Emily Clarke

What is Quality-Related Downtime in the Oil and Gas Industry?

In the oil and gas industry, operations need to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In 2019, figures show that somewhere around 95 million barrels of oil were produced each day, and even in more recent years, the average output of the oil and gas industry is close to 80 million barrels per day.

With this kind of production, it can be hard to justify taking equipment and facilities offline, but downtime is a necessity in some cases. Although maintenance and repairs can lead to downtime in the oil and gas industry, factors related to product quality can also lead to the need for downtime.

Inspections and Testing in Quality-Related Downtime

While it would be nice if oil and gas facilities could simply throw a switch and watch production processes take care of themselves, it's not that easy. Just like a chef needs to test batches of food throughout a shift to ensure quality is holding up for diners in a restaurant, the oil and gas industry needs to ensure that its products maintain a consistent level of quality each day.

To do this, equipment may need to be taken offline or production may need to be halted. This is so that workers can implement testing and inspections using an oil and gas quality management platform. This platform can gather quality data for oil and gas products, but an oil and gas quality management platform can also track historical trends to see if the current quality level is on par with the norm.

Reducing Quality-Related Downtime

To reduce quality-related downtime in the oil and gas industry, workers can implement standardized procedures that are codified in training materials. Additionally, producers can form strong partnerships with oil producers that allow for the same product to be used in the raw materials delivery process.

It's also a good idea for refineries and oil and gas facilities to use technology-assisted testing procedures that can boost efficiency in testing. Modern tech tools and software can provide accurate results faster than older methods of testing, meaning equipment and facilities can get back online faster.

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Emily Clarke is providing info about a single platform for your oil and gas software solutions. You can find her thoughts at gas and oil supply chain blog.