VR AR Technology for Oil & Gas Industry

The Oil & Gas sector is considered as one of the largest industrial sectors in the world in terms of dollar value with a combined business in the entire value chain in multiples of Trillions of dollars. Leveraging Immersive Technology can not only add value to existing operation activities but also have the potential to ‘improve the safety’ and ‘minimize operation costs’ in the Oil and Gas industry.

Virtual Reality opens a new paradigm of training in the Oil and Gas industry. Virtual Reality is already being accepted in Oil and Gas Industry, particularly from the training perspective. Providing on-site training in this industry is an expensive proposition and it also not very safe, more and more organizations are now focussing and adopting training in a simulated environment using Immersive Technology, so that field engineers are better prepared for onsite tasks beforehand. Oil and Gas refinery typically consist of hazardous environment and VR training can help prepare field engineer with respect to all the safety measures

Virtual Reality Use Cases

  1. Immersive Walkthrough of Typical oil refinery
  2. Industry 4.0 Readiness – VR training for day to day field operations in all the sectors i.e. Upstream, Midstream and Downstream, supporting training right from Exploration & Production to Refining.
  3. Well Site Familiarization along with Christmas Tree on the site which control the flow, usually oil or gas, out of the well.
  4. Detailed 3D digital design of the equipment to the minute details, offers a higher level of accuracy and clarity about the equipment and working mechanism before installation phase.
  5. Enhance the knowledge of offshore drilling teams to become well-trained for real-life challenges.
  6. Support oil and gas operations 3D models based on seismic images helping organizations to evaluate prospects of hydrocarbon reserves.
  7. Customer Engagement – VR technology is now being used in marketing and distribution operations to enhance customer engagement. In order to enrich the user experience and bridge the gap between end-user some of the companies have a VR-enabled platform that depicts how fuel is being made available to the end-user. With the help of VR glasses, consumers can experience the entire fuel distribution value chain on a short virtual tour.

Emerging technology like Augmented Reality which is currently in its adoption phase have already demonstrated promising future in solutions related to “Remote Assistance” or “ability to superimposed digital content in the real world”. Imagine a field engineer wearing a AR headset and able to see sensor data superimposed in the real world. Real-time information of a machinery / equipment which is sending data via IOT devices and can be seen on the top of that machinery. All this superimposed data can help user in doing routine support and maintenance activity. Also, from troubleshooting perspective having hands free along with troubleshooting steps available in the view of eye with actual equipment makes it easy to fix the issue effectively.

Augmented Reality Use Cases

  1. Remote Assistance can enable sharing subject matter expertise remotely via two-way audio and video to help field technicians reduce lead times during critical moments.
  2. Accessing standard operating procedures directly from asset management systems while having unobstructed view of devices.
  3. Get hands-free access to maintenance and repair instructions for specialized equipment such as jacking systems, hoists, drills, gearboxes etc
  4. Use smart glasses to perform inspections faster by eliminating the need to switch between the job and paper-based information or tablets.
  5. Because of the harmful environment they are exposed to, workers in the oil and gas industry are prone to injury. In case of fire or gas explosions, AR can help the staff workers with pre-arranged exit points. AR headsets can instantly detect emerging threats and instantly provide the safest directions for the workers to exit, displaying the directions on their headsets in real time.

Closing Notes

AR / VR Solution is helping the organizations to offer better training of their employees by having them experience a situation before they go on the site. This has helped the organization to reduce the cost of conducting typical training sessions as it has resulted in reducing the number of on-site visits. From ROI perspective, training in simulated environment which are close to real world can help improve the productivity. Also, since we are dealing with hazardous environment, VR training is a add on to train the staff with required safety measures.

With the advancement of 5G technology, network latency will be minimized that open a wide variety of AR / VR Solution as it can ease heavy 3D Model rendering improving the performance and adaptability of AR VR solutions.

Being a leading virtual reality app development company, Sysmetis IT Solutions helped organizations in validating and developing AR / VR Proof of Concept and solutions. Our Team will be more than happy to assist you in your AR / VR journey.