Role of IoT in Oil and Gas Pipelines Management

Monitoring networks facilitated by the Internet of Things can enhance oil and gas pipeline management practices by reducing costs and downtime, minimizing environmental impact, improving safety, and ensuring regulatory compliance.

FREMONT, CA: Pipelines are indispensable to the oil and gas industry in upstream, midstream, or downstream operations. Despite being regarded as the safest and quickest method to transport dangerous substances, these essential assets are not error-free. Pipes are prone to multiple structural failures under the progressive influence of material flows and variable environmental conditions. Corrosion, fissures, leaks, and debonding are the most common issues. Significant product loss and pipeline leaks can have devastating, irreversible effects on the environment, wildlife, and the safety of workers.

The oil and gas industry is compelled to change due to increasing pressure from stricter regulations, price volatility, aggressive environmental movements, and a paradigm shift toward renewables. Progressive businesses have progressively adopted digitalization to improve asset management and prevent costly spills. Pipeline monitoring is not novel to the industry. Traditional SCADA systems cannot provide the required level of asset granularity for hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometers-long pipelines. Numerous pipeline systems began at remote exploration locations with unreliable or nonexistent terrestrial networks.

Monitoring options are restricted to labor-intensive manual checks or costly satellite subscriptions, neither of which enables the desired level of granularity in data collection. Even when available, terrestrial connectivity such as cellular and Wi-Fi is power-hungry and burdens terminals with costly data plans. It makes implementing and maintaining a large-scale monitoring network prohibitively expensive for many businesses. With new sensor and communications technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the game by making asset monitoring more straightforward and affordable.

Sensor data can be transmitted to a local HMI for an immediate response, a central management system, and a cloud platform for long-term storage and analytics. IoT-enabled networks can improve oil and gas pipeline management practices in several ways, including reducing costs and outages, minimizing environmental impact, and enhancing safety and regulatory compliance. With access to pipeline integrity data around the clock, any anomalies or deviations can be reported immediately. Ultrasonic and acoustic sensors, for instance, can detect abnormal sound waves that indicate fracture initiation, growth, and delamination.

Magnetic sensors can detect a change in the wall thickness of a pipeline caused by corrosion. Smart sensors can communicate the location and severity of early-stage harm and its stage to identify and expedite necessary actions. Detecting damages from the outset simplifies repair, resulting in lower costs and less disruption associated with maintenance. Predictive maintenance strategies can prevent failures by accumulating data on the pipeline's integrity and operating conditions over time. Developing defect growth prediction and risk assessment models is possible by analyzing previous failure modes.

Long-term integrity deterioration assessment facilitates estimating a pipe's actual remaining service life. It enables the identification of structural constraints and the strategic planning of maintenance and component replacement to prevent damages. Predictive maintenance not only aids in avoiding costly unscheduled downtime but also redundant planned downtime, which companies with schedule-based maintenance strategies wish to avoid. An IoT-based network for condition monitoring reduces the need for routine field inspections and eliminates manual data recording. Human error reduces costs and increases worker productivity by allowing them to concentrate on more essential tasks.

IoT sensor data enables businesses to analyze and comprehend pipeline behavior under various external conditions, such as structural loads, weather variations, soil characteristics, moisture levels, and pH. The information is essential for enhancing future engineering and construction practices to maximize the pipeline's practical service life. Sensor data can validate the integrity of older pipelines in service for decades for continued safe operation. IoT enables unprecedented asset visibility that exceeds the capabilities of traditional industrial networks. Deploying an IoT solution does not necessarily necessitate a substantial up-front investment or risky, burdensome modifications to existing infrastructure.