IR (Industrial Revolution) 4.0 is a hot topic. IR Oil & Gas 4.0 attempts to
apply IR 4.0 to upstream, midstream and downstream. However, these attempts
appear to be in their infancy.
This is according to an excellent review in Computers in Industry, October 2019. Excerpts from the review appear below.
RECOMMENDATION: Find and read the entire article at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334039628_Oil_and_Gas_40_era_A_systematic_review_and_outlook
If you are new to the concept, there is no better way to get up to speed. Even if you are conversant in IR 4.0, it could be helpful to use the review to get a bird’s eye view of the effort. For one thing, it might help you communicate the concept to your CEO in terms that she/he can understand.
///////
Computers in Industry
Volume 111, October 2019, Pages 68-90
Oil and Gas 4.0 era: A systematic review and outlook
Author links open overlay panel Hongfang Lu a, c, Lijun Guo b, Mohammadamin Azimi a, Kun Huang caTrenchless Technology Center, Louisiana Tech University, 599 Dan Reneau Dr., Engineering Annex, Ruston, LA 71270, United StatesbChina Center for Information Industry Development, Beijing 100048, ChinacState Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compind.2019.06.007Get rights and content
Highlights
•This is the first systematic review of the academic paper on “Oil and Gas 4.0”.
•Core technologies and possible application scenarios in “Oil and Gas 4.0” are introduced.
•The contents of some new projects in “Oil and Gas 4.0” are introduced in detail.
•Opportunities, difficulties, future trends and strategies are proposed for the implementation of “Oil and Gas 4.0”.
Abstract
Recently, with the development of “Industry 4.0”, “Oil and Gas 4.0” has also been put on the agenda in the past two years. Some companies and experts believe that “Oil and Gas 4.0” can completely change the status quo of the oil and gas industry, which can bring huge benefits because it accelerates the digitization and intelligentization of the oil and gas industry. However, the “Oil and Gas 4.0” is still in its infancy. Therefore, this paper systematically introduces the concept and core technologies of “Oil and Gas 4.0”, such as big data and the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Moreover, this paper analyzes typical application scenarios of the oil and gas industry chain (upstream, midstream and downstream) through examples, such as intelligent oilfield, intelligent pipeline, and intelligent refinery. It is concluded that the essence of “Oil and Gas 4.0” is a data-driven intelligence system based on the highly digitization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first academic peer-reviewed paper on the “Oil and Gas 4.0” era, aiming to let more oil and gas industry personnel understand its benefits and application scenarios, so as to better apply it to practical engineering in the future. In the discussion section, this paper also analyzes the opportunities and difficulties that may be brought about by the “Oil and Gas 4.0” era. Finally, relevant policy recommendations are proposed.
Keywords
Oil and Gas 4.0; Big data; Digitization; IIoT; Intelligentization
Hongfang Lu received his B.E. degree in oil and gas storage and transportation engineering from Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China, in 2013 and his M.S. degree in oil and gas storage and transportation engineering from Southwest Petroleum University in 2016. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree in civil engineering at Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA, USA. From 2012 to 2016, he worked as a graduate student with State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China. From 2017 to the present, he is a Graduate Assistant with the Trenchless Technology Center, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA, USA. His research interests include trenchless technology, energy technology, pipeline technology, computer science and related interdisciplinary. Mr. Lu is a student member of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). Mr. Lu was a recipient of the NASSCO Jeffrey D. Ralston Memorial Scholarship in 2018 and the Heather Berry Scholarship in 2018.
Lijun Guo received her B.S. degree in Measurement and Control Technology and Instruments from China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China, in 2004 and the Ph.D. Degree in Engineering in Microelectronics and Solid-State Electronics from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, in 2017. She is currently a researcher at China Center for Information Industry Development, mainly engaged in the research of software industry planning and implementation evaluation, focusing on the new generation of information technology, such as “Internet Plus”, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and Internet of Things (IoT).
