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The effects of crude oil prices can be felt around the world. The price of oil is near to an eleven-year low, and analysis by data trader Daryl Guppy, who writes for CNBC, predicts that the current trends might mean “prices have further to fall.” This current period of falling oil prices is challenging for everyone involved.
In our complex industry, which has continuous improvement in its DNA, there’s no single problem and therefore no silver bullet solution. Besides meeting the challenges presented by the geopolitics of oil production, companies must still address matters including the safety and productivity of its people, the protection of the environment as well as process and facility equipment, production availability and increasingly today, information and data.
Technology has long been seen as the way to improve the economics of production and help the industry weather lower oil values. Technology developments that are focused on improving efficiency and productivity have therefore drawn significant attention. Enhancing productivity and efficiency is a pervasive requirement that affects upstream, midstream and downstream operations.
It’s no surprise that new themes like the Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing are anticipated to make a major impact on oil producing companies and their service providers. Increased intelligence throughout the process workflow, more accurate and granular data collection and analytics, and higher levels of automated decision making and control, will help companies establish new benchmarks in efficiency and productivity.
In the search to optimize production costs, increasing dependence on data and analytics puts a fresh emphasis on power reliability and continuity throughout the processing supply chain. Without power, all operations, safety and the environment are compromised. And while downtime is expensive (a single hour’s outage at a large production or transmission facility in the Oil & Gas space is said to cost at least $1.5M in lost revenue), damage to a company’s reputation can be even more costly. One must always consider that in this business, there’s no such thing as a minor ecological incident.
At the same time, ensuring safety while enhancing productivity and efficiency is no small feat. It becomes even more significant when attempting to do so with falling product prices. The new reality is that we must all search for ways to achieve more while using less of our planet resources. Technology and information is making a difference in the oil and gas industry. And today’s UPS solutions for onshore and offshore operations, transportation and storage, and processing, refining and distribution are helping to power this change.
As a company which has enjoyed a close association with the Oil & Gas industry, Schneider Electric has worked hard to establish collaborative working relations and partnerships with companies in the sector. To provide the right technology for facilities and to service and upgrade these applications over the lifespan of the installation, our experts establish an upstream analysis of customer needs. This forms the basis for a UPS solution including auxiliary equipment that is sized, designed and delivered according to customer specifications, including fully customer-specific requirements. To learn more about Schneider Electric’s Oil & Gas offerings, please click here.
