2017 International Conference on Radar, Antenna, Microwave, Electronics, and Telecommunications

An Intelligent Oil and Gas Well Monitoring System

based on Internet of Things
Mohammed Y Aalsalem, Wazir Zada Khan, Wajeb Gharibi and Nasrullah Armi
Farasan Networking Research Laboratory, Faculty of Computer Science and Information System
Jazan University
Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
{m.aalsalem, wazirzadakhan, gharibi, narmi}@jazanu.edu.sa

Abstract—The oil and gas industrial sector is nowadays
inclined towards utilizing smart field technologies for optimizing
various operations of upstream, midstream and downstream
sectors. The recent advances in Internet of things (IoTs) have
promising benefits and advantages over manual wired/wireless
systems. Oil and gas wells form an important element of
upstream sector. After identifying potential viable fields and
drilling of exploratory oil and gas wells, wellhead monitoring is
another essential and crucial activity not only for safe operation
and productivity but also for extending the production life of
these wells. In this paper we propose an intelligent IoT based
monitoring system which involves smart objects for reliable and
efficient monitoring of oil and gas wells. The smart IoT objects
are capable of sensing important parameters like pressure
temperature, vibration etc. and reliably, efficiently and timely
deliver the sensed data to the control center. The proposed
system proactively reports about the anomalous events for
predictive maintenance of the well equipment. The detection and
reporting catastrophic failures and destructive events on time
will increase production downtime and also oil theft can be easily
prevented.
Keywords—Wireless Sensor Networks; Leak Detection;
Corrosion Detection; Temperature, Flow and Pressure Monitoring;
Oil and Gas Pipeline Monitoring; Oil and Gas Industry
Requirements; Issue and Challenges.
I. INTRODUCTION
Oil and gas industrial operations, from extraction to
refining, require efficient and reliable techniques, technologies
and systems to handle critical situations in the oilfields by
quickly responding to them ultimately improving recovery and
raise production. Oil and gas industry was unable to employ
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) technology when it was
introduced in 1980’s since their costs were very high and sizes
were bulky. But during the last few years, WSN technology has
been extensively utilized in oil and gas industry in all the three
sectors of upstream, midstream and downstream sectors for
monitoring and controlling various processes and operations.
Upstream sector employs WSNs technology for exploration
and extraction of oil and gas [1-3], oil and gas well placement
optimization midstream sector employs WSNs for pipeline
condition, integrity, leakage and corrosion detection, pipeline
vandalisation [4-8] and downstream sector leverage WSNs
technology for refinery [9][10]. Shell Petroleum and
Development Company (SDPC) employed WSNs for
monitoring their 1000 oil wells and all other oil and gas
operations in Niger Delta region [11, 12]. Fig 1 shows the
installment of smart WSNs node (vMBusX-SP) by SPDC in
the fields of Niger Delta.
A more recent research attempt in [13] highlights some
important characteristics of WSNs that are best suited for their
implementation in oil and gas industries as well as the
requirements of oil and gas industries that critically need
proper monitoring and control. However, besides all the
advancement in WSN technology that has overcome the
problems of wired technology and instruments, WSN
technology is still facing a number of issues [14-21], problems
and challenges including reliability to carry safety related radio
signals, low data bandwidth, security attacks, short battery life
due to high data update rates, unavailability of line of sight due
to temporary or permanent physical obstruction etc.
An oil well is any boring through the earth surface that is
created for finding and acquiring hydrocarbons and a gas well
on the other hand is created to produce mainly gas. Drilling rig
is used to drill a hole into the earth and thus a well is created.
Wellhead is a component or structure of oil and gas well and it
consists of pieces of equipment that are mounted at the opening
of the well for managing extraction of hydrocarbons from
underground formation as well as preventing oil and gas
leakages out of the well due to high pressure. Wellhead has
three components; the casing head, the tubing head and the
‘Christmas tree’. The casing head is a simple metal flange
welded or screwed onto the top of the conductor pipe. The
tubing head is a spool type unit or housing attached to the top
of the flange on the uppermost oil well casing head to support
the tubing string. A ‘Christmas tree’ is an assembly of valves
and fittings which forms the top of the completion.
Fig.1. WSNs smart node (vMBusX-SP) installed by SPDC in the fields of
Niger Delta [12].

