Tracking mobile assets within the oil and gas industry is no easy task. There are so many variables to take into consideration that the process has become quite convoluted. The issues of tracking assets are costing vendors, operators, and Exploration and Production company’s big bucks. The unnecessary costs like extra storage fees and taxes add up to numbers in the billions. These extra costs are caused by companies overstocking on inventory when they cannot locate assets they need to work a particular play. Sometimes these assets sit on property that is no longer being worked for years before anyone realizes it is there. This is just one of the many issues that can be avoided saving the oil and gas industry a significant amount on their bottom line.
You may be asking yourself, why is it so difficult to track pipe? The question is more complicated than can even be put into words. OCTG, or oil country tubular goods, is seamless steel pipe that must be tracked by weight, grade, and size to name a few. It all gets tallied or measured multiple times, inspected, and transported; this can all be in a single day. A string of pipe can be moved hundreds of miles in one day just to change ownership and possibly even end up where it started.
The owners of the pipe rarely manage it themselves and custom software built to try to achieve accurate management has been few and far between. DOS based programs with no support, expensive financial software built for the automotive industry, and custom applications have been used, yet they lack key components to track tubular and other mobile assets. All of these options require in-house support that comes with a hefty price tag. Hardware to run them is coupled with an IT staff and a heavy burden. Excel spreadsheets are a common way to bypass these costs but the human error and risk factor associated with them is overwhelming. Many may not associate these assets with prices at the pump but many studies have shown that these errors in inventory management are directly affecting our economy.
The fast moving world of Exploration & Production seeks a solution. With few viable answers out there until now, they have been forced to work with what they have. Millions have been spent on in-house custom software, but it takes someone truly unique to understand both energy and technology in a way that can accurately capture the needs to the Oil and Gas industry. Third party vendors are not known to be early adapters of technology and what is needed is standardization across the board. This is especially true seeing that this industry’s vendors cross over between producers time and time again.
By organizing and standardizing the industry so many problems could be solved. With such a close knit industry working in so many different ways, it is easy to see the downfall. Though the oil and gas industry produces billions of dollars in revenue a year, billions are also being lost. With a company like Arecon Data striving to bring the solution the industry so desperately needs, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.