EXPLORATION • DRILLING • FIELD SERVICES
TELEMETRY: PRESENT AND FUTURE
Matthew Hawkridge on using RTUs to optimise performance in the oil & gas sector T
o turn a profit in a modern oil & gas company, management teams need to consider a broader range of factors than ever before. Remote telemetry
units (RTUs) can be used to meet growing demand in this sector for information from the field. For modern oil & gas companies, the old method of increasing production whatever the cost is no longer a viable business strategy. Companies must now manage reliability and downtime to minimise interruptions and increase efficiency. Tere is also a need to constantly monitor the environmental impact of any operations and above all else, ensure the safety of staff and the general public. Te most valuable tool in meeting this new range of key performance indicators (KPIs) is information; and the most appropriate device to collect and process this information is the RTU. For decades now, RTUs have been a key component in the data chain from the I/O to the CEO. Tese devices have
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a longstanding track record of sitting on remote wellheads, pipelines and offshore platforms, collecting, storing and acting upon data, regardless of the surrounding environment. To date, most RTUs have been used to collect and log operational data and perform local control. Tis very same device is also the ideal solution to collect and act upon the new wave of information that is needed for a modern, efficient and profitable organisation. Te RTU is a field mount computer. It collects data locally, acts upon it immediately, reports data to the central supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) control room and maintains a local historical store as an additional backup.
The TBox LT2 offers excellent functionality from a single, compact rugged unit
CHALLENGING LOCATIONS In remote locations, communications may be slow, intermittent or unreliable. Te RTU is the device at the edge, sitting between the control room and the field instruments, that provides a low latency
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