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Level & Flow Monitoring in Oil & Gas

The Oil and Gas industry relies on water for drilling, hydraulic fracturing and refining. It’s also a natural byproduct of extracting hydrocarbons from the earth. Needless to say, the supply and waste management of water in the O&G industry is critical. Level and flow are important measurements for managing this most vital resource.

Oilfield service companies that specialize in water management do everything from constructing frac pits to wastewater treatment. Along the way, they monitor level and flow in pipes, tanks, and pits at various stages.

While there are many data acquisition modules out there, they tend to be very pricey and often lack the flexibility needed. In the case of one customer, they wanted something reliable and affordable that would immediately alert their custom cloud environment of specific status updates.

ControlByWeb programmable I/O controllers provide an easy-to-deploy, flexible data acquisition and controls platform for often remote and/or temporary locations. We specialize in simple monitoring and control of a variety of field conditions such as level, flow, pressure, temperature and more.

Common Oilfield Problems


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Too Complex

Complex data acquisition and control modules take too long to deploy.

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Too Inflexible

Purpose-built devices are inflexible and lack the ability to work with custom systems.

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Too Expensive or Unreliable

Low cost monitoring and control is often unreliable, costing more to maintain.

ControlByWeb™ Solutions


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Simple

Simple, programmable I/O modules are capable and make deployment fast.

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Flexible

Open communication protocols increase flexibility for custom integrations.

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Low Cost & Reliable

Affordability without sacrificing quality, justifying monitoring in more places.

FREE LEVEL & FLOW MONITORING CONSULTATION

Case Study: Big D Companies

Big D Companies is a full service oilfield company that manages all things water, from frac pit construction to wastewater treatment and disposal. They use our X-410 and X-420 units for a variety of monitoring and alarm tasks. The X-410 is a do-it-all device with 4 relays and 4 digital inputs, while the X-420 has 4 analog inputs and 2 digital I/O. Our flexible means of passing data and our long history of rock solid reliability make our devices the perfect units to deploy in the oilfield for Big D’s custom cloud-based SCADA environment.

Deployment is easy. Devices are housed in a sealed enclosure along with a solar charger, battery, and cellular modem. These monitoring units are easy to setup and move as needed.

Flow Monitoring

For flow monitoring, Big D uses inline flowmeters that trip a contact for every barrel that passes. The trip is very momentary, lasting only a fraction of a second. The X-410 not only logs the event, but can immediately pass this information on to their custom cloud-based SCADA.

Level Monitoring

A variety of sensors are used in the oilfield for tank level monitoring, from switches to continuous level transmitters. In the case of a level switch, often used by Big D, our X-410 is a fantastic tool for monitoring the contact(s) in the switch. For level transmitters, our X-420 is great for analog signals and our X-404 is perfect for Modbus RS-485 signals. Level measurements and tank status can be remotely access through port forwarding, our Cloud service, pushed to your own cloud environment or via our smartphone app.

Oil & Gas Operations in Iraq

Remote Alarms

These devices all have remote alarm capability via email or SMS. All you need to make this work is an email server (SNMP) such as Amazon SES, SendGrid, or even Gmail. There are many SNMP services out there and nearly any one can be used. Finally, an Internet connection is required to communicate with the email server when an alarm state is triggered.

Email alerts can be triggered with either conditional or scheduled logic. This way, you can either send an alert based on a current condition, or you can simply receive a notification at the end of the day with the current status. You can even have a log of all condition changes sent to you daily.

Alternatively, and how Big D chooses to handle this, our devices can alert your SCADA system and allow it to handle notifications. Our remote services tool and our custom scripting abilities make custom integrations possible.

Cell and Cloud

Our cellular devices are capable of monitoring nearly any industrial equipment or field condition and work seamlessly with our ControlByWeb Cloud service to log events. Together with our Cloud API, you can sync data with your own cloud service, SCADA or other control system.

Cellular devices make remote deployment much easier and less expensive. Our Cloud service provides a simple monitoring and data logging interface with reporting tools, while our API extends the possibilities to third-party program systems.

Programmability

Our devices offer an easy-to-program Task Builder that Big D uses to run conditional logging, pushes to their cloud, and to trigger pumps and valves as needed based on the specific scenario. You can also use this to trigger local alarms and other industrial equipment. Our Task Builder features both conditional if/then as well as scheduled tasks. If that isn’t quite enough, our devices also accept BASIC scripts. Between the two, an impressive array of automation is possible all in an easy-to-use, easy-to-learn platform.

Quality First

The oilfield is a harsh environment that demands the most from equipment and personnel. ControlByWeb devices are designed and manufactured in the USA and built for use in any industrial setting, both heavy and light. Our modules excel in remote locations where flexible data acquisition and control are required.

Our devices are loved by our customers for their durability and consistent reliability. We often hear sentiments similar to these:


Frequently Asked Questions

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