Employee layoffs, dwindling investments and limited budgets are the result of falling oil prices. The oil and gas industry is being challenged to adapt and optimize performance in every way possible to maintain profitability.

Every oil and gas company is looking to increase production without increasing resources. And every oil and gas software-as-a-service vendor is looking to provide the latest in production optimization software. Although both parties have heard of artificial intelligence (AI) and its promise to expedite processes, this modern technology is just beginning to graze the surface of what’s possible.

The four biggest areas that lease operators will benefit from near-term automation and longer-term AI are: well service, mobile work orders, compliance and run tickets.

Well service

It does no good to count the number of stops a pumper makes or to measure the distance between them. That simply measures what needs fixing or adjusting, where those tools are and how long it will take a crew to get from the last broken well to the next one.

Automated intelligence algorithms apply field intelligence that prioritizes well visits to significantly enhance pumper productivity. For example, pumpers allocate their time to wells demanding high-priority assistance with event-based algorithms and location awareness aids.

Oil and gas companies that have embraced technology are presenting strategic recommendations for specific well sites requiring immediate attention. Without this dynamic awareness of well health and location, pumpers end up treating all wells the same.

Mobile work orders

The traditional method for drafting and completing work orders entailed pumpers to head to their office, print and fill out a form, and send it in to headquarters. This paper process lacks efficiency and involves too many platforms creating fragmented and outdated data.

Automation enables operations staff to monitor results and report from the field via mobile work orders. The use of data and automation of information on pumps permits performance optimization. Automation minimizes errors by housing all data in a centralized location.

Compliance

Before automation efforts, companies faced important reporting obligations while producing oil and gas. This required operations staff to spend a large portion of their day collecting data in multiple systems, resulting in high overhead costs and difficult-to-locate information.

Automation empowers companies to generate compliance reports without the need for extra personnel because gathered data are in a centralized location within the platform. Siloed information housed in various places is no longer acceptable. Automation is the new highest standard for field operations in the oil and gas industry, partly because it makes searching for reports simple.

Run tickets

The industry runs on tickets. Sometimes simple data entry mistakes can have a huge impact. These run tickets are checked manually, making it a ripe opportunity for automation.

Seven Lakes can equip pumpers with a simple way to photograph their run tickets and automatically translate and upload those data with 99% accuracy. No more manual entry is needed. Users get much better data quality, better accounting and more speed. To do this, users need more than simple character recognition software. Using the TensorFlow technology, each ticket learns from the first and applies that knowledge to the next.

Leading E&P firms realized that antiquated systems or processes severely restrict their ability to cut costs effectively. Given the significant cost savings that can result from automating processes by adopting field intelligence software makes sense from a functional and financial perspective.