According to The Bureau of Transportation, four states are responsible for nearly 75 percent of domestic oil production. Texas was the largest oil producing state at 1.6 billion barrels in 2018, accounting for 47.8 percent of total U.S. oil production, while North Dakota was a distance second at 461.5 million barrels (13.7 percent), followed by New Mexico’s 249.0 million barrels (7.4 percent) and Oklahoma’s 200.7 million barrels (6.0 percent).
Monitoring and control of remote equipment and sites is often a prerequisite for safe and efficient operations in the oil and gas industry. A wide variety of equipment and SCADA solutions are available to enable alarms and real-time monitoring, but use is limited to areas where affordable wireless coverage exists. Space Data’s SkySite® Network offers the coverage ubiquity of satellite systems at a more affordable price, allowing more widespread use of automation and alarming.
Some of the key oil and gas industry applications enabled by Space Data’s Spectrum network include:
Alarm Monitoring
There are substantial legal and operational consequences for failure to detect events such as an overflowing liquid storage tank, a failed compressor or a corroded transmission pipeline. The presence of a cost-effective, ubiquitous communications service helps to ensure that these events can be detected and prevented.
Production Automation
The traditional method of ensuring the uptime of oil and gas wells was to employ field personnel known as “pumpers” to physically drive to each well. Today, automated systems using wireless technology allow energy companies to gather production data from remote sites and collect it in a centralized data center. Such real-time data promotes greater production uptime, more efficient operations, better asset maintenance and higher profits.
Asset Tracking
Heavy equipment such as compressors and drilling rigs is often leased and moved from site to site. Field service vehicles, as well as frac tanks, are constantly moving across wide areas. Using Space Data’s wireless data services and GPS solutions, equipment and vehicles can be instantaneously tracked on a Web-based map.
Cathodic Protection
Cathodic protection systems are most commonly used to protect steel water/fuel pipelines and storage tanks, steel pier piles, ships, offshore oil platforms and onshore oil-well casings. Space Data offers a low-cost solution that:
- Remotely monitors a wide variety of rectifier applications.
- Is simple to install, calibrate and operate.
- Provides immediate notification of rectifier issues over our expansive coverage area.
- Automates weekly and monthly rectifier runtime reports with notification of min / max anomalies and power outages.
- Is designed to be extremely versatile and user-friendly.
- Can be quickly and easily configured from the Web site.
- Is designed for harsh environmental conditions.
Field Communications
The combination of this industry standard protocol with the extremely wide area coverage of the SkySite® Network makes possible reliable communications with and between field personnel throughout their assigned locations and routes. Whether your application requires basic two-way messaging or integrated development supporting smartphones, tablet PCs and other IoT devices. Space Data has the ability to work with you and other partners to develop a solution that fits your needs.
