Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” 

As most things in life, planning can make a world of difference when it comes to systems failing. But when it comes to human safety involved in those fails that only highlights the importance of planning ahead to be ready for anything.

 

One of my favorite sayings is 'hope for the best, but plan for the worst.' This is extremely important for natural gas distribution because planning ahead could save lives, lots of human lives. Which is why it's critical when considering a secondary system in case your primary system stops functioning.

 

Thankfully, technology is evolving in giant leaps and bounds today. It's a great time to be alive and witness the new advancements every day. But with all the change it can also leave some producers and operations wondering when the right time is to replace the old with the new really is; given that some tech is only 'new' for a week or two, and then will be quickly outdated by something bigger, better, faster, smarter and will have more shelf life.

 

When producers invest in new technologies for their business, they can expect more profits, more production, and more sustainability but deciding when to purchase tech, and which tech to invest into that won't be outdated in a year (or these days a week), makes it more of a challenge to get right. And then of course, it comes down to what to upgrade, and as with everything in life; it comes down to 'how to leverage all that new tech'. Will the 'how' be so complicated it will eat away your team's time or quickly add value that contributes to fast gains?

We've been using machine learning (ML) for years. It's been a big factor in our development to help oil and gas producers on their digital transformation journey to autonomous operations using the exact solutions that will bring them more production, profits, and sustainability.

Way, way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I had a very annoying flip phone that was really only able to make and receive calls and (upon the rare occasion) get and send a few random text messages from other techie types. The main reason I found this phone so annoying is I wanted it to be able to do so much more; and it seemed like it shouldn't be all that difficult to make it happen.

But, that's all there was on the market at the time.

I continuously wondered why on earth someone didn't make them to fetch my email, or have a decent camera in them. Then it finally became a reality and just like that we all became more mobile than we had ever dreamed of being! It was AWESOME being set free from waiting for an email, and unchained from my desk where I would often be found waiting for information to be sent.

Keeping your oil and gas production automation systems current is a delicate balance. You have to keep up with ever-changing hardware, interfaces with other software and with improvements on the one hand. On the other hand, you don’t want to spend hours with updates that save up all the changes for one giant yearly revision—that may come with unintended and untested crashes.

That’s the benefit of evergreen cloud software like Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA. It grows in tiny increments just like an evergreen plant. From one day or month to the next, you don’t notice its growth—a new leaf here, a bit thicker trunk there—but it keeps growing and adapting to changes in seasons without skipping a beat.

In 2011, IBM’s Watson took on two of Jeopardy’s top winners in a contest of knowledge and speed. After three exciting days, Watson had more than tripled the winnings of either human. Let's apply that to oil and gas production data insights enabling you to triple your 'winnings' - by gaining more production, more profits and more sustainability.

In the digital oilfield that lives on data and is powered by computers light years past Watson, end users are starting to get answers to questions they never dreamed of asking before.

Instead of competing with computers, many oil and gas producers are teaming with AI (artificial intelligence) so that everyone wins. And keeps winning.

Oil and gas producers have been realizing the benefits of technology with SCADA, IIoT and sensors in the field for a long time now, and while these pieces have certainly been worth their weight in black gold to the bottom line (and safety) there is a new evolution coming soon to the oil field near you.

The goal line for oil and gas producers around the world is to take the digital transformation journey to ultimately gain all the many benefits of an autonomous oil and gas operation.

But should you take that journey?

This is not a journey for everyone. There is much to consider before you decide.

Maybe you’ve declared your intention to digitally transform your production. That’s great. It’s a growing trend and it will really boost efficiency. But the jury is still out on whether to do it in-house or to let us do it for you.

I have a question that may clarify that decision for you:

What are you good at?

You’re good at evaluating leases, considering how to economically produce a field and to get that oil and gas to market. If you were to jump into the field of developing a cloud based platform, what would that look like in terms of hiring, training and implementing?

From 1859, when Colonel Edwin Drake successfully drilled America’s first oil well in Pennsylvania and over the next several decades, the oil and gas business was primarily driven by manual labor. 

This meant high vehicle mileage, and lost production time because pumpers and engineers were constantly needed on location, which resulted in operational inefficiencies and many safety issues. Until the introduction of automation technology into the oil and gas industry.

As automation technology has progressed, from cable tools to rotary drills; from car phones to palm-sized smart phones; from desktop computers for accounting to ubiquitous sensors sending big data through the cloud to smart devices; oilfield efficiency has continued to cut costs, save time, boost production and improve safety.