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Uses of Rugged PCs for Oilfield Applications

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Rugged Laptop

The oil and natural gas industry plays a major role in the energy market and the global economy. The companies in this industry carry out processes like exploration, extraction, refining, and transporting natural fuel resources. The oil field operations involve numerous challenges such as poor air quality, variable weather, rough handling, saltwater, chemicals, jolts, shocks, vibrations, flammable gases, humidity, and extreme environments. From data collection, production monitoring, imaging, simulation, to process automation, oil and gas companies need personal computers that are ultra-rugged and work well in demanding conditions.

Fully rugged laptops and tablets can be used in a wide variety of applications in the oil and gas market:

  • Upstream – Such as exploration, drilling, and extraction
  • Midstream – Such as storage, processing, and transportation of petroleum products.
  • Downstream – Such as refining of crude oil, purifying raw natural gas, and marketing & distributing products

The oil and gas industry is facing increasing demands to increase their business efficiency and reduce their impact on the environment. With ruggedized Android tablets or rugged laptops, workers can be more productive and more collaborative. This would help companies to reduce operating costs and the environmental impact caused by low productivity and equipment downtime.  Here are the uses of fully rugged computers and handhelds in oilfield operations:

  • Work order management: Workers offshore and onsite need immediate, real-time information on equipment, assets, resources, tools, job procedures, and other works. With military-grade tablets in their hand, they can enable collaborative communication and increase productivity.
  • Fleet and asset management: Ruggedized computers have built-in data capture tools, such as barcode, scanner, RFID scanner, cameras with GPS and LAN and WWAN connectivity. Tracking equipment, resources, fleet, and inventory becomes easier with digital forms and management software. Workers can even do predictive maintenance and equipment inspection using their tablet and centralized software. No need of filling paper forms that waste workers’ time and your investment.
  • Automation: Technological progress in the energy sector has resulted in automation, from processes, drilling, to networking oil rigs. Rugged devices can be used to control and monitor autonomous drilling and other machine guidance solutions for maintaining worker safety, saving time, and reducing waste.
  • Data Analytics: To reduce drilling time and increase drilling safety, workers in the oil and gas industry need to analyse seismic data and characteristics of a reservoir. Rugged mobile computers can capture data from monitoring technologies or wireless sensors and help in the optmization of the drilling works and streamlining operations. Data from machines, equipment, teams, scanners, and transport vehicles must be collected on time and analysed properly to prevent drilling errors, mismanaged assets, or lax environmental monitoring. A ruggedized Android tablet or heavy-duty laptop comes with high processing power, long-lasting battery, and secure enterprise solutions to enable faster analysis and prevent data theft or corruption.
  • Safety Compliance: Health hazards and dangerous conditions in the oilfields can result in risks and safety concerns for the workers, machines, and the environment. Professionals can use rugged devices to carry out inspections and address health, safety, and environmental (HSE) hazards. Data entry is easier, accurate, and faster. These HSE-related data can be easily transferred to the concerned stakeholder for fast resolution. This could help the oil and gas companies save millions of dollars by preventing incidents and safety issues.

Conclusion

Investing in safe and advanced technology is critical for the oil and gas industry, which is why fully rugged laptops and military-grade tablets are designed to withstand extreme work conditions. They can be used as data collectors, field controllers, navigation tools, and communication devices. Rugged devices can be used in teh toughest environments and automate tasks, bring safety, increase efficiency while saving time and money.

About the Author:

William Peterson

William has been working as a Chief Technology Officer at a leading oil and gas company in Saudi Arabia. He has years of expertise in technologies used in the energy sector and has helped many companies improve their IT infrastructure for better results. He shares his views on technological changes happening in the oil and gas sector with leading magazines.

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