The Transformation Journey and Key Critical Success Factors of Turbomachinery Digital Remote Monitoring
Authors: Abd Rahman Sabri Harris 
Published: March 2022

Turbomachinery is recognized as one of the most important equipment in oil and gas facilities. Major issues identified are the monitoring of turbomachinery health condition; recognizing equipment failure patterns; reducing unplanned repair costs; ensuring uninterrupted production and avoiding unscheduled downtime. Thus, there is a need of innovative digital solution to address the highlighted issues. This paper will explain the transformation journey that has been endured by PETRONAS Upstream in crafting the journey in digitalizing the remote monitoring and operations for turbomachinery and major rotating equipment.

The transformation journey started back in 2014 where the upstream assets were deploying various Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) remote monitoring solutions, which require additional hardware installation at site, significant capital expenditure and monthly subscription for each OEMThe strategy hit a setback when oil price went down which requires significant cost cutting measures. Applying the mantra of "Do More With Less", the asset collaborated with the Centre of Operational Excellence (CoE) to develop their own solution which was branded as Prescriptive Rotating Equipment Analytics (PROTEAN), which eventually replaced all OEM solutions in the long run. Defying the norm, all changed when the PETRONAS Upstream Operational Excellence team decided to embark on the digital journey by developing an in-house predictive analytics tool which is capable to identify anomalies trends, highlight potential incipient failures and identify opportunities for reliability improvement of the turbomachinery equipment.

The pilot implementation was conducted in 2017 via implementation on 2 units of supercritical turbomachinery equipment. Following the the successful implementation, PROTEAN was upscaled and expanded to cover more than 200 units of major rotating equipment located at 23 offshore platforms, 6 onshore terminals located within Malaysia, International Assets as well as the world first Floating Liquified Natural Gas i.e. PETRONAS PFLNG Satu. PROTEAN+ provides a niche edge in supporting data driven maintenance, understanding the machinery deteroriation rate and justifying the extension of Mean Time Between Overhaul (MTBO). PROTEAN+ also provides the prescriptive analytics based on the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) of each specific rotating equipment. To date; PROTEAN has generated more than 700 alerts since 2017 resulting in USD50 Million of cost avoidance from unplanned production deferment and unplanned repair cost. The journey also covers the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) process which is vital in order to gain the confidence level from end users. As a conclusion, the paper will highlight the critical success factors and key lessons learned in a transformation journey for turbomachinery digital remote monitoring and operation.

This paper shares the experience from the transformation journey on how the overall operating expenditure can be further optimised without sacrificing the technical functionality as well as sustaining the technical capability building. By understanding the key critical success factors in implementing the digital solution, it is a real life example on how to build your own business case when it comes to digitalisation and to avoid from creating another white elephant solution.