Mohammadamin Azimi received his B.Sc. degree in civil engineering from Razi University (Kermanshah-Iran) Governmental University in 2007 and his M.Sc. degree in civil engineering (Structure) from Kurdistan University (Sanandaj-Iran) Governmental University in 2010. He received his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering (Structure-Earthquake) from University Teknologi of Malaysia (UTM) in 2014. He is a former faculty member at Department of Structure and Materials, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Technology Malaysia (UTM). He is currently a Research Scientist/Adjunct Professor of Civil Engineering at Trenchless Technology Center (TTC), College of Engineering and Science, Louisiana Tech University. His research interests include the smart and innovative structures, green and innovative concrete, sustainable and green technology. Dr. Azimi has received several National and International awards for his inventions in field of innovative engineering, such as “Intelligent Earthquake Resistant Beam-Column Connectors (SEER-iSPRING)”, and i-FLOOD (Intelligent Flood Management Software). His latest invention “LOCKBLOCK (Multi-Functional Green Interlocking Mortarless Concrete Block)” manage to win several international award such as “Best American Inventor” Award, Gold, and Special Award from SVIIF 2018-Silicon Valley.
Kun Huang received his B.E. degree in oil and gas storage and transportation engineering from Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China, in 1985 and his M.E. degree in computer application from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in 1998. From 1985 to 1999, he worked as a lecturer with School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China. From 2001 to 2008, he worked as an associate professor with the School of Petroleum Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University. From 2008 to the present, he is a professor with the School of Petroleum Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University. His research interests include oil and gas pipeline engineering, oil tank design and management. Mr. Huang is currently a member of the Expert Committee of China Natural Gas Industry Association, an expert of Sichuan Petroleum and Natural Gas Production Safety and a member of the Natural Gas Industry Editorial Committee.
source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166361519302064
///////
Industry 4.0 aims to use information technology to promote industrial change, which is the intelligence era (Wikipedia, 2019a). Industry 4.0 products are the result of deep integration of industrialization and informatization (Gilchrist, 2016), the strategic framework of Industry 4.0 is shown in Fig.1(a) (Hankel and Rexroth, 2015), it has four major themes: smart factory, smart production, smart logistics and smart services (Kagermann et al., 2013). Among them, the smart factory is built on the digital factory, which uses the Internet of Things (IoT), big data and monitoring technology to enhance information management services to improve the controllability of the production process. Smart production refers to artificial intelligence combined with image, production and equipment data to achieve multi-dimensional intelligent production. Smart logistic utilizes integrated intelligent technology to enable the logistics system to judge and solve certain problems in logistics through thinking, perception, learning, and reasoning. Smart services also use a variety of intelligent integration technologies to automatically identify the user’s explicit and implicit needs, thus actively and efficiently meet customer needs. There are nine pillar technologies of Industry 4.0: autonomous robot, digital twin, cloud computing, 3D printing, augmented reality, big data, IIoT, cybersecurity, and system integration (Kadir, 2017).
1.2. Current status of the oil and gas industry
The oil and gas industry is an indispensable part of the industry. However, in recent years, the oil and gas industry has not been stable because of the fall in oil prices, from 2014 to the present, oil prices have fallen by as much as 70% (Depersio, 2019). Also, oil and gas production fell by 3%–5%, many petroleum companies have found that it is already difficult for them to maintain their balance of payments, and more and more companies are being acquired or will soon face the dilemma of being acquired. In order to save costs, some companies began mass layoffs, and the number of unemployed people in some sectors even rose to 40%, while the employment rate in the oil and gas industry also fell sharply (Hiller, 2019). These circumstances indicate that the impact of falling oil prices on the industry is fundamental. However, this situation will not remain unchanged, oil and gas prices are substantially determined by the supply-demand relationship, which is a cyclical behavior, it means that the oil and gas industry is currently in a difficult transition period.
