BP and GE launch Fitbit for oil and gas assets

BP is piloting a new piece of kit, likened to a Fitbit for oil and gas assets, on one of its platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Fitbits are portable devices designed to help improve people's health by tracking their activity levels.
General Electric's plant operations advisor aims to do the same for platforms by preventing unplanned downtime and improving reliability.

It uses digital data points to assess the «health» of a platform and relays information back to engineers, who can then act quickly to fix problems.
If the pilot on the Atlantis Platform goes to plan, BP will have the system set up on more facilities next year.

Lorenzo Simonelli, president and CEO, GE Oil & Gas. «BP gravitates toward new technologies, especially digital, and that makes working with them particularly exciting. We are taking a big step forward together during this time of digital transformation, deploying what we've co-created over the past year to drive the kind of productivity improvements that the oil and gas industry needs. The global deployment is expected to be the largest-scale deployment of GE's Predix-powered APM technology to date.»

Ahmed Hashmi, BP's head of upstream technology, said: «By bringing together some of the best minds at GE and BP, we were able to develop this innovative digital product and are confident that it will have a significant impact on our business. When fully deployed, these advanced digital technologies will change the way we work and improve the integrity and performance of our assets around the globe.»

BP has had a long history of investing in different types of digital technology. 20 years ago, the company invested in Big Data for seismic. That was the company's first big wave of change. This was followed by investment in 2D seismic, then 3D modelling for reservoir simulation, then high performance computing. These investments have established the foundation for digital technology.