Remote Operations Centres – what next?

Abstract

Integrated Operations (IO) is a well-established concept in oil and gas. In Australia, upstream oil & gas operators have made significant investments in their local IO capability. For many operators this has meant the creation of a dedicated Remote Operations Centre for their new LNG production assets. By ‘Remote Operations Centre’ (or ‘ROC’) we mean a purpose-built facility where multi-disciplinary teams work together to monitor, support or control production fields and/or assets; with the ROC being geographically distant from those fields/assets. For operators with new LNG facilities, a key challenge has been implementing their ROCs while also focusing on completion of their large complex asset builds. As a consequence, there is an opportunity for further development of Australian ROCs, post start-up, to capture greater value from the new producing assets. For the established LNG operators, rapid advances in collaboration techniques, and in data management and visualisation, present new opportunities to augment their legacy ROCs. In this paper we examine leading practices from ROCs worldwide along with lessons learned that are relevant for Australian operators. We conclude by asking ‘what next?’ for Australian operators.