Fluctuations in supply and demand have made investors fear the oil and gas industry because its total return to shareholders (TRS) is lower than in other industries (Fig.2) (World Economic Forum, 2017). In addition, the shift in supply and demand trends is also reshaping the oil and gas industry, and Table 2 lists some of the factors that are disrupting the oil and gas value chain. Moreover, the oil and gas industry has exposed technical bottlenecks, McKinsey points out that the oil and gas industry is the only industry that has lost efficiency over the past 100 years compared to most other asset-intensive industries (Handscomb et al., 2016). In this environment, great pressure has forced many oil and gas companies to accelerate the pursuit of efficiency, thereby cutting costs, increasing production, and maximizing profits. With the rapid development of Industry 4.0, technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and IoT are gradually being applied to the industry, and traditional industrial production technologies will 4.0” for the first time (The National, Oil and Gas, 2019). In “Oil and Gas 4.0”, the core goal is to use advanced digital technology to achieve higher value in the industry. However, the digitization process of most companies is slow. According to statistics, onethird of oil and gas companies believe that they are “new” or “exploratory” in the digital process. Usually, the oil and gas industry should play a leading role in new technologies, but the reality is that only certain areas or groups of oil and gas industry can accept new technologies. In the past few years, the oil and gas industry has applied a range of technologies, such as robots and satellites. However, these technologies are all asset-level, and it can be said that there is no interdisciplinary integration. According to Deloitte’s 2015 report, the digitization of the oil and gas industry is 4.68 (0–10) (Kane et al., 2015). Only a few leading enterprises have reached a high level of digitization and are developing towards intelligentization.
1.3. Key applications of “Oil and Gas 4.0”
As shown in Fig.4, the oil and gas industry chain can be divided into upstream, midstream and downstream (Lu et al., 2019). The upstream mainly includes the exploration and development of oil and gas; the midstream mainly refers to the long-distance transportation of oil and gas, and the downstream is the refining and sales of oil and gas products. In the whole oil and gas system, some scenarios with good application potential in the context of the “Oil and Gas 4.0” era are shown in Fig.5.
///////
3.2. Midstream
3.2.1. Intelligent pipeline
The pipeline is the most important carrier for oil and gas transportation, there are currently two million miles of pipelines worldwide, and the length grows by 3%–4% per year. Due to its long distance and passing through various complicated sections, it has great challenges in management, especially safety management. If an accident occurs in the pipeline, it is difficult to quickly locate and repair it.
Currently, information technology is advancing rapidly, oil and gas pipelines have entered the stage of digital pipelines. Digital pipeline pays attention to communication technology and remote sensing, and now the digital pipeline is developing towards intelligent pipeline (General Electric, 2017). The intelligent pipeline isan integrated system that integratestechnologies such as IoT, cloud computing, big data analysis, automation and intelligent control with pipelines based on the life cycle data of pipelines and the surrounding environment, it is observable, controllable and adaptable (GE Reports Staff, 2017). According to statistics, 87% of oil and gas companies believe that big data analysis is the most important technology because it is estimated that every 8000 km of pipeline will accumulate about 27 megabytes of information about asset health and operations every 10 years. They can use this type of information to do the life cycle maintenance of the pipeline (Farris, 2012). In 2014, GE and Accenture jointly launched the world’s first “Intelligent pipeline solution” (Accenture, 2016), as shown in Fig.19, the platform can solve the challenges of intelligent pipeline implementation: data fusion, data visualization and business process change, so as to realize real-time risk management, weather and external factor analysis. In January 2016, the Columbia Pipeline Group became the first company to conduct a “Intelligent pipeline solution” (World Industrial Reporter, 2016). Currently, the Columbia Pipeline Group has real-time monitoring of more than 15,000 miles of interstate pipelines. It integrates multiple data, including geographic information system, work management system, one- call system, and even data from organizations such as the United States Geological Survey, enabling pipeline threat monitoring, risk management, and context awareness.
