Interest in autonomous oil and gas operations has risen over the last few years, which is no surprise to Vineet Lasrado, global solutions leader-upstream, Honeywell Process Solutions. Nearly all of Honeywell’s customers in the sector have been moving to remote operations for several years, and for good reason, Lasrado told attendees of a breakout session at this week’s Honeywell Users Group conference in Dallas.
“Oil and gas operators are pioneers in remote, centralized operations, particular offshore,” Lasrado said. “It’s a natural fit with a lot of natural benefits.”
When it comes to the future of upstream production, the industry is now taking it a few steps further and moving from expertise-based decision-making to closed-loop, autonomous operations that combine artificial intelligence (AI), digital twins and automation. While there’s a firm understanding of the benefits of these technologies among upstream operators, moving from desire to implementation is another story. Lasrado’s group is at the ready with not only advice, but also solutions.
Before operators begin to engage autonomous operations, they must understand the proven path to success. Lasrado mapped out five elements of a successful autonomous operation including control and optimization, intelligence assets, expert people, integrated control operations and sustainability.
Control and optimize
Lasrado made it clear that control and optimization is the core of Honeywell’s expertise. The ultimate goal of these elements for oil and gas operators making the shift to autonomous production is to bridge technologies such as AI to output and profitability. That means achieving 100% constraint adherence to avoid incidents and autonomously coordinate production between wells and topside assets.
AI-enabled well control has evolved steadily. It’s advanced from single-well optimization to coordination among multiple wells and midstream assets, such as pipelines. The next generation of enterprise wellhead optimization technology offers real-time coordination across multiple process units in a closed loop.
Intelligent assets
Another key to successful autonomous operation is the installation of intelligent assets. Intelligent assets enable operators to identify failing equipment sooner and allow for predictive maintenance.
“There’s really no limit to what we can connect,” Lasrado says of intelligent assets, adding that equipment and instrumentation is getting smarter all the time.
Intelligent assets on offshore oil and gas rigs have shown notable benefits. Lasrado said they have led to about 13% maintenance cost reductions and increased reliability among Honeywell customers. He also noted 5% improvements in asset utilization and 8% annual energy savings among oil and gas customers.
Expert people
Lasrado admitted it seems a bit contradictory to worry about workers’ experience and expertise when talking about autonomous operations, since the concept inherently reduces workforce numbers. But he was quick to remind the audience that most companies still place a high value on the human element of well operations.
“We know that most companies are looking to augment their staff,” he said.
Autonomous technologies accelerate the time it takes to build staff expertise, while reducing human errors. “Make every worker an elite, digital athlete,” Lasrado said.
By harnessing technology, companies have created more local expertise at scale. Honeywell customers have seen a 50% improvement in on-task time, more than 50% reduction in time to competency, a 90% reduction in rework and a 30% reduction in plant incidents and accidents, Lasrado said.
Lasrado also showed during the session that hands-on learning in an immersive virtual reality environment integrated with an operator training simulator to be four-times faster than other training modalities and leads to a 50% higher retention of knowledge. Meanwhile, it makes people’s work more efficient. Predictive technologies let workers plan ahead and have been shown to achieve 60% reductions in task preparation time. In addition, guided digital work using intelligent wearables as well as generative AI access to information and insights reduces errors, rework and safety incidents while enabling jobs to get done by up to 40% faster, according to Lasrado.
End-to-end emissions management
Meanwhile, Honeywell’s enterprise level, end-to-end Emission Management suite integrates data from multiple disparate sources into single system of record designed to help streamline the measurement, monitoring, reporting and reduction of emissions.
It offers a wide range of decarbonization analytics, including real-time identification and location of fugitive emissions. Sensing solutions using camera technology and wireless swarm sensors also keep constant watch on wayward venting. The suite also includes energy efficiency, carbon capture and hydrogen transition technologies.
While oil and gas upstream operators continue to face headwinds on efficiency, they keep evolving toward autonomous technologies to help them through the energy transition. Luckily, there is plenty of technology evolving with them to help the cause.
