Allan Fogwill, COO of PTAC, the Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada, presented on digital tools for oil and gas. PTAC’s 180 member-strong innovation ecosystem currently has some 180 projects underway. Many focus on clean tech notably the Alberta Upstream Petroleum Research Fund, the Canadian Emissions Reduction Innovation Consortium (Caneric) and two Methane Consortia. Digital tools under the PTAC purview target, inter alia, reduced operating costs, reduced methane emissions, increased reliability and better regulatory compliance and reporting. The digital oilfield also brings automatic detection of leaks, production forecasting, management by exception and AI-driven maintenance and repair scheduling. Caneric represents a comprehensive methane management database for methane reporting in the context of ‘equitable origin’ credit creation. Digital solutions, along with subject matter experts provide actionable information and can optimize the use of skilled trades and engineers in the face of labor shortages.
Ariful Islam from Petronas’ Dagangan Berhad unit, the domestic marketing arm, presented on PDB’s analytics journey. This leverages EDH, the enterprise data hub that was established in 2020. A subsequent ‘Pivot’ project is now collecting scattered, disparate data into a landing zone where a single source of truth is being built in a data lake. Controlled access is provided by PDB Insight (PowerBI also ran). The solution addresses retail sector merchants, drivers and vehicles. Citizen data scientists are using AI in various projects (sales performance forecasting, demand volume forecasting, price sensitivity) each of which is expected to achieve a modest 1% improvement in sales.
Paul Stone (FlowForma) presented a case study of the eponymous tool as deployed at Dresser. FlowForma Process Automation is an award-winning process automation tool with a claimed 200,000+ users. The solution is described as a ‘3-in-1 tool’ with forms/workflow/document generation capabilities that support digital transformation with intelligent workflows and process automation. Dresser has deployed FlowForma to migrate its key engineering document processes such as manufacturer engineering documentation approval, patent disclosure submission and IT change management to an automated workflow that has saved some 15% of the time spent. The solution was enthusiastically endorsed by Dresser’s Imelda Bettinger who exclaimed ‘The old processes took years to build. A change request took a month to realize. Now people are embracing FlowForma and coming up with their own ideas for new workflows.’
Following an overview of methane monitoring solutions, Susan Nash, who is director of innovation, emerging science and technology at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, addressed the integration issue. She advocates a two step approach, mastering monitoring and leak detection followed by carbon management. The latter includes certification of carbon measurement, registration and credits leveraging non-fungible tokens*, all in a ‘seamless workflow’. The idea is to demonstrate responsibly sourced gas that can be converted to certificates that can be bought and sold on carbon exchanges. But, Nash warns, don’t try to own the whole chain. Better to work in ‘win-win’ partnerships.
* For those wondering how an eminently fungible asset such as natural gas can be tied to an NFT, read Neil McNaughton’s 2018 editorial and letter in the Financial Times.
Lukas Bimmerle presented Siemens’ work on data-driven optimization of analyzer and instrument reliability. High availability and accuracy of measurements are crucial for optimized process. Accurate measurement can allow for set points to be closer to the envelope – increasing yield and or product quality. Also frequent calibration and software-based statistical quality control can lead to early identification of inaccuracies, tighter process control and less waste. Today, continuous emission monitoring systems are ‘run to failure’. Suddenly the plant is in shutdown. Siemens approach is to monitor diagnostic health data for each physical component. When an anomaly is discovered, softwareinforms the user, identifies the cause of the problem and suggests a solution. Siemens Ultramat 23 can be so configured. Siemens’ GProms supports software simulation of plant processes to identify measures to reduce emissions.
Ian Verhappen (Willowglen Systems) showed how to integrate cybersecurity into facility operations. ISO 27001 governs the IT side of the cybersec equation and here, compliance certification is available. On the OT side IEC 62444 rules although certification documentation is currently work in progress. The US NIST 800 series provides best practices for IT/OT environments. Critical infrastructure is governed by many different regulatory bodies and the recent increase of incidents has led to the development of new tools and devices – and yet more false alarms. Operators are already swamped by process-related alarms and cyber is out of scope for many. Industry’s response is to share cyber threat intelligence confidentially via initiatives such as MITRE ATT&CK, a ‘globally-accessible knowledge base of adversary tactics and techniques based on real-world observations’. Attack data is modeled and shared with STIX. Threat levels are monitored with TAXII a ‘trusted automated exchange of indicator information’. How do you cross the IT/OT cyber divide? One solution is Willowglen’s SentientQ unified SCADA platform and security manager.
Anupam Acharya presented Technip Energies’ asset information model a.k.a; a digital twin and single source of the truth. Curiously there was no mention of the CFIHOS initiative where Technip has a presence!
Fawaz AlSahan (Saudi Aramco) reviewed a number of ‘smart sensors*’ that are heralding the 4th industrial revolution. Sensors are becoming smarter, more compact, need less maintenance, and are able to provide more and accurate data about processes in the oil and gas industry. Non-intrusive smart sensors are evolving and providing quick solutions for process measurement. Temporary or permanent installation can help with operation challenges, enhance crude quality, reduce emissions and manage hydrocarbon losses. Smart sensors are enablers of IR 4.0 ‘especially when combined with analytics/ML’.
* loosely defined as being compact, providing multiple data streams from a single sensor and with built-in diagnostics and a self-testing capability.
Chuck Drobny presented some of GlobaLogix’ learnings as an oil and gas scada specialist. The electronic infrastructure on legacy wells won't support new end devices and the cost of upgrading the entire Scada platform is prohibitive. New installations offer capabilities that may be unknown to customers and may require specific configurations. The business case for new scada can be hard to make but it is key to clearly define the objectives upfront. Project management techniques need to be applied to prevent delays and cost overruns. Because few sites have an accurate inventory, and as-built documentation is often missing, a site survey is a good idea to kick-off a project.
Thomas Grand demonstrated Samp’s ‘shared reality’ solution, a 3D streaming web portal that works with zero plugins and zero training, on standard machines. An automatic object segmentation engine identifies equipment, leveraging patented optical equipment recognition technology. This helps align tags, P&ID and 3D reality capture ‘in a matter of hours’. Samp also provides APIs to add new equipment and data types.
Vutility’s Joel Berntsen asked, ‘Which assets do refineries actively monitor for energy?’, answering his own question with ‘Not many!’ Few motors in a refinery have current monitoring on them. Traditional monitoring kit is expensive, requires engineering and maybe a shutdown to deploy. Enter Vutility’s ‘Drop’ series of patented, proprietary wireless energy metering solutions that are ‘installed in minutes’. Applications include equipment monitoring of pressure, vibration, temperature and personnel safety tracking. Software provides contextualization of multiple IIoT sensors with cloud analytics and visualization. LoRaWAN is the preferred connectivity, providing a bandwidth-efficient standardized IoT protocol with regional configurations supported in over 160 countries. While operators already monitor critical assets, other operational assets are often left unmonitored with manual processes, resulting in ‘significant gaps between potential, optimized productivity and actual output’.
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