Everyday we rely on the oil and gas industry to fuel the global economy and drive our way of life. Practically every aspect of our day-to-day existence revolves around this billion-dollar industry. As such, proper maintenance of the complex equipment and specialized machinery needed to keep the entire supply chain running without interruption is key. Below, we’ll briefly explore a few of the challenging operating conditions within the industry and different types of maintenance which are utilized to support equipment reliability.
The demands of procuring, transporting and refining oil are wide-ranging. One particularly taxing aspect is the extremely challenging operating conditions. From elevated temperatures reaching up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit to the abrasive particulate matter found in crude oil and natural gas condensate, equipment components must be able to perform while under intense conditions. What’s more, these expensive, leading-edge components must surpass these challenges while still operating efficiently and safely.
Operators are tasked with maintaining equipment across various applications that must withstand these conditions. What might that maintenance entail? The primary approach is known as preventive maintenance, or PM. PM involves strategically scheduling upkeep based on usage or time passed. Upkeep tasks may include replacing or repairing parts, cleaning or lubrication, as well as partial or even complete overhauls.
Put simply, this method requires machinery to be checked over while still in working order to prevent unplanned downtime, instead of reactively when equipment fails. Of course, PM is not an exact science. The approach could run the risk of under- or over-maintaining the assets by relying on manufacturer guidelines and not properly accounting for contextual information.
Another method is predictive maintenance. Meant to improve upon existing PM methods, this guided approach goes a step beyond by equipping assets with condition-monitoring tools and training asset managers in the latest industry techniques. That way, asset managers can keep critical assets running at peak performance through careful monitoring and analysis.
When done well, the information and operational insight gained through the analysis enables an engineer to predict the monitored asset’s point of failure, which streamlines the necessary repair or replacement. Predictive maintenance can be seen as more cost-effective since it lowers maintenance frequency while still averting unplanned reactive maintenance and subsequent equipment downtime.
As technology advances, oil and gas companies are working to improve upon these maintenance strategies and others types of vru equipment like them. Such improvement is crucial in ensuring operational efficiency, protecting worker safety and safeguarding the environment from potentially catastrophic failures.
For further information on the importance of equipment maintenance and reliability in the oil and gas industry, please see the accompanying resource.
Infographic created by Smartcorr Systems