978-1-5386-3849-1/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

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 Oil and gas Wellheads require reliable monitoring in a need
to operate for longer tine without shutting down as well as to
increase lifetime of well head equipment, ultimately for
avoiding major profit losses. Since it is difficult to carry out
well head maintenance activities and check every well in
person by sending employees, smart and intelligent oilfields
can solve these problems. A little attention has been paid for
reliable oil and gas well monitoring. The recent research efforts
for oil and gas well monitoring involves Wireless Sensor
Network technology. The low-powered miniature-sized
multifunctional sensor nodes are capable of operating in harsh
and hostile environments and remain operative in various fields
ranging from battlefield and environmental monitoring to
health and entertainment. Although WSN technology has
revolutionized all the three sectors of oil and gas industry by
providing feasible communication and reliable inspection but a
number of challenges still exist in deployment and operation of
WSNs due limitations of sensor nodes [22-29].
Internet of things (IoT) was first introduced by Kevin
Ashton in 1999. An evolving industrial Internet of Things
(IIoT) has dramatically increased operational efficiencies and
reduced safety and environmental risks in oil and gas industry
and is also expected to provide much more benefits in all the
phases of the Oil and Gas supply chain in near future [30][31].
In this paper we are the first to propose and design an
intelligent IoT based oil and gas well monitoring system which
involves smart IoT objects capable of obtaining detailed data
(pressure, temperature, vibration and flow) from oil and gas
wells. In our proposed architecture, smart objects are installed
on wellheads to report the necessary process data as well as
anomalous events (local choke valve of the wellhead, oil and
gas theft and fire and gas incidents) in timely reliable manner.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2
presents the categorization of oil and gas wells. Section 3
describes related literature in attempt to monitor oil and gas
wells. In Section 3, we present an intelligent IoT based
architecture proposed for oil and gas well monitoring. Finally
Section 4 concludes the paper.
II. TYPES OF OIL AND GAS WELLS
Oil and gas wells can be divided into two major categories;
production wells and Injection wells.
A. Production Wells
Production wells are used to extract oil or gas from
subsurface deposits. Primarily, oil or gas is recovered naturally
from producing oil or gas wells. This process is called Primary
Oil Recovery (POR) and Primary gas Recovery (PGR). POR
and PGR can be achieved in two ways; first when
hydrocarbons (oil or gas) naturally rise to the surface and
second when artificial lift devices, such as pump jacks, are
used. Once the production well is drilled, oil or gas is brought
to the surface by using a technique called “hydraulic
fracturing” in which a mixture of water, sand and chemicals
called “brine” is injected at a high pressure to fracture the rock,
which then releases the oil or natural gas and allows it to flow
to the surface.

