How to Improve Safety on Remote Sites

Not only that, but their remote locations can often be dangerous and not particularly conducive to the health and safety of their workers.

To many it may seem that hazardous working conditions are the norm in these environments, but there are safety precautions you can put in place to minimize risk and increase the safety of remote sites.

Introducing IoT As a Safety Measure

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a hot topic in the technology industry, but its benefits have been spreading throughout other industries, too, including the oil and gas sector.

The phenomenon involves connecting physical devices, equipment, and everyday objects to the internet so that the devices can interact and communicate with others through the web (for a simple example, think of a wireless printer connected to WiFi).

More importantly, the connected devices and equipment can be monitored and controlled remotely by accessing data in the cloud.

How IoT Will Help Improve Safety On Oil and Gas Sites

Hazardous working environments are ideal for IoT technologies because these allow workers to remotely monitor operations without having to physically be on site or travel anywhere.

This is particularly beneficial in cases where workers aren’t sure what state the rig is in or whether a potentially dangerous issue has occurred.

Oil and gas companies are starting to take note of this.

In fact, according to a McKinsey report, IoT has a potential economic impact of $930 billion from mining, oil, and gas companies alone in the next ten years.

If you’re not already leveraging it or thinking about leveraging it, you might find your site slipping behind your competitors in terms of revenue and output.

But safety is the most prevalent issue that IoT is helping to solve at the moment.

It’s doing this by:

All-hours Availability

Oil isn’t found in easily accessible locations and, with safety regulations getting tighter by the day, it’s becoming more and more difficult to extract and produce oil and gas efficiently and safely.

On top of this, the price of equipment maintenance is continuously rising.

IoT gives oil and gas companies the opportunity to be available around the clock via remote monitoring to determine and manage any spills, emergency shutdowns, and other remote field issues.

Predictive maintenance

Oil and gas sites need to be watched closely at all times. Tank levels need to be measured daily, flow rates need to be monitored around the clock, and pressure needs to be kept at the right level.

As a result, the machines and equipment suffer regular wear and tear which often requires routine servicing.

IoT and remote services help site managers react to problems through what’s known as predictive maintenance.

Workers can be alerted to the declining condition of a piece of equipment. If a coil is running too hot, it’s likely to fail relatively soon and is in urgent need of a technician to diagnose and remedy the issue. IoT helps oil and gas companies remotely monitor their equipment and make important decisions that could affect the safety of the site and its workers.

Adopting IoT applications in the oil and gas sectors can improve safety in a number of ways, from allowing workers to carry out predictive maintenance before equipment fails, to promoting remote diagnoses that means workers don’t need to be there physically on a potentially dangerous site.

Learn more about our solutions for the oil and gas sector

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