///////
3.3. Downstream
3.3.1. Intelligent refinery
Intelligent refinery refers to the use of IoT technology, big data, and equipment monitoring technology to strengthen information management and services based on digital refinery (Accenture, 2018), this is the emphases of “Oil and Gas 4.0”. Intelligent refinery mainly involves six core business areas: production control, equipment management, supply chain management, energy management, HSE management, and assistant decision-making. Since the intelligent refinery was put forward, the work focus of oil and gas enterprises has gone through two stages. The first stage takes the enterprise information construction as the core (Intelligent Refinery 1.0), and the second stage takes the intelligent optimization technology research and application as the core (Intelligent Refinery 2.0). In Intelligent Refinery 1.0, Sinopec Jiujiang Company has initially formed a digital and intelligent framework, as shown in Fig.22. They use Process Industry Modeling System (PIMS), Rice Simulator for ILP Multiprocessors (RSIM) (ILP represents instruction-level parallelism), ORION and other functions to achieve the coordination of management, production, and operation, and achieved certain results (Gong et al., 2018). Compared with 2010, in the case of increasing crude oil processing capacity, the total number of employees decreased by 12%, the number of teams decreased by 13%, and the number of external operations decreased by 35% (Qin, 2016).
Intelligent Refinery 2.0 is still in the practical stage. BP, ExxonMobil, and other companies have developed partial applications. These applications can be divided into three categories: production optimization, intelligent operation, and energy management and control. In terms of production optimization, Shell’s Mrtinez refinery implemented real-time optimization for some of the major installations, achieving a benefit of about 10 cents per barrel in the 1990s. Sinopec Yanshan Petrochemical Company implemented real-time optimization for the ethylene plant of the refinery, with an annual efficiency increase of 30–60 million CNY. In terms of intelligent operation, Shell integrated oil and gas supply, refining and sales operations, and unified production of 17 refineries around the world, achieving global optimization. In terms of energy management and control, Valero established an online utility optimization system at the refinery in Houston, which increased boiler thermal efficiency by 0.6% and reduced fuel gas costs by 1% (Gong et al., 2018). Based on the practical experience of global intelligent refineries, Gong et al. (Gong et al., 2018) of China Petroleum Planning and Engineering Institute proposed an intelligent refinery functional architecture suitable for the next 5–10 years, as shown in Fig.23.
The practice of intelligent refinery has achieved initial results. It is estimated that the utilization rate of advanced control has increased by 10% to more than 90%; the automatic collection rate of production data has increased by 10% to more than 95%; the labor productivity has increased by more than 10%; and the real-time monitoring, analysis and early warning of key environmental emission points can achieve 100% (Yang et al., 2016).
In addition to intelligent refineries, Zuehlke put forward another new concept in 2010: Factory of things (in fact, the concept was proposed in the 13th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing in 2009), which paid more attention to the application of IoT and 5 G technology in factories (Zuehlke, 2010). He also pointed out that this road needs to be implemented in terms of technology, architecture, planning, security, and human dimensions. From a technical perspective, the importance of wireless communication technology has become increasingly prominent. Currently, the more commonly used industrial wireless standards are WirelessHART and ISA100.11a (Petersen and Carlsen, 2011). Among them, WirelessHART has added the wireless capabilities of the HART protocol while maintaining existing HART devices, commands and tools. ISA100.11a solves the problem of coexistence with other shortrange wireless networks. It was approved by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 2014 and became a formal international standard (Ascorti et al., 2017; Xu et al., 2014).
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FUN FACT
Googling ain’t all that.
This is according to an excellent review in Computers in Industry, October 2019. Excerpts from the review appear below.
RECOMMENDATION: Find and read the entire article at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334039628_Oil_and_Gas_40_era_A_systematic_review_and_outlook
If you are new to the concept, there is no better way to get up to speed. Even if you are conversant in IR 4.0, it could be helpful to use the review to get a bird’s eye view of the effort. For one thing, it might help you communicate the concept to your CEO in terms that she/he can understand.
///////
Computers in Industry
Volume 111, October 2019, Pages 68-90
Oil and Gas 4.0 era: A systematic review and outlook
Author links open overlay panel Hongfang Lu a, c, Lijun Guo b, Mohammadamin Azimi a, Kun Huang caTrenchless Technology Center, Louisiana Tech University, 599 Dan Reneau Dr., Engineering Annex, Ruston, LA 71270, United StatesbChina Center for Information Industry Development, Beijing 100048, ChinacState Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compind.2019.06.007Get rights and content
Highlights
•This is the first systematic review of the academic paper on “Oil and Gas 4.0”.
