Successful Remote Monitoring for Oil & Gas Applications: A Case Study
Equipment in Remote, Harsh Environments Monitored via Satellite

Business is always striving to be more efficient, to make the most of it’s resources and assets. Remote monitoring of equipment in the field is one way companies such as Toromont Energy Systems Inc. is helping oil and gas companies do just that. By leveraging M2M Data Corporation’s hosted remote monitoring services, it’s increasing the performance and longevity of its natural gas compression equipment in the field, reducing the burden of service technicians and as a result, increasing the client’s operational efficiency.

Toromont designs, manufactures, and service modular systems and components worldwide for industrial customers in natural gas compression, natural gas processing, refrigeration and CO2 processing. The company has more than thirty years of experience with operation in the United States, Canada and the UK. Toromont prides itself in its work and focuses on building solid relationships with its customers by providing world-class designs, services and solutions. As a result of this commitment, Toromont has delivered more than 3,000 compressor packages totaling more than 2 million BHP (Brake Horsepower) operating worldwide.

Toromont’s products are often located in the harshest and most remote places on Earth, so to set itself apart from its competition it engineers its equipment to withstand environmental extremes in order to protect the availability and life cycle of the products. As an added value they offer remote monitoring capabilities on every package they sell.  These services give their customers the peace of mind that their equipment is working properly. Toromont offers top of the line Allen-Bradley PLCs  (Programmable Logic Controllers) as part of their standard offering. Remote monitoring is offered by adding logic to the PLC to communicate via a satellite communications terminal to the remote monitoring system hosted by M2M Data Corporation. Toromont adds the communications terminal at the time of packaging, so it can easily be activated when the package arrives at the customer location.

Toromont’s remote monitoring implementation can serve as a case study for those that are considering implementing their own remote monitoring solution. Some of Toromont’s requirements included the need to monitor a large number of assets that are widely distributed over a number of remote locations.

Selecting the Right Communications
If assets are distributed in more populated areas where cellular communications are available, or are placed in remote environments where assets are clustered close to each, cellular or radio-based solutions are available. Toromont’s situation required a satellite communication solution because of dispersed locations of its equipment.

Toromont’s design and engineering expertise makes them the vendor of choice for packages that will be deployed in harsh environments, often in extremely remote locations, making remote monitoring even more valuable.  However, and in many instances the range is too great for radio-based SCADA and it is highly unlikely that cellular service will be available; leaving satellite communications the only way to backhaul data from the packages is via satellite. The key was to find a communications option that would work everywhere Toromont sells their packages that would require minimal power to transmit and would be easy to setup.

Why Remote Monitoring?
When people think of remote monitoring, they often think of the process of backhauling data from an asset. While this is an important component of remote monitoring, successful oil and gas companies recognize that’s just the beginning of the process. Some applications for remotely collected data include remote control, historical-data trending and analysis, remote diagnostics and machinery analysis, data reporting and logging, alarm notification, maintenance planning and dispatch. Each of these functions helps organizations make the most of their limited resources, resulting in lower costs and improved productivity.

The Solution
Stratos’ SDT 5000 was deemed to be the best suited communications terminal to meet Toromont’s requirements, utilizing Inmarsat’s L-band service. M2M Data Corporation found the SDT 5000 to be well-suited for numerous oil and gas applications. Its low-cost satellite data transmission costs, bi-directional capabilities, IEEE class 1 division 2 certification, and environmental characteristics make it an excellent fit. The only downside of the SDT 5000 is that it must be pointed to acquire a satellite signal. However, the resources used to install the compressor package are generally able to point the antenna, and M2M’s support is able to validate the installation.

Often times additional hardware is required in order take advantage of remote monitoring, but Toromont took advantage of M2M Enabled Allen-Bradley panels, bypassing the need for an additional expense; all that was required was a satellite terminal. Many oil & gas applications that benefit from remote monitoring already make use of instrumentation and automation technologies. M2M Data Corporation makes its protocol available to companies that wish to take advantage of remote monitoring leveraging existing hardware, which it calls M2M Enabled. Devices that have been M2M Enabled include Allen-Bradley PLCs, FW Murphy Centurion Panels, Control Micro Systems’ SCADA Packs, ABB Totalflow EFM’s, and numerous ANTX products.

The M2M Enabled protocol provides an easy way to deliver data in a way that can be understood by the remote monitoring system’s parsers and listeners. It reduces costs by utilizing a report by exception-based (RBE) architecture, minimizing data transmission by only sending data when a user-defined threshold is breeched. Alternative technologies use poll-response based architectures; while this works will for radio-based communications, it can make satellite-based communications cost prohibitive.

Keys to Success
Establishing metrics that defines the objectives for the project early on in the process will aid in the project’s overall success. The metrics will help management to get behind the project and commit the necessary resources for success. The importance of management buy-in cannot be overstated; in order to be successful, remote monitoring needs to be deployed on a critical mass of units, which requires significant investment of capital and other resources.

