Energy companies need create a holistic digital roadmap to achieve productivity and safety goals, Mohamed Abdel El Aziz Abdullah, General Manager of SCADA Line of Business, Giza Systems tells OGN

The oil and gas industry is facing several challenges, ranging from the Covid-19 pandemic and plummeting oil prices and demand, to climate change programmes and the global move towards cleaner energy.

With the drive to increase productivity, efficiency, safety and savings, oil and gas companies can benefit from creating a digital transformation roadmap and adopting it as a holistic approach to transform the sector and build resilience and sustainability.

Being a leading systems integrator in Egypt and MEA with a long track record, Giza Systems offers the oil and gas and the utilities market digital transformation enablers, which allow for value creation and sustainability, directly contributing to operational and organisational transformation. Its integrated solutions catering to the oil, gas, petrochemical and chemical industries serve production, refining, transportation, distribution and petrochemical operations, as well as regulatory operations.

Abdullah ... digitalisation focus

Giza Systems also supports oil and gas companies in the optimisation of business operations, including refineries, tank farms, production plants, remote sites and pipelines, retail fuel stations and back offices.

Giza Systems’ portfolio of offerings includes SCADA, emergency shutdown (ESD) systems, fire and gas, instrumentation and valves, OT & IT cybersecurity, distributed control systems, leak detection systems (LDS), big data systems, manufacturing execution systems (MES), energy management and analytics, wireless, E&I modules, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), data centres, LV & MV Panels, fibre optics, WHCP, security and light current systems.

These solutions make it possible to integrate real-time data and advanced analytics with the decision making process, improving efficiencies and overall effectiveness of oil and gas companies.

For the oil and gas sector to fully embrace digital transformation, they must adopt a holistic approach by developing a distinctive digital strategy that takes into account the myriad new ways value can be created with digital technology. Digital transformation is not just about applying new technologies, but about tackling the main tenets of digital transformation, which involve people, processes and technology.

According to the various literature, the success of digital transformation hinges on a number of factors, most important of which are senior leadership’s role and involvement; importance of organisational culture; upskilling through training to ensure teams have the needed digital skills; and adoption of digital business model with clear governance and accountability guidelines.

From the technical applications side, the following are some examples of solutions and services offered by Giza Systems enabling digital transformation of the oil and gas operations and processes in diverse areas:

Giza Systems SCADA system application and pipeline management SCADA system application data

SMART FUEL MONITORING SYSTEMS

Providing a complete central SCADA system for an advanced fully-automated smart monitoring solution that tracks the whole fuel distribution supply chain from refineries and tank farms storage facilities to tank farms loading arms and retail fuel stations. The solution offers various benefits including:

• Allowing operators to identify fuel loss aeas and monitor the fuel inventory variance in retail fuel stations, storage facilities of the tank farms and refineries.

• Forecasting data and generating analytics for insights on fuel consumption across different areas in the country.

• Accessing dashboards to provide leaders with a high-level view of information by di  playing related charts in one place.

PIPELINE CONTROL & LDS SYSTEMS

A complete pipeline control and SCADA monitoring system paired with LDS that digitalise pipeline control and improve availability allowing operators to control fluid pressure and flow in the pipeline, in addition to identifying areas of leakage or theft. Amongst the numerous benefits are:

• Optimisation of the O&M workforce.

• Reporting and analysis of pipeline events and alarms.

• Instant shutdown capabilities of pipeline in case of rupture or major leaks.

• Protection of human lives against possible fires from oil and gas leaks.

ASSET MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Providing IIoT-based solutions to monitor the status of oil and gas equipment, as well as relaying requisite information to asset management systems for asset status predictions enabling early notification of possible upcoming failures. The benefits include:

• Monitoring and protection of critical assets and systems against emerging threats.

• Better availability and reduced unplanned downtime through predictive maintenance.

• Reduced maintenance and emergency repair operational costs.

• Increased health and safety for protection of employees and environment by reducing asset-related incidents.

• Providing a standard, well-designed and consistent interface connecting machines, data and people for faster time-to-market, superior user-experience, and dynamic scalability for business growth.

REMOTE TELEMETRY SOLUTIONS

The solution provides both connectivity and cybersecurity by employing a series of remote terminal units (RTUs) in key areas throughout the infrastructure to collect and send all raw data feeds from sensors and metering equipment. These RTUs are specifically designed for the industrial customer and industrial equipment. Telemetry servers can ingest data from the largest of industrial machinery to the smallest of sensors, devices and gateways to ensure that data from a wide range of equipment can be processed and communicated to a centralised system providing holistic real-time operations.

ICS OT CYBERSECURITY

Currently, most oil and gas operational technology (OT) environments are moving towards digital transformation, interconnected systems and data analytics, big data, SCADA, industrial control systems (ICS), IIoT and smart sensors. To ensure the integrity of the data, Giza Systems’ portfolio of OT security solutions enable industrial, asset-intensive environments to monitor and secure networks, protect endpoints and deliver cybersecurity service. The company’s solutions and services in ICS OT cybersecurity for oil and gas include gap analysis; vulnerability management; field devices hardening; IT /OT network segregation; industrial network firewalls; data diodes; penetration testing; and physical security.

Giza Systems, a leading systems integrator in the MEA region, