

Due to the oil price volatility, most of the companies in the O&G industry spending more time analyzing their operations and investments to indicate in which sector they can reduce the cost while maintaining the business and maximizing the assets utilization.

Asset tracking and management is the most important benefit of IoT for any company.

In the process of assets tracking, assets are integrated into one unit to enable companies to transform their operations digitally.

Using tracking sensors, it provides useful information, so companies can identify the actual number of inventories and supplies.

If any item is missing, the IoT system can be used to track shipments with the exact locations of oil and gas assets.

Also, they can monitor multiple sites at the same time.

One of the advantages of IoT technologies is it enables companies to monitor operations on many levels:

Pipeline monitoring:

One of the most problems that face oil and gas companies is pipeline leakage.

To guarantee safety, IoT sensors can monitor pipeline equipment more accurate and at a low cost.

This monitoring process happens in a real-time base.

Thus, employees can quickly fix the problem which could cause significant danger.

Offshore monitoring:

Most offshore oil and gas production is done in extreme environmental conditions.

Monitoring these conditions such as pressures, temperatures, and others become a difficult task and too expensive.

One of the benefits of IoT is handling these hurdles to provide an efficient monitoring system.

Connecting monitoring points can be done by Low Powered Wide Area Network (LPWAN).

This implementation provides low-cost solutions for offshore oil and gas rig monitoring.

Predictive and Preventive maintenance

Most of the O&G facilities have to be monitored regularly.

This can be possible through remote services by IoT applications to react to the problems through predictive maintenance.

Predictive maintenance is performed based on the current condition of a piece of equipment. For example, if a coil is running too hot, its failure is imminent and requires a technician to diagnose the cause. Predictive maintenance allows O&G companies to leverage the remote monitoring of equipment through sensors to make important decisions about whether or not something needs to be shut down, fixed, replaced, etc. Shannon Lee

Thus, IoT sensors that collect data, send alert to the companies when the machine or any asset need to maintain.

Which prevent expensive equipment failure, wast of money or manpower.

The investment in predictive and preventive maintenance alone pushes O&G companies ahead of the curve by building predictive models companies can rely on for optimized execution. Shannon Lee

Health and safety

Well, health and safety can be considered as the most important element of the benefits of IoT in the oil and gas sector.

The majority of oil and gas locations are in dangerous places that are not conducive to health and safety for the worker nor the environment.

According to the center for disease control, between January 2015 and January 2017, oil and gas extraction workers were involved in 602 incidents, 481 hospitalizations, and 166 amputations.

IoT provides remote services that can monitor equipment and operations.
Without the need for individuals to go to the site with no knowledge about the situation.

Besides, sensors can predict when any asset needs to have maintenance, send alert to the required department and the company can take the required solution without any loss.

By using IoT, oil and gas companies provide their workers with a safe working environment.
Also, companies will be benefiting from paying lower insurance and corporate liability.

Summary

Having a smart process and facilities in the oil and gas industry can be done by applying IoT.

The integration and collection of data by IoT devices are helping the change happen the way the industry operates.

Did your company apply IoT on its process?
If yes share with us your experience.