vMonitor Chief Operating Officer Sami Suheil spoke at the International Digital Oilfield 2011 Conference about automating oil & gas field production with wireless systems and the role of wireless in enabling the digital oilfield.
Mr. Suheil’s discussed how time and operational expense of trenching and wiring is time and money spent and lost in some cases.
“It has been demonstrated that at the core of any implementation of a digital oilfield or a smart field lies access to accurate and reliable data. Monitoring well operating conditions and system bottlenecks using accurate and durable sensors and versatile flow computers, have contributed significantly to improving field management, but the trenching and wiring required to bring each new wellhead on line is an overhead that most field managers would avoid if they could,” Suheil’s added.
Suheil’s noted that wireless systems eliminate the need for trenching and allow each wellhead to be brought on line and into production quickly. With the new generation of wireless communication, power management systems provide extended battery life and control capabilities with local intelligence as well as data accuracy and wireless link quality of service.
“Additionally, these systems provide a secure wireless sensor network protected from both friendly and malicious jamming. This gives the field operators an opportunity to deliver a positive impact solution through cost effective and flexible installations providing reliable and timely transmission of production data. However, automation takes time to install, and it has traditionally come at considerable expense,” Suheil said.
According to Suheil, typical wellheads have no power and are usually located in remote locations, other major challenges that most field operators face are lack of remote monitoring and no visibility of well head data to the operators in the control room, lack of power availability, vandalism and theft or security concerns, high wiring cost, installation and maintenance in case of wired solution, in case of un-engineered wireless solutions—line of sight and reliability issues, high OPEX and CAPEX in case of wired solution or unmonitored situation.
Suheil commented: “Wireless promised to be a game changing technology in creating the digital oilfield, but promise has lagged performance, which has slowed the adoption process. Production optimisation and data management for all types of wells depends on plug and play solutions without trading off performance. “
According to Suheil, vMonitor solutions give the opportunity to achieve reliable and timely data from remote sites, savings in OPEX and CAPEX (extending asset life cycle and better management of resources while reducing HSE exposure), enhanced technology by collaboration. Quality & timely information leads to better decisions and production gains, better decisions lead to better results, greater credibility and more opportunity.
“It takes 2-3 companies to provide an end-to-end solution. With vMonitor field operators can get as much or as little as they want. vMonitor solution is as good as PLUG & PLAY. From hardware to software, vMonitor provides the ultimate end-to-end solution enabling the Digital Oilfield,” Suheil added.
