In this rapidly changing energy landscape, the nature of and demand for digitalisation and automation technology in the oil and gas industry is also undergoing transformation.
This implies that although providers of automation services can be content with the way products from their portfolio are being deployed by their customers today, the increasing role of automation in upstream operations will lead to new specific demands from those same customers.
Suppliers also have to brace for the fact that a compact portfolio of automation products for the oil and gas clientele may not yield much returns in the days to come, as requirements become niche and operational issues become complex. Therefore, service providers have to keep their offering fluid enough to effectively cater to the oil and gas industry.
According to the American industrial software services provider AspenTech, which has been doing business with key oil and gas operators for about 35 years now, despite the company’s established expertise in software, technology and industry expertise, it is having to combine its latest machine learning and analytics capabilities to create an automation portfolio for the future.
Luc Chantepy, regional sales vice president for the Middle East and North Africa region at AspenTech, explains: “Today, customers have three needs: to monitor performance, because what you can measure, you can improve. Second, they need to implement those improvements. The competitive environment that has emerged in just a few short years requires a more holistic approach, which is where asset optimisation comes in. For example, with advanced machine learning software, companies have already demonstrated incredible successes in the early identification of equipment failure. Such software is near-autonomous and learns behavioural patterns from the streams of digital data that are produced by sensors on and around machines and processes. Automatically, and requiring minimal resources, this advanced technology constantly learns and adapts to new signal patterns when operating conditions change.”
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In further illustrating his opinion, Chantepy talks of a specific cases where AspenTech’s products have helped oil and gas clients achieve automation of processes. “AspenTech has moved towards standardised designs, in place of one-of-a-kind designs, enabled through capture of best-practice unit and module designs via data and models. ExxonMobil has been a leader here, using integrated solutions from AspenTech. This drives down overall CAPEX substantially. Increased collaboration between industry players, focussing on better use of people and resources across the execution chain. Saudi Aramco, Anadarko and others have driven this collaboration through use of AspenTech’s open cost platform across the asset development lifecycle. This provides better alignment between owners and contractors, which has historically been pointed to as a main cause of upstream asset CAPEX overruns.”
He goes on to talk about a certain automation product developed with patented innovations from AspenTech – the Aspen DMC3 advanced process control technology, which adapts to changes in the dynamic operating conditions in the upstream segment. “With its ability to analyse its own performance and recommend ‘self-repairs’, this technology can be effectively used without the involvement of technical gurus and represents true automation of knowledge work. AspenTech has termed this meaningful innovation adaptive process control,” Chantepy says.
Ganesh Pattabhiraman, Wireless director – MEA at Emerson Automation Solutions, says Emerson lays particular emphasis in investing in improving its automation services portfolio, to keep the offering abreast with the oil and gas industry’s needs.
“Emerson spends a significant proportion of its turnover on R&D and has a proud history of bringing new automation technologies and techniques to market that goes back around 100 years. Most recently we have been pioneers in the fields of wireless instrumentation, and we were the first company to sell Electronic Marshalling, which removes the need for cross-patch wiring and, ultimately, control system cabinets and rack rooms,” Pattabhiraman mentions.
He further states: “We have invested in research into implementing the Industrial Internet of Things. We have developed our Plantweb Digital Ecosystem to help our customers deliver a defined return on their IIoT investment, with the ability to start small with a standalone implementation of a single application, to execute a project that radically changes the way that IT and OT work to optimise the operation of a plant, or anything in between. We use the existing automation and IT infrastructure to leverage the investments that have already been made, and layer on the appropriate technologies to deliver the defined business benefits.”
