Predictive Maintenance Plays Crucial Role in Oil and Gas

Predictive maintenance plays a crucial role in the oil and gas industry.

That’s what GlobalData outlined in a release sent to Rigzone recently, which highlighted that a recently released GlobalData report explored the use of predictive maintenance technologies in the oil and gas sector.

“Maintenance strategies in the oil and gas industry have gradually transformed from their early days in the nineteenth century, GlobalData said in the release.

“To achieve operational longevity, timely maintenance is necessary to prevent expensive repair works and unplanned production outages,” it added.

“Technologies, such as AI, machine learning, and the internet of things (IoT) add enormous value to predictive maintenance strategies,” it continued.

Apart from helping set up more agile operations in newer projects, predictive maintenance also helps extend the lifetime of aging assets, the company stated in the release.

“It also aids to detect unwanted leakages that contribute to emissions. Thus, it can help oil and gas companies to efficiently fulfil their ESG obligations,” GlobalData added.

The company said in the release that predictive maintenance capability is becoming increasingly useful in the oil and gas industry due to competitive energy market scenarios.

“It helps maximize the operational life of the equipment and infrastructure by using an innovative data-driven approach to assess the state of the field equipment or infrastructure and provide a detailed picture of its expected operating life,” GlobalData noted.

In the release, Ravindra Puranik, an oil and gas analyst at GlobalData, said, “predictive maintenance enables decision-makers to schedule maintenance activities without affecting the normal functioning”.

“These insights can also be utilized to determine whether any machinery or infrastructure requires a substantial overhaul. Predictive maintenance strategies have evolved in the oil and gas industry to harness newer digital technologies for improved prediction models,” Puranik added.

“The proficiency of digital technologies has grown tremendously in the last few decades. The advancements in sensors, connectivity networks, and computing power, offer a strong foundation for the adoption of predictive maintenance strategies,” Puranik continued.

Puranik warned in the release that a day of unplanned downtime of an oilfield, pipeline, or refinery can incur over a million dollars in losses for the operator.

“Predictive maintenance helps to identify potential problem areas and resolve them in a timely manner. It could be profitable to implement enterprise-wide predictive maintenance strategies in the long-run,” Puranik added.

In the release, GlobalData highlighted that “several prominent integrated oil companies (IOCs) have actively sought to digitalize their operations by employing technologies, such as AI, IoT, cloud computing, big data, and others”.

The company noted in the release that this has led to the generation of a vast amount of data from routine oil and gas operations.

“Growing digitalization has facilitated the adoption of predictive maintenance technologies in the industry,” the company added.

A chart showing upstream predictive maintenance related contractual activity across vendors and regions from January 2018 to November 2023, which was included in the release, showed SLB with the most contracts, at more than 20, followed by IKM Holding, with more than 10, and Baker Hughes, with 10.

In a release sent to Rigzone back in May 2019, GlobalData said the importance of predictive maintenance had increased in oil and gas operations “against the backdrop of aging infrastructure and volatile crude pricing”.

That release highlighted that the company’s latest thematic report at the time revealed that the adoption of predictive maintenance technologies “is helping companies cut back on operational expenditure by optimizing maintenance scheduling and driving productivity”.

In that release, Puranik said, “the insights gained from predictive maintenance program enables decision makers to schedule maintenance activities without disrupting routine production operations”.

“These insights can also be used to evaluate if any machinery or infrastructure requires a major overhaul on priority, and accordingly decide whether to use the available capital expenditure for new projects and expansion plans or divert it for the upgrading of existing facilities,” Puranik added.

That release revealed that GlobalData’s thematic research identified multinational oil and gas companies, such as Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Rosneft and Equinor as “the leaders in the digital oilfield theme”.

“The research also identifies oilfield service providers, such as GE-Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, Halliburton, Aker Solutions, Weatherford and National Oilwell Varco among the leading players in this theme,” that release added.

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com