IPEC Blog

Unplanned downtime and unforeseen maintenance intervals can be a significant cost for plant operators and rotating equipment operators, particularly those in the oil & gas industry where gaps in production can result in literally hundreds of thousands of dollars lost per day. 

An asset management program can be a valuable tool in helping plant operators achieve visibility into their operational efficiency and equipment performance. This helps industrial companies create more proactive maintenance schedules to reduce downtime and maximize the lifespan and precision of their equipment. 

Here, we’ll take a look at how an asset management program works, and then we’ll discuss the benefits this program provides in helping plant operators and equipment engineers to reduce annual maintenance costs. 

The use of high-viscosity fluids is common in a wide range of manufacturing environments, everything from food & beverage production to the drilling and refining of oil & natural gas. Regardless of the application, high-viscosity fluids can be challenging to handle and can require specific industrial pumps and flow meters to optimize both efficiency and productivity. 

The oil & gas industry is constantly innovating new methods of extracting, processing, and refining the raw materials necessary for the manufacturing of high-quality products. Hydrofluoric (HF) acid alkylation is a mission-critical refining process used to produce clean-burning, high-octane gasoline blending stock to help increase the fuel efficiency of car and truck engines. 

A recent article projects the oil & gas industry will need to invest up to $500 billion annually in new infrastructure and equipment in order to optimize production in ways that will keep pace with consumer demand. One of the ways which oil & gas producers can achieve more effective production processes particularly in the downstream phase of manufacturing is specifying pumps that create a more efficient process of treating their produced water to be reused in other applications. 

The ability to engineer process efficiency for oil & gas producers at each stage of the production sequence is key, especially given a host of market forces such as labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, and increasing material costs.

Today’s oil & gas industry has a very distinct set of challenges plant operators and engineers must overcome. And these hurdles are only amplified by the specific nature of the three distinct streams in oil & gas production: upstream, midstream, and downstream.

The mixer: at its core, it’s a simple technology, but it supports mission-critical needs across a wide range of industries, including Oil & Gas, Chemical & Petrochemical, and Water & Wastewater. Within the world of Oil & Gas, the most common mixer application is blending within a storage tank, either to create a product that meets the specifications required by refineries or to prevent buildup of bottom sludge and water (BS&W) during storage.  

As the world sets targets for fewer carbon emissions and introduces new regulations for carbon emissions, the oil and gas industry must adapt. Sustainability is becoming a top priority for oil and gas producers, and there are a wide array of methods available to help reduce the industry’s environmental impact. On top of making strides to reduce their carbon footprint, oil and gas producers are counting on safer, more reliable equipment to achieve sustainability goals.

"Which is better: a single-stage pump or a multi-stage pump?” This is a question our oil & gas customers often ask. For upstream applications like brine injection into deep wells, where disposal water needs to be reliably and quickly filtered, the clear answer is single-stage. While horizontal multi-stage pumps have been the accepted technology for years, switching to a single-stage pump comes with significant benefits.