Offshore staff
SAN FRANCISCO, California – BP and GE have introduced Plant Operations Advisor (POA), a new digital solution designed to improve the efficiency, reliability, and safety of BP’s oil and gas production operations.
BP is using POA to manage the performance of one of its platforms in theGulf of Mexico and, subject to a successful pilot, will be deployed next year to other facilities around the world.
The tool, built onGE’s Predix operating system, was created as part of a development partnership the two companies announced in January.
Lorenzo Simonelli, president and CEO ofGE Oil & Gas, said: “We are taking a big step forward together during this time of digital transformation, deploying what we’ve co-created over the past year to drive the kind of productivity improvements that the oil and gas industry needs. The global deployment is expected to be the largest-scale deployment of GE’s Predix-powered APM [asset performance management] technology to date.”
POA will help prevent unplanned downtime and improve facility reliability by helping engineering teams respond quickly to issues as they occur in real time.
Ahmed Hashmi, BP’s Head of Upstream Technology, said: “By bringing together some of the best minds at GE and BP, we were able to develop this innovative digital product and are confident that it will have a significant impact on our business. When fully deployed, these advanced digital technologies will change the way we work and improve the integrity and performance of our assets around the globe.”
Using GE’s Predix and APM capabilities, the new technology integrates operational data from producing oil and gas facilities to deliver notifications and analytical reports to engineers with the aim of helping them to identify operational performance issues before they become significant.
The system is said to provide simplified access to a variety of live data feeds and includes visualization capabilities including a real-time facility threat display. It also incorporates an extensive case management capability to support learnings from prior operational issues.
GE said it intends to offer this technology, which combines big data, cloud hosting, and analytics on both individual pieces of equipment as well as the entire production system, as an APM solution that will be available to the industry.
11/15/2016
