BP, GE launch new digital reliability and safety solution

Oil major BP and oilfield technology giant General Electric (GE) have launched a new digital solution which the companies claim is designed to improve the efficiency, reliability, and safety of BP’s oil and gas production operations. The solution has been named the Plant Operations Advisor (POA), 

GE said on Tuesday that the Plant Operations Advisor was already helping BP manage the performance of one of its platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and, subject to a successful pilot, it would be deployed next year to other BP facilities around the world.

The tool was built on GE’s Predix operating system and was created as part of a development partnership between the two companies announced in January.

Lorenzo Simonelli, President and CEO of GE Oil & Gas, said: “BP gravitates toward new technologies, especially digital, and that makes working with them particularly exciting. The global deployment is expected to be the largest-scale deployment of GE’s Predix-powered APM (Asset Performance Management) technology to date.”

The company added that the  Plant Operations Advisor would help prevent unplanned downtime and improve facility reliability by helping engineering teams respond quickly to issues as they occur in real-time.

Ahmed Hashmi, BP’s Head of Upstream Technology, said: “By bringing together some of the best minds at GE and BP, we were able to develop this innovative digital product and are confident that it will have a significant impact on our business. When fully deployed, these advanced digital technologies will change the way we work and improve the integrity and performance of our assets around the globe.”

Using GE’s Predix and APM capabilities, POA integrates operational data from producing oil and gas facilities to deliver notifications and analytical reports to engineers so they can identify operational performance issues before they become significant.

The system, GE says, provides simplified access to a variety of live data feeds and includes visualization capabilities including a real-time facility threat display. It also incorporates an extensive case management capability to support learnings from prior operational issues.

GE intends to offer this technology, which combines big data, cloud hosting, and analytics on both individual pieces of equipment as well as the entire production system, as an APM solution that will be available to the entire industry.