•Core technologies and possible application scenarios in “Oil and Gas 4.0” are introduced.
•The contents of some new projects in “Oil and Gas 4.0” are introduced in detail.
•Opportunities, difficulties, future trends and strategies are proposed for the implementation of “Oil and Gas 4.0”.
Abstract
Recently, with the development of “Industry 4.0”, “Oil and Gas 4.0” has also been put on the agenda in the past two years. Some companies and experts believe that “Oil and Gas 4.0” can completely change the status quo of the oil and gas industry, which can bring huge benefits because it accelerates the digitization and intelligentization of the oil and gas industry. However, the “Oil and Gas 4.0” is still in its infancy. Therefore, this paper systematically introduces the concept and core technologies of “Oil and Gas 4.0”, such as big data and the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Moreover, this paper analyzes typical application scenarios of the oil and gas industry chain (upstream, midstream and downstream) through examples, such as intelligent oilfield, intelligent pipeline, and intelligent refinery. It is concluded that the essence of “Oil and Gas 4.0” is a data-driven intelligence system based on the highly digitization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first academic peer-reviewed paper on the “Oil and Gas 4.0” era, aiming to let more oil and gas industry personnel understand its benefits and application scenarios, so as to better apply it to practical engineering in the future. In the discussion section, this paper also analyzes the opportunities and difficulties that may be brought about by the “Oil and Gas 4.0” era. Finally, relevant policy recommendations are proposed.
Keywords
Oil and Gas 4.0; Big data; Digitization; IIoT; Intelligentization
Hongfang Lu received his B.E. degree in oil and gas storage and transportation engineering from Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China, in 2013 and his M.S. degree in oil and gas storage and transportation engineering from Southwest Petroleum University in 2016. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree in civil engineering at Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA, USA. From 2012 to 2016, he worked as a graduate student with State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China. From 2017 to the present, he is a Graduate Assistant with the Trenchless Technology Center, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA, USA. His research interests include trenchless technology, energy technology, pipeline technology, computer science and related interdisciplinary. Mr. Lu is a student member of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). Mr. Lu was a recipient of the NASSCO Jeffrey D. Ralston Memorial Scholarship in 2018 and the Heather Berry Scholarship in 2018.
Lijun Guo received her B.S. degree in Measurement and Control Technology and Instruments from China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China, in 2004 and the Ph.D. Degree in Engineering in Microelectronics and Solid-State Electronics from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, in 2017. She is currently a researcher at China Center for Information Industry Development, mainly engaged in the research of software industry planning and implementation evaluation, focusing on the new generation of information technology, such as “Internet Plus”, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and Internet of Things (IoT).
Mohammadamin Azimi received his B.Sc. degree in civil engineering from Razi University (Kermanshah-Iran) Governmental University in 2007 and his M.Sc. degree in civil engineering (Structure) from Kurdistan University (Sanandaj-Iran) Governmental University in 2010. He received his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering (Structure-Earthquake) from University Teknologi of Malaysia (UTM) in 2014. He is a former faculty member at Department of Structure and Materials, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Technology Malaysia (UTM). He is currently a Research Scientist/Adjunct Professor of Civil Engineering at Trenchless Technology Center (TTC), College of Engineering and Science, Louisiana Tech University. His research interests include the smart and innovative structures, green and innovative concrete, sustainable and green technology. Dr. Azimi has received several National and International awards for his inventions in field of innovative engineering, such as “Intelligent Earthquake Resistant Beam-Column Connectors (SEER-iSPRING)”, and i-FLOOD (Intelligent Flood Management Software). His latest invention “LOCKBLOCK (Multi-Functional Green Interlocking Mortarless Concrete Block)” manage to win several international award such as “Best American Inventor” Award, Gold, and Special Award from SVIIF 2018-Silicon Valley.
