Customer Story
Remote Pipeline Pressure Monitoring
See how Burk Royalty used WellAware Remote Oilfield Monitoring to eliminate downtime and maximize compression efficiency on hundreds of miles of gas and water pipelines.
About the Operator
Burk Royalty is a family-owned, fully integrated oil and gas company based in Texas that develops legacy and greenfield assets. Since 1929, Burk Royalty has helped thousands of asset owners create value and ensure safety by delivering quality engineering solutions in the field that support frontline workers, including pumpers, foremen, and superintendents.
The Challenge
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Large pipeline system with limited visibility
Burk Royalty made a substantial investment north of Houston in Madison County, Texas, in 2011. The company laid over 200 miles of low-pressure gathering, high-pressure gas distribution, and water gathering lines in just a few short years.
By 2013, the system had grown to be so large that it was impossible to manage. Workers in the field had trouble finding operational problems before they had a negative impact on bottom-line performance – causing things like downtime, asset failures, and a loss of compression efficiency.
– Rob Hyde, VP of Operations
Plugs destroying compression efficiency
Plugs in low-pressure lines were limiting the efficiency of the natural gas gathering system, creating an overall drag on productivity, especially since Burk Royalty relied on a centralized gas lift system for the new Madison County system. Burk Royalty ended up having to spend more money to compensate for productivity losses by adding additional horsepower to their compression systems.
The Solution
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Intuitive, Field-Friendly Data Tools
Relying on a team of WellAware Certified Automation Partners, Burk Royalty established real-time connectivity and managed connections capable of gathering high-resolution pressure readings every 15 minutes. These readings continuously feed dashboards, reports, and alarming features powered by WellAware’s LIFT software applications, giving real-time visibility that both office-based and field-based workers could access through an easy-to-use mobile and web app.
I wanted something that looked a lot like what people were used to using on their phones and iPads…I knew that if the system wasn’t immediately accessible, the people who were using it in the field were not going to adopt it.
– Rob Hyde, VP of Operations
Data integrations for external analysis
WellAware’s monitoring infrastructure created data connectors that enabled Burk Royalty to conduct analyses on large volumes of data within external applications. Rob and his team used this information to optimize compressor efficiency and mitigate plugs that were previously bringing down the performance of the entire system.
Expanding to other opportunities
Rob was so pleased with how well the monitoring solution worked for his team that he expanded Burk Royalty’s WellAware monitoring footprint beyond the existing Madison county field, installing additional monitoring and control systems on compressor stations, salt water disposals, and LACT units in both East and West Texas.
The Result
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Reduced operational downtime
Shortly after installing WellAware’s solution, Burk Royalty saw an immediate reduction in how long it took frontline field workers to identify and mitigate operational issues. As a direct result of the added visibility and analysis offered by WellAware, Burk Royalty reduced pipeline downtime by over 75% in the first winter after installation, because the team could clearly see when infrastructure started to freeze based on pressure sensor readings.
We were able to make a small incremental investment that led to a huge improvement in how we were gathering the system such that our efficiencies going forward were 85 to 90%.
– Rob Hyde, VP of Operations
75%
DOWNTIME REDUCTION
90%
COMPRESSION EFFICIENCY
I would recommend WellAware to companies that, like us, are experts in what they do: oil and gas, pipelines, gas processing, refining… They have ideas, but ultimately data, electronics, and software are not what they’re good at. With WellAware, they can bring in a company that is good at that and solve problems together.
– Rob Hyde, VP of Operations
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