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ARC gets really excited anytime it can blog about major IOCs such as Shell or BP that are deploying IIoT enabled solutions in their oil & gas operations. In these times of low oil prices, almost everyone in the oil patch is looking for positive examples of how technology can help them improve production, realize operational excellence, and/or improve collaboration among the various internal and external ecosystems. Recently, Shell may have made a breakthrough with the Internet of Things and its oilfields in rural Nigeria.
A Royal Dutch Shell project to install IoT sensors over its 80 oilfields in the western African nation that will produce upwards of 600,000 barrels of oil per day, or 21 percent of the country’s oil-bearing capacity. In a perfect world, it would be ideal for Shell to be able to remotely monitor the output and performance of each individual well, but most of these sites are located in the Niger Delta, which is not impassable by modern means but can slow down maintenance and drilling crews during transit. Moreover, spotty network infrastructure in the area, combined with the rough terrain’s effect on weak signals, pushed Shell and its partner organization, Upland Consulting, to choose a low-power, long-range IoT network solution put out by San Diego-based Ingenu, known as random phase multiple access (RPMA), to bridge the many gaps.
While oil production may be a multi-billion dollar enterprise, Shell’s investment in Ingenu’s RPMA sensors was anything but. Each sensor can project and receive signals in a 450-square-mile area, and their small sizes — no larger than shoeboxes and attachable to existing infrastructure — meant that Shell only had to spend $87,000 to monitor its entire oil production capacity in Nigeria and there was a lack of human resource as well. Not having people on site to support these sensors seems entirely the point. Indeed, Shell saw immediate results after installing the eight modules and collecting near-constant data on well production rates. RCR reports a return of $1 million on the $87,000 it spent buying and installing the IoT system in rural Nigeria. ARC believes that adoption of IIoT-enabled solutions should skyrocket if more companies realize similar ROI success stories; Wow, that is an ROI of almost 1,050%!!
A Royal Dutch Shell project to install IoT sensors over its 80 oilfields in the western African nation that will produce upwards of 600,000 barrels of oil per day, or 21 percent of the country’s oil-bearing capacity. In a perfect world, it would be ideal for Shell to be able to remotely monitor the output and performance of each individual well, but most of these sites are located in the Niger Delta, which is not impassable by modern means but can slow down maintenance and drilling crews during transit. Moreover, spotty network infrastructure in the area, combined with the rough terrain’s effect on weak signals, pushed Shell and its partner organization, Upland Consulting, to choose a low-power, long-range IoT network solution put out by San Diego-based Ingenu, known as random phase multiple access (RPMA), to bridge the many gaps.
While oil production may be a multi-billion dollar enterprise, Shell’s investment in Ingenu’s RPMA sensors was anything but. Each sensor can project and receive signals in a 450-square-mile area, and their small sizes — no larger than shoeboxes and attachable to existing infrastructure — meant that Shell only had to spend $87,000 to monitor its entire oil production capacity in Nigeria and there was a lack of human resource as well. Not having people on site to support these sensors seems entirely the point. Indeed, Shell saw immediate results after installing the eight modules and collecting near-constant data on well production rates. RCR reports a return of $1 million on the $87,000 it spent buying and installing the IoT system in rural Nigeria. ARC believes that adoption of IIoT-enabled solutions should skyrocket if more companies realize similar ROI success stories; Wow, that is an ROI of almost 1,050%!!