Kun Huang received his B.E. degree in oil and gas storage and transportation engineering from Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China, in 1985 and his M.E. degree in computer application from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in 1998. From 1985 to 1999, he worked as a lecturer with School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China. From 2001 to 2008, he worked as an associate professor with the School of Petroleum Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University. From 2008 to the present, he is a professor with the School of Petroleum Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University. His research interests include oil and gas pipeline engineering, oil tank design and management. Mr. Huang is currently a member of the Expert Committee of China Natural Gas Industry Association, an expert of Sichuan Petroleum and Natural Gas Production Safety and a member of the Natural Gas Industry Editorial Committee.
source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166361519302064
///////
Industry 4.0 aims to use information technology to promote industrial change, which is the intelligence era (Wikipedia, 2019a). Industry 4.0 products are the result of deep integration of industrialization and informatization (Gilchrist, 2016), the strategic framework of Industry 4.0 is shown in Fig.1(a) (Hankel and Rexroth, 2015), it has four major themes: smart factory, smart production, smart logistics and smart services (Kagermann et al., 2013). Among them, the smart factory is built on the digital factory, which uses the Internet of Things (IoT), big data and monitoring technology to enhance information management services to improve the controllability of the production process. Smart production refers to artificial intelligence combined with image, production and equipment data to achieve multi-dimensional intelligent production. Smart logistic utilizes integrated intelligent technology to enable the logistics system to judge and solve certain problems in logistics through thinking, perception, learning, and reasoning. Smart services also use a variety of intelligent integration technologies to automatically identify the user’s explicit and implicit needs, thus actively and efficiently meet customer needs. There are nine pillar technologies of Industry 4.0: autonomous robot, digital twin, cloud computing, 3D printing, augmented reality, big data, IIoT, cybersecurity, and system integration (Kadir, 2017).
1.2. Current status of the oil and gas industry
The oil and gas industry is an indispensable part of the industry. However, in recent years, the oil and gas industry has not been stable because of the fall in oil prices, from 2014 to the present, oil prices have fallen by as much as 70% (Depersio, 2019). Also, oil and gas production fell by 3%–5%, many petroleum companies have found that it is already difficult for them to maintain their balance of payments, and more and more companies are being acquired or will soon face the dilemma of being acquired. In order to save costs, some companies began mass layoffs, and the number of unemployed people in some sectors even rose to 40%, while the employment rate in the oil and gas industry also fell sharply (Hiller, 2019). These circumstances indicate that the impact of falling oil prices on the industry is fundamental. However, this situation will not remain unchanged, oil and gas prices are substantially determined by the supply-demand relationship, which is a cyclical behavior, it means that the oil and gas industry is currently in a difficult transition period.
Fluctuations in supply and demand have made investors fear the oil and gas industry because its total return to shareholders (TRS) is lower than in other industries (Fig.2) (World Economic Forum, 2017). In addition, the shift in supply and demand trends is also reshaping the oil and gas industry, and Table 2 lists some of the factors that are disrupting the oil and gas value chain. Moreover, the oil and gas industry has exposed technical bottlenecks, McKinsey points out that the oil and gas industry is the only industry that has lost efficiency over the past 100 years compared to most other asset-intensive industries (Handscomb et al., 2016). In this environment, great pressure has forced many oil and gas companies to accelerate the pursuit of efficiency, thereby cutting costs, increasing production, and maximizing profits. With the rapid development of Industry 4.0, technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and IoT are gradually being applied to the industry, and traditional industrial production technologies will 4.0” for the first time (The National, Oil and Gas, 2019). In “Oil and Gas 4.0”, the core goal is to use advanced digital technology to achieve higher value in the industry. However, the digitization process of most companies is slow. According to statistics, onethird of oil and gas companies believe that they are “new” or “exploratory” in the digital process. Usually, the oil and gas industry should play a leading role in new technologies, but the reality is that only certain areas or groups of oil and gas industry can accept new technologies. In the past few years, the oil and gas industry has applied a range of technologies, such as robots and satellites. However, these technologies are all asset-level, and it can be said that there is no interdisciplinary integration. According to Deloitte’s 2015 report, the digitization of the oil and gas industry is 4.68 (0–10) (Kane et al., 2015). Only a few leading enterprises have reached a high level of digitization and are developing towards intelligentization.
