IoT-Based Monitoring Networks’ Role in Oil and Gas Industries

Oil and gas aren’t the only commodities that have to be moved and monitored, Allison and Mandler point out. Water may need to be transported too.

Water is used in many phases of oil and gas extractions, in a volume that the authors estimate at “a few billion gallons per day.” The water needs to be transported to the extraction sites, a process that requires monitoring. The post-process water will then have to be transported to disposal or treatment facilities. Because the water is likely to be unfriendly to the environment, its movements need to be monitored closely. 

All-In-One or À La Carte Transportation Monitoring

How a natural resource company implements a grid-based transportation monitoring system depends on its currently installed production monitoring systems and the maturity of those monitoring operations. Some of the larger vendors may provide all-inclusive IoT packages that include transportation and transmission monitoring, while there are some application suppliers who cater smaller outfits and may be able to provide only the transportation modules.

Hetherington sees GE and Schneider as two of the foremost providers of IoT-based oil and gas transportation management systems.

A lack of standards and common protocols is an issue for this product category, as it is with many other energy industry applications that need to traverse private and public grids. “That’s one of the big challenges,” said Hetherington. “Getting data from a different system is always challenging.”