The benefits of remote monitoring can have a significant impact on an organization’s operations, but it also requires a significant investment. One reason that projects often fail is because organizations often underestimate the investment required. In order to recognize the benefits, an organization must fully commit to the project. The technology has been proven to deliver results, but without full commitment, the deployment will be a failure.

The capital expenditure required for monitoring equipment is the most tangible cost. Reputable vendors can provide solid budgetary estimates for both hardware and communications, but this is only part of a project’s total costs. Another significant cost not to be overlooked can be the installation and setup costs. In the Toromont example, installation occurs at the time of packaging, minimizing the need for field installation. Depending on how remote the assets are and the complexity of the installation the cost for installation may be as much or more than the hardware. This makes sense, since one of the reasons to deploy remote monitoring is to minimize the need to visit the equipment.

All of these costs are usually accounted for when making the internal business case for remote monitoring. However, the time and resources required for training is often not taken into account, although it is one of the critical success factors. When training, it’s important to do more to just train on how to use the new system. Personnel must understand how the remote monitoring solution will benefit them in performing their daily tasks. Field personnel are the most likely replacement because they may view the technology as threat to their continued employment. With proper training though, field personnel often become the biggest proponents of the system once they understand that the system actually is a tool for their use that increases their value to the organization.

Remote Monitoring Applications
It makes intuitive sense that with more information a one’s fingertips people should be able to make better, data-driven decisions that will benefit the organization. What often happens is that people get all of this new data, but are unable to do anything of value with it. Why? It’s because they don’t have the applications to turn the data into useful information. For example, Toromont’s customers want different pieces of information about the performance of their compressor package. However, getting every operating variable once an hour adds little if any value. Toromont’s customers would be better served by getting an alert that they have low-suction pressure when it happens one time than they would be by getting hourly run status information. Report by exception, or RBE based reporting helps collect the most valuable information, instead of using a traditional SCADA poll/response type of architecture, but these traditional SCADA implementations can provide added value with the right applications.

The range of applications for remotely collected data can be wide ranging, but should be considered prior to vendor selection. The remote monitoring solutions provider should be well versed enough in the industry that it can provide the resources to advise on the value remote monitoring can deliver. For example, data collection should be considered a requirement, but what about after the data is acquired? How will the data add value to the organization?

One application that benefits greatly from remote monitoring is preventative maintenance. It’s widely accepted that performing proper maintenance is essential to extending the longevity of equipment and that is reduces the overall total cost of ownership. Remote monitoring helps organizations optimize their maintenance schedules. OEM’s recommended that maintenance be performed based upon service hour intervals. With remote oil and gas production equipment, it can be difficult to track how many service hours a piece of equipment has remaining until the next scheduled maintenance. By monitoring equipment run-hours, the guesswork can be eliminated from performing preventative maintenance. This benefits the organization by performing maintenance on time, extending equipment life and also reducing maintenance costs by only performing maintenance when required.

Another application for remote monitoring is machinery analysis. When large horsepower rotating machinery fails, it is usually either happens instantaneously because of a catastrophic failure such as starting the engine without oil (yes it does happen!) or gradually over time because of a chronic problem because of something such as a leaking valve. Analysis of engine and/or compressor operator data, including variables such as suction pressure and temperature, discharge temperature and pressure, run status, speed and flow can produce diagnostics and improved operational performance. By utilizing remote monitoring to collect the data, the analysis can be performed on a more consistent basis. The diagnostic produced from the analysis can then be used to send a technician with the right skill set and tools to perform corrective action.

Monitoring of fault codes can similarly improve resource utilization. By utilizing an intelligent control panel combined with remote monitoring, and setting the system to send fault codes whenever a fault occurs, the right personnel can be dispatched to address the problem.

Proper maintenance combined with machinery analysis delivers real results. Windshield time for technicians is reduced. Technicians arrive on site with the right skill sets and tools. Equipment efficiency is improved increasing production. Well performance can be monitored and corrective action can be taken. These are all benefits maintenance and analysis applications that take advantage of remote monitoring, but there are others that can deliver similar result. Alerting and alarming, remote control, dispatch and command center functionality all can enhance an organization’s operations.

The oil and gas industry faces many challenges that don’t necessarily apply to other industries. The assets are often located in far-flung locations, are often distributed over a large area and the sites are often unmanned for extended periods of time. Organizations such as Toromont and its customers have overcome the challenges faced in typical oil and gas applications and recognized the benefits of remote monitoring—they’re staying informed about their assets with less work and less expenditure, and as a result those assets are delivering more value to its owners and managers.  As in the locations of its equipment, the oil and gas industry is an example in the extreme—but the lessons remain the same across all industries and markets that have equipment in the field.

For more information visit www.m2mdatacorp.com

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