1.3. Key applications of “Oil and Gas 4.0”
As shown in Fig.4, the oil and gas industry chain can be divided into upstream, midstream and downstream (Lu et al., 2019). The upstream mainly includes the exploration and development of oil and gas; the midstream mainly refers to the long-distance transportation of oil and gas, and the downstream is the refining and sales of oil and gas products. In the whole oil and gas system, some scenarios with good application potential in the context of the “Oil and Gas 4.0” era are shown in Fig.5.
///////
3.2. Midstream
3.2.1. Intelligent pipeline
The pipeline is the most important carrier for oil and gas transportation, there are currently two million miles of pipelines worldwide, and the length grows by 3%–4% per year. Due to its long distance and passing through various complicated sections, it has great challenges in management, especially safety management. If an accident occurs in the pipeline, it is difficult to quickly locate and repair it.
Currently, information technology is advancing rapidly, oil and gas pipelines have entered the stage of digital pipelines. Digital pipeline pays attention to communication technology and remote sensing, and now the digital pipeline is developing towards intelligent pipeline (General Electric, 2017). The intelligent pipeline isan integrated system that integratestechnologies such as IoT, cloud computing, big data analysis, automation and intelligent control with pipelines based on the life cycle data of pipelines and the surrounding environment, it is observable, controllable and adaptable (GE Reports Staff, 2017). According to statistics, 87% of oil and gas companies believe that big data analysis is the most important technology because it is estimated that every 8000 km of pipeline will accumulate about 27 megabytes of information about asset health and operations every 10 years. They can use this type of information to do the life cycle maintenance of the pipeline (Farris, 2012). In 2014, GE and Accenture jointly launched the world’s first “Intelligent pipeline solution” (Accenture, 2016), as shown in Fig.19, the platform can solve the challenges of intelligent pipeline implementation: data fusion, data visualization and business process change, so as to realize real-time risk management, weather and external factor analysis. In January 2016, the Columbia Pipeline Group became the first company to conduct a “Intelligent pipeline solution” (World Industrial Reporter, 2016). Currently, the Columbia Pipeline Group has real-time monitoring of more than 15,000 miles of interstate pipelines. It integrates multiple data, including geographic information system, work management system, one- call system, and even data from organizations such as the United States Geological Survey, enabling pipeline threat monitoring, risk management, and context awareness.
///////
3.3. Downstream
3.3.1. Intelligent refinery
Intelligent refinery refers to the use of IoT technology, big data, and equipment monitoring technology to strengthen information management and services based on digital refinery (Accenture, 2018), this is the emphases of “Oil and Gas 4.0”. Intelligent refinery mainly involves six core business areas: production control, equipment management, supply chain management, energy management, HSE management, and assistant decision-making. Since the intelligent refinery was put forward, the work focus of oil and gas enterprises has gone through two stages. The first stage takes the enterprise information construction as the core (Intelligent Refinery 1.0), and the second stage takes the intelligent optimization technology research and application as the core (Intelligent Refinery 2.0). In Intelligent Refinery 1.0, Sinopec Jiujiang Company has initially formed a digital and intelligent framework, as shown in Fig.22. They use Process Industry Modeling System (PIMS), Rice Simulator for ILP Multiprocessors (RSIM) (ILP represents instruction-level parallelism), ORION and other functions to achieve the coordination of management, production, and operation, and achieved certain results (Gong et al., 2018). Compared with 2010, in the case of increasing crude oil processing capacity, the total number of employees decreased by 12%, the number of teams decreased by 13%, and the number of external operations decreased by 35% (Qin, 2016).
