In today’s age of economic frustration, the burning question for every company on the planet is how to do more with less. E&P companies are no different. The oil and gas industry is facing many challenges and opportunities in today’s business environment. A major challenge is the continuing erosion of its experienced workforce. Similar to the general population, the pool of experienced oil and gas experts is aging and retiring. It is estimated that more than two-thirds of the workers in this industry are 40 years or older, and they have more than 20 years of field experience.

In addition, energy companies are being pressured to bring in new experts who can help them navigate the emerging and more stringent safety regulations to help companies become more socially responsible by protecting the environment as well as personnel. Another critical challenge is extending the life of aging assets and ensuring they are operational within the boundaries of strict environmental and human safety concerns.

Dealing with dwindling human resources along with the challenge of identifying natural resources in increasingly complex terrain – ultra-deepwater environments, unconventional gas, oil sands, etc. – have placed executives in an uphill battle to achieve operational excellence.

Tribal knowledge

One way E&P companies can deal with these challenges and mitigate the risk of having fewer skilled people is by applying new technologies that capture “tribal knowledge” and optimize safety, even in extreme environments. There are a number of solutions companies can choose from, and the evaluation process can be daunting. It is important to select and implement the right technology to meet a company’s unique challenges and create the best opportunity for success.

Protect assets. Integrated control and safety (ICSS) on the wellhead remote terminal unit enables companies to easily monitor, diagnose, and maintain assets, even in the most hazardous environments. Access to timely and accurate mission-critical information from fixed assets can eliminate gaps in oil and gas operations, resulting in higher productivity and long-term growth. With the increased availability of ICSS capable of operating on solar panels and ruggedized hardware for extreme temperatures, it is feasible to implement wellhead automation with integrated fire and gas systems.

iFIX allows users the flexibility and reliability in presenting data, real-time data management control, and adherence to compliance and industry standards. (Images courtesy of GE Intelligent Platforms)

Integrating these systems with real-time predictive analysis and intelligent correction can transform data into action. It reduces time to action and transform the data into real-time actionable information, with online real-time systems tightly integrated with the human-machine interface (HMI)/SCADA. This enables operators, engineers, and maintenance staff to be more productive by responding faster to system issues and receiving instant post-alarm analysis via live HMI/SCADA system. The best system can even preempt alarm and failure events based on historical models, enabling the workforce to leverage “active avoidance,” which can minimize downtime and increase yields. This transforms data into an informational tool that drives operational excellence in the organization. Coupled with offline tools that identify causes of production problems and present the opportunity to prevent these problems in the future, it provides the user with the capability to visualize process problems and their causes through modeling and simulating the process by using available historical plant data.

Safety and control systems are particularly important in the face of the increasing scrutiny and potential regulations that will impact E&P companies in the future. Based on recent disasters, various governments around the world have drafted new safety regulations and additional processes for obtaining drilling permits. Authorities make site-specific impact assessments and plans for environmental and safety procedures a precondition for all offshore oil and gas operations, with approval of site-specific contingency plans in advance of drilling a requirement. In addition, these new regulations may stipulate that employees should be able to blow the whistle on security failures or hazards anonymously to protect them from harassment. They also will likely require that the industry put in place regular training programs for employees and employers.

Reduce capex and opex. The low power consumption of ICSSs potentially could reduce investments for a company in solar panels and batteries for power and, as a result, reduce capex. Further reductions in capex come from the use of a single controller for safety monitoring as well as the hardware capable of field mount in extreme environments normally associated with E&P sites. Extensive diagnostics available with the best systems aid in field trips being more productive as well as reducing opex.

Proficy Workflow leverages electronic work instructions and corrective action to reduce variation in performance, cost, and quality for more consistent work processes, compliance, and brand protection.

Digitize and automate. It is important to make sure the system selected looks at ways to both integrate and digitize exploration, production, transportation, and storage. This helps to plan for the “what if” scenarios and provides a tighter grip on meeting the ever-changing consumer demand. The integration of SCADA with automated workflows allows the capture of that critical knowledge from experienced workers, which can then be implemented as part of the standard operating process. Even when these employees have gone, the system has a record of their expertise to share across the company.

A combination of these technology implementations that support real-time informed decision-making will increase efficiencies and reduce operating costs. The final step is ensuring these process changes are sustainable. It is extremely important to ascertain that the technology solution and methodology that is selected is repeatable and scalable so that, as the business grows, it can continue to provide support.

Producing oil faster, optimizing production with demand, improving safety and environmental compliance, reducing risks, and ensuring consistently high uptime – all with fewer experienced people and fewer resources on hand – are the challenges that keep E&P executives up at night. The pressure is on, but implementing technologies to improve efficiencies and enable better production coordination will help mitigate the risks and improve bottom lines across the industry, while ensuring safe and reliable operations always.