Oil production in the Middle East witnessed unprecedented growth last year. Countries across the region continued to boost exploration activities, allowing for greater foreign investment and collaboration in the oil and gas sectors, and introducing market reforms to support the energy industry.
A Reuters survey in May 2015 revealed that oil supply from the OPEC countries had risen to its highest level in more than two years, with record-level outputs from Saudi Arabia and Iraq and increased exports from Angola. OPEC supply rose to 31.22mn bpd from a revised 31.16mn bpd, based on shipping data provided by oil companies, OPEC and consultants. Ongoing exploration activities could increase supply in the future, as the Middle East is currently home to the largest crude oil reserves in the world.
There are advance technologies available to help further boost the region’s oil and gas production. An example is Honeywell Process Solutions’ Digital Suites for Oil and Gas, a set of software and services that can help oil and gas producers boost production efficiency by up to five percent while improving operational safety.
Digital Suites for Oil and Gas, which has been validated through customer testing, allows oil and gas producers to turn data into digital intelligence that helps operators make critical decisions faster by capturing, managing and analysing the right production information at the right time.
By using these new tools, operators can get better productivity, higher uptime and more efficient remote operations, and they can produce a return on investment in as little as six months.
One of the major challenges in the oil and gas industry is how to integrate people and processes for better performance with sustainable efficiencies in the safest way. Together, with other integrated safety solutions, advanced technologies in the oil and gas industry can lead to a 40% reduction in operator-related incidents as well as 30% reduction in maintenance costs if they are applied properly in the system.
Major companies in the Middle East, both in the upstream and downstream sector, have invested in these integrated applications with significant benefits to their bottom line. Competency management solutions have assisted our customers with training for their operators and maximizing margins through safer operations and more up-time. To help oil and gas customers maximize their productivity with effective planning, various technologies are deployed including Advanced Process Controllers (APC), Production Surveillance solutions, Equipment Effectiveness solutions and Operational Performance solutions.
APC helps many production units reach their maximum output without violating safety constraints. Production Surveillance solutions are allowing major oil and gas companies to react faster in tricky situations and maximize their output through collaboration and automated workflows.
Equipment Effectiveness solutions deployed in many sites allow our customers to minimize downtime and reduce their maintenance expenditure significantly. And Operational Performance solutions help keep process units in the best operating envelope, taking into consideration not only extreme safety alarms but also limitations in planning, corrosion and maintenance departments through a common limit repository.
The return on investment with implementation of such solutions can vary from a few weeks to a full year wherein the assets are optimized to operate better, more efficiently and safely.