Intelligent Refinery 2.0 is still in the practical stage. BP, ExxonMobil, and other companies have developed partial applications. These applications can be divided into three categories: production optimization, intelligent operation, and energy management and control. In terms of production optimization, Shell’s Mrtinez refinery implemented real-time optimization for some of the major installations, achieving a benefit of about 10 cents per barrel in the 1990s. Sinopec Yanshan Petrochemical Company implemented real-time optimization for the ethylene plant of the refinery, with an annual efficiency increase of 30–60 million CNY. In terms of intelligent operation, Shell integrated oil and gas supply, refining and sales operations, and unified production of 17 refineries around the world, achieving global optimization. In terms of energy management and control, Valero established an online utility optimization system at the refinery in Houston, which increased boiler thermal efficiency by 0.6% and reduced fuel gas costs by 1% (Gong et al., 2018). Based on the practical experience of global intelligent refineries, Gong et al. (Gong et al., 2018) of China Petroleum Planning and Engineering Institute proposed an intelligent refinery functional architecture suitable for the next 5–10 years, as shown in Fig.23.
The practice of intelligent refinery has achieved initial results. It is estimated that the utilization rate of advanced control has increased by 10% to more than 90%; the automatic collection rate of production data has increased by 10% to more than 95%; the labor productivity has increased by more than 10%; and the real-time monitoring, analysis and early warning of key environmental emission points can achieve 100% (Yang et al., 2016).
In addition to intelligent refineries, Zuehlke put forward another new concept in 2010: Factory of things (in fact, the concept was proposed in the 13th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing in 2009), which paid more attention to the application of IoT and 5 G technology in factories (Zuehlke, 2010). He also pointed out that this road needs to be implemented in terms of technology, architecture, planning, security, and human dimensions. From a technical perspective, the importance of wireless communication technology has become increasingly prominent. Currently, the more commonly used industrial wireless standards are WirelessHART and ISA100.11a (Petersen and Carlsen, 2011). Among them, WirelessHART has added the wireless capabilities of the HART protocol while maintaining existing HART devices, commands and tools. ISA100.11a solves the problem of coexistence with other shortrange wireless networks. It was approved by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 2014 and became a formal international standard (Ascorti et al., 2017; Xu et al., 2014).
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FUN FACT
Googling ain’t all that.
1.4.
Methodology, objectives, and contributions
“Oil and Gas 4.0” is still in its infancy, the authors of this paper use the methods of academic search and general search (the search content is not limited to academic literature) to investigate the existing literature. Among them, the main points of the academic search are as follows:
Key words: Oil and Gas 4.0
Search highlights: with the exact phrase
Language: English
Database: Google Scholar, Web of Science, ScienceDirect.
Since the search engine may be inaccurate, we reviewed the papers one by one and examined their relevance, and found that the number of papers actually related to “Oil and Gas 4.0” is zero. Then we used the general search method (Google and Bing search engines) and finally found 8 directly related and 43 indirectly relatedcontent to “Oil and Gas 4.0” (as of March 1, 2019). The main types of information are industry reports, white papers, forums, and news. It can be obtained that “Oil and Gas 4.0” is still in the stage of enterprise exploration and development, and most of the information only aims at one point, such as digitization and automation. That is to say, there is currently no systematic academic paper on “Oil and Gas 4.0”. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to integrate the scattered information so that more people can understand the benefits of “Oil and Gas 4.0” to the industry and guide the future development direction.
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“Oil and Gas 4.0” is still in its infancy, the authors of this paper use the methods of academic search and general search (the search content is not limited to academic literature) to investigate the existing literature. Among them, the main points of the academic search are as follows:
Key words: Oil and Gas 4.0
Search highlights: with the exact phrase
Language: English
Database: Google Scholar, Web of Science, ScienceDirect.
Since the search engine may be inaccurate, we reviewed the papers one by one and examined their relevance, and found that the number of papers actually related to “Oil and Gas 4.0” is zero. Then we used the general search method (Google and Bing search engines) and finally found 8 directly related and 43 indirectly relatedcontent to “Oil and Gas 4.0” (as of March 1, 2019). The main types of information are industry reports, white papers, forums, and news. It can be obtained that “Oil and Gas 4.0” is still in the stage of enterprise exploration and development, and most of the information only aims at one point, such as digitization and automation. That is to say, there is currently no systematic academic paper on “Oil and Gas 4.0”. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to integrate the scattered information so that more people can understand the benefits of “Oil and Gas 4.0” to the industry and guide the future development direction.
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