Our software and IIoT platform enables operators to improve processes, enhance investments and maximize returns on their assets as they lean into an autonomous operation. A recent example of this includes how our experts have developed one solution to assist your operations in optimizing rod pumps using AI (artificial intelligence): Emerson's Zedi Autonomous Rod Pump Management.

Monitoring and controlling the traditional pump jacks you see bowing and rising along oilfield roads has some limitations. But today, through digital transformation, we’re using data to improve management of all wells, including the rod-pumped variety

A flowing well with a low gas-to-oil ratio needs little hands-on management, but you still need to track production and watch for pump failures or rod parts. Remote monitoring removes the need for a pumper to visually inspect the site daily—and it removes the chances that the well could break down right after he drives away, leaving it unproductive for a day or so.

With technology supported by our experts, we offer comprehensive solutions to our customers' challenges. We have developed rod pump monitoring and control for an advanced solution using artificial intelligence with machine learning capabilities for Autonomous Rod Pump management.

What is an Autonomous Rod Pump? 

Autonomous Rod Pump is an Artificial Intelligence application (analytics engine) that identifies anomalies on rod pump applications. 

Autonomous refers to a state of equipment where it can perform the programmed operations under defined conditions without human input or guidance. When we talk about this type of equipment, we use the adjective, autonomous. 

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.

The basic formula for increasing oil well production is pretty clear to me: the more the pump runs, the more oil it pumps. The real issue is how to reduce downtime, so that it runs more, and pumps more.

What wasn't clear to me is why on earth about 100,000 pumpjacks in the US alone are not monitored—other than by someone driving all the way out to the well site every couple of days. With that method, a pump may have been down, or even worse leaking for a day or so before it’s noticed by anyone. That’s several hours of production time that can never be recovered.

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.