Although it may be true that artificial intelligence has benefits for many industries, the oil and gas sector may stand to gain the most. Oil and gas production is among the most lucrative and risky industries. The use of artificial intelligence improves productivity, security, and business processes. Here are six ways AI is addressing different issues in the oil and gas sector.
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- Detecting errors and improving quality control
Finding flaws in processes that are prone to error or poor pipeline threading is one of the issues in the oil and gas sector. Upstream problems that cause defects at the end of the production process use up industrial and financial resources. For instance, if a machine or oil pipeline with a flaw is put into service, this could cause significant harm. Comparatively speaking, the cost of adopting AI is much larger than these losses.
Using a computer vision-based system can both confirm the production’s quality and give detailed analytics on any flaws. Solutions for defect detection powered by AI are very affordable and cost-effective when compared to the standard procedures.
- Assure Standards of Safety and Security
The danger of harm is significantly higher than in traditional manufacturing environments at oil and gas plants since they work in such critical situations. Workers in oil refineries must be mindful of several moving parts, work in a variety of temperatures, and occasionally breathe poisonous gases. Injuries and financial penalties might come from failing to adhere to adequate safety protocols. One such event involved a sulfuric acid spill that injured two workers at the Tesoro Martinez Refinery facility in California. Officials from Tesoro described the incident and said it might have been avoided if the workers had been following the right safety procedures.
Safety regulations that are enforceable by law must be followed by businesses. Heavy fines are imposed for breaking these rules. Despite the abundance of data available to monitor safety concerns, most activities are still manual, such as manually reviewing camera feeds or performing physical safety sweeps, to ensure that precautions are still effective. Existing approaches simply make sure workers are donning Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) at the plant’s entrance, not all day long.
An AI-powered computer vision system can keep an eye on the job site to make sure that employees are strictly adhering to safety standards. An AI algorithm is fed the camera data, which is then examined to send alarms and pro-active recommendations. Even the smallest compliance deviations can trigger an alarm from AI solutions to management.
- Lower Manufacturing and Maintenance Costs
Oil or gas that has been extracted using oil rigs is kept in a central location before being dispersed via pipelines. Oil and gas components frequently experience material deterioration and corrosion as a result of varying temperatures and environmental factors. Corrosion can weaken the pipeline by causing component distortion, which leads to faded threading. Failure to address this issue could cause catastrophic harm that would halt all production. One of the largest issues facing the sector is this, and businesses use corrosion engineers to handle and monitor component health in order to prevent corrosive activities.
Take the BP Oil Spill and Macondo Disaster as examples. The US government spent $850 million on cleanup after 4.9 million barrels of oil leaked on April 20, 2010. One of the largest oil and gas incidents was this one. According to post-analysis study studies, one of the incident’s primary causes was improper maintenance function. Examining the state of the equipment was one of the maintenance requirements. Also, it was discovered that the emergency system was inoperable and disconnected.
Such occurrences can be avoided with the use of AI technologies. By monitoring several factors with the use of knowledge graphs and predictive intelligence, AI and IoT technologies may identify corrosion symptoms and notify pipeline operators to potential problems. By tackling corrosion risks pro-actively in this way, businesses may also analyse knowledge graphs to study various machinery downtimes and forecast the best time to do maintenance tasks. Companies can then prepare for downtime and make adjustments.
- Use Analytics to Improve Your Choices
Oil and gas companies deal with a lot of data generated by manufacturing processes, but they are unable to take use of the vast amounts of data stashed away in data silos due to a lack of appropriate analytics tools. Businesses can hire data engineers to manually analyse data to derive insights, but this is a time- and money-constrained alternative in addition to being impossible for data engineers to access all the data generated in a single operational day.
Applications that use AI and big data to extract intelligence and meaning from a wealth of operational data. To extract predictions from massive data sets, artificial intelligence can segment the information and look for trends or discrepancies.
In order to produce intelligent recommendations based on business demands, AI algorithms analyse multiple data streams from various sensors and machinery of various plants or full Geoscience data. Geoscientists can better understand the whole processes and operations thanks to these in-depth insights, which improves their ability to make strategic judgements. This increases operational effectiveness, lowers costs, and even lowers the danger of failure.
- Increase Help with Voice Chatbots
Virtual agents and chatbots are helpful to field operators, and by adding a voice-enabled component, operators may carry chatbots with them while out in the field. The list of use-cases for voice assistants for field workers is shown below.
Operators must have a free hand since they frequently move from one location to another. Operators can receive queries and status updates from voice-activated chatbots while using hands-free voice commands.
In addition to pulling real-time data, handling duties like answering support requests, and providing pertinent instructions from an internal knowledgebase, chatbots are wonderful sources of information.
A central location for historical data is created by maintaining an intelligent chatbot. Use a chatbot to bring new hires up to speed more quickly. Employee transition in the oil and gas sector is the biggest barrier for the business compared to other sectors.
In each of the aforementioned scenarios, operators can receive additional guidance and real-time access to crucial data. When a machine malfunctions, operators can ask a chatbot for advice on how to fix it or any other question.
- Get Fresh Information About Oil and Gas Exploration
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that domestic crude oil production in the US will surpass 11 million barrels per day by 2050 as the country’s energy sector continues to expand.
This makes it abundantly evident that exploration efforts must be stepped up. Despite the fact that this policy and aim significantly enhance the business, a fundamental factor—the expensive and time-consuming nature of oil and gas exploration—remains a source of worry for the sector. Exploration of hydrocarbons is crucial to get a thorough picture of what is under the earth’s surface. The conventional method of exploratory geophysics is very expensive and imprecise.
Using autonomous AI-powered robots for exploration is a wonderful way to simplify this procedure and collect exact data. Leading oil and gas corporations collect seismic photos with drones while information is extracted using image processing algorithms. On the basis of these analyses, investigations are conducted. This procedure reduces the risk to humans while ensuring data accuracy. The latest Oil and Gas courses in Kerala are based on the AI technologies and sophisticated machinery.