As new domestic wells start to age and production declines, more efficiency will be required in operating, which in turn drives more interest in leveraging field telemetry, automation and remote monitoring.
Telemetry is field equipment that can measure or control, or both. Automation adds the ability to automate the control of a well function, for example optimizing the operation of a pump-off controller (POC). Remote monitoring adds the ability to remotely track what is happening at the well, such as tracking pressures, flow rates, and even tank levels. Some systems not only have the ability to simply take readings, but actually control well functions remotely – for example, shut down a pump if a tank has reached capacity.
A number of NeoFirma clients have invested in telemetry, automation and remote monitoring systems, in addition to leveraging NeoFirma, which is often confused as a “one or the other” type situation. NeoFirma and those systems compliment each other, as telemetry software isn’t designed to do what NeoFirma does, and vice versa.
However, NeoFirma is able to take a feed for information, say total flow rate or average pressure over 24 hours, and combine it with information a pumper would capture allowing the combined data set to be used together throughout the E&P organization.
We’ve also worked with leading midstream gas purchasers to provide a very useful feed of gas-purchasing data from the sales meter to view both check and sales in one report, in near real-time.
As the upstream production and operations software space matures, I predict you’ll see more marriages that take the best of what both systems provide. However, the vast majority of telemetry and automation software in the market – like most upstream software in general – is built on older, legacy systems that are overdue for a major re-write. Most of these software players have been postponing this expensive, high-risk exercise as long as they can, but are risking being left behind as new players assume this market.
Fortunately, NeoFirma is built from the ground up on modern development standards that are open, reusable, and offer strong capabilities to integrate with other systems and share valuable information.
If you are interested in learning more about how NeoFirma can improve your operational efficiencies, please contact us today.
