A major oil & gas producer needed a way to improve the accuracy of its measurements and develop its offshore monitoring processes off the coast of Africa. Emerson’s Ali Alkasah shared this story with me and noted that platform personnel were conducting manual documentation of measurement variables, which often led to challenging paper trails and inaccurate data. These manual processes were contributing to high maintenance costs.
These manual measurements could be replaced by wireless instrumentation without having to run wires to difficult and hazardous areas on the platform. For differential pressure measurements for flow rates and levels, the engineering team used Rosemount 3051S wireless transmitters.
Critical valves were monitored for mechanical problems and leaks in the surrounding piping with Rosemount 708 wireless acoustic transmitters. Some of the discrete measurements including open/close, on/off on valves, pumps, and motors were instrumented with Rosemount 702 wireless discrete transmitters. These wireless devices were all connected through a wireless gateway to the platform control and asset management system.
Source: Wikipedia, Author: TheConduqtor, https://jimc.me/1bJiFGc
Through the platform communications back to the mainland, the process variables and diagnostics were also available to the maintenance specialists who oversaw all of the production platforms.
Having this data collected automatically and continuously at the configured update rates for each device, the oil and gas producer was able to get more timely and accurate information in real-time with lower ongoing maintenance costs. Given the current price of crude oil, having the data and associated diagnostics to avoid downtime and keep the production flowing made a lot of sense for this oil & gas producer.
