Digital Pipeline Monitoring

Challenges

Currently, approximately 85% of oil and gas worldwide is carried through complex pipelines, making it the most important method of transportation. Secure and stable pipeline transportation is therefore crucial to the end-to-end oil and gas production process. Several items must be considered. First, oil and gas pipelines span wide areas and transverse extreme terrains. Under traditional pipeline management and control models, workers have to patrol alongside the pipelines to inspect for cracks or other events. These inspections are labour-intensive and time-consuming, and often incomplete as teams are usually only able to cover key sites and main lines because of the distances involved. Second, a lot of office systems including scheduling, conferencing, and telephone systems are used in pipeline transportation management. These systems often run independent of each other with high Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs and affect the efficiency of communication and decision-making. Third, pipeline transportation usually involves a number of risks such as pipeline corrosion, natural disasters, and incidents such as civil works and oil and gas theft. In the Nigerian context, pipeline vandalisation, hot tapping and natural damage due to corrosion is at a very high level.

Solutions

To meet the continuing challenges faced by pipeline bursts, hot tapping, leaking and damage challenges, a Digital Pipeline Solution based on a long-term analysis of the communications requirements of the oil and gas industry long-distance pipelines is an essential tool. To account for the harsh environment and to facilitate Operation and Maintenance (O&M), this solution provides three layers, including infrastructure network, convergence communications, and comprehensive security. With multiple network coverage modes and communication methods, it delivers reliable communications services, an integrated office communication platform, and an intelligent security surveillance system that runs alongside the long-distance pipelines. Additionally, this solution works with existing Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems which enables oil and gas companies to immediately mitigate risks and improve productivity with comprehensive information about the entire pipeline.