Automation To Boost Efficiency In The Oil And Gas Industry
Some energy companies have invested in driver-less trucks to reduce the number of people needed to run operations smoothly and eliminate incidences of manual error. The keyword here is automation. Automating some processes can boost efficiency and eliminate work-related injuries that can affect productivity and harm the health and well-being of oil and gas workers.
Alexandra Bosanac said in a recent article:
“New technologies could drastically cut down on the number of people needed to run a complex drilling operation. Earlier this year, Suncor Energy Inc. purchased 175 driverless trucks from a Japanese manufacturer, with the goal of replacing its entire fleet within a decade. In 2014, a Statoil platform in the Norwegian North Sea received a $33-million upgrade to its automated systems, with the intent of improving safety and efficiency.”
Focus On Reducing Costs Of Oil And Gas Operation
Repetitive processes can be automated to reduce the cost of oil and gas operations, allowing people to handle more complex tasks. Oil and gas companies are looking for new technologies to manage cost-intensive work like drilling, in an effort to bring down the costs involved in these kinds of tasks. Technology that will help them make better predictions about the best spots to find oil and gas, analyze a large amount of data to identify when equipment is likely to fail are very much in demand in the oil and gas industry.
New regulation in the United States that would mandate oil and gas companies to stream data live has only served to increase the demand for innovation in the oil and gas industry.
Rhiannon Meyers said in a recent article:
“At a time when companies are looking to do more with less, the focus has been on innovations aimed at reducing the cost of expensive activities, such as drilling, by replacing the repetitive processes with automation; figuring out new ways to crunch and analyze vast reams of data to predict when equipment will fail or to identify the juiciest spots to extract oil and gas; and putting mobile devices in hands of their field crews to make them more efficient and effective, IHS said.”
The low crude oil prices has forced many oil and gas operators to look for ways to drive down costs and new technology to improve efficiency in the oil and gas operations.