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B. Injection Wells
Injection wells are used for two purposes; either to safely
dispose of waste generated from those production operations
or, in some cases, to increase production from nearby
producing wells.
There are many types of injection wells; brine injection
wells, annual disposal wells, and enhanced oil recovery
injection wells. There are two processes involved; Secondary
oil recovery (SOR) and tertiary or Enhanced Oil Recovery
(EOR). SOR uses external fluids such as water and gas
injection, displacing the oil and pushing it to the surface or
displacing the hydrocarbons to the wellbore. Gas injection and
water flooding are commonly used as SOR techniques in which
gas is injected into the gas cap and water is injected into the
production zone to sweep oil from the reservoir. EOR on the
other hand involves the improvement of oil recovered from a
well by applying certain engineering techniques. Also in order
to reduce oil thickness and improve the flow, fluids (involving
gases, carbon dioxide, steam, air or oxygen, polymer solutions,
surfactant-polymer formulations), are introduced to form
homogeneous mixtures.
III. RELATED WORK
In the literature some oil and gas well monitoring systems
based on Wireless sensor networks have been proposed. In this
section we describe the most recent research efforts in this
regard.
Pan Yi et al. [32] have designed a monitoring system for
production well which is based on WSNs. This system is
comprised of data acquisition terminal and surveillance center
and is devised to transmit and management decision of oil and
gas well data. The data acquisition terminal is used to collect,
transmit and exchange information. The service center is sued
to send and receive the collected information, visualization and
statistical analysis. Authorized personnel can remotely send
instructions to well using the system and abnormal activities
are notified through Short Message Service (SMS).
R. Barani et al. [33] have proposed a sensor network based
intelligent control system to avoid manual monitoring. Using
this system, health and condition of multiple oil wells and oil
storage tanks can be efficiently and remotely monitored and
information about the wells and tanks is transmitted wirelessly
to an administrator located in a remote location. The sensors
involved are level sensors, temperature and gas sensors.
Ali Ibrahim [34] has proposed an efficient wireless
monitoring system which uses ZigBee technology and
microchip (PIC microcontrollers) to collect data from a
remotely located oil or gas wells through wireless connectivity
and it is then sent to the data gathering station (Onshore CCR
or process platform). The author has proposed simulator in
which three electronic cards integrated into the wellhead
control panel (WHCP) and each contains a XBee radio module
(router). Each wellhead microcontroller is coded using mikroC
environment. The feedback from wellhead safety valves
position is gathered by the microcontroller and transmitted
through XBee module to remote location.
 IV. PROPOSED IOT BASED MONITORING SYSTEM FOR OIL Thus, the control center will aid to prevent disruptions and
AND GAS WELLS health and safety risks. In addition, the control center will
analyze the data to check out for the daily usage and production
In this section, we contribute to propose an Internet of
of oil and gas. Fig 3 represents the flow chart illustrates how
Things (IoT) based system for monitoring oil and gas wells.
the smart objects installed on the well heads will work within
This system is comprised of three main components; smart
the oil field environment.
object, gateway and control center. Fig 2 shows the installment
of smart objects and other components of our proposed Our proposed system is capable of triggering automatic
monitoring system. Each component is capable of performing alarms on the detection of dangerous or destructive upset
specific functions in order to support monitoring of the conditions, thus before further damages occur, the responsible
interconnected oil and gas wells. personnel can respond and act quickly. Also using this
proposed the responsible personnel can monitor the
Each smart object is accomplished to sense and collect data
performance of oil and gas wells, hence production can be
(temperature, pressure etc.) from oil or gas well environment
improved and downtime can be significantly reduced since the
and report it to the control center. Smart objects are capable of
discrepancies can be realized and reported in a timely manner.
taking appropriate decisions on their own without human
intervention precisely according to different critical situations. V. CONCLUSION
When Smart objects are installed on Wellheads to measure
pressure and temperature, a wealth of information will be Wireless Sensor Network technology promises to deliver
delivered to the control center for analysis. For more efficient, wide range of applications that are most prevalent in all the
reliable and accurate monitoring, smart objects will collaborate three sectors of oil and gas industries. However with the
with each other, ultimately leading to the avoidance of evolution of IoT and industrial IoT, processes and operations
catastrophic failures including equipment theft and crude can be performed more efficiently and reliably. In this paper,
oil/natural gas theft. Smart objects can stop anomalous events we propose an intelligent IoT based monitoring system which
to occur by either generating fire alarms or alerting the security employs smart IoT objects on well heads to facilitate various
personnel or nearby maintenance personnel for further operations. The smart objects are capable of analyzing various
processing. Predictive maintenance of well head equipment can parameters and intelligently take appropriate decisions in real
also be done since smart objects on the wellheads are also time critical situations without human intervention. Also
connected to the cathodic protection unit and they can warn the through predictive maintenance of oil and gas well equipment,
control center regarding the equipment that needs repair or failures can be stopped before they lead to a disaster.
maintenance. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The gateway is a component that functions as a bridge This research work is funded by the King Abdul-Aziz City
between smart objects and the control center. Also in case of for Science and Technology, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Under
unavailability of direct link of smart objects with the control Grant Number # (AT-35-98).
center, gateways will be able to connect smart objects to the
control center. Gateways are also equipped with different types
of sensors, like acoustic, temperature, flow and pressure
sensors. A radio transceiver is also included in the gateways for
short range communication with other gateways and smart
objects.
The control center is a component that manages
applications that are installed on smart objects and gateways as
well analyzes the data gathered from the smart objects. It also
generates the useful information from the data delivered by
using different algorithms [35] [36], sorts out problems and
finally takes appropriate decisions against anomalous events.

Fig.2. Schematic diagram of the proposed well monitoring system. Fig.3. Flow Chart representing the working of proposed oil and gas well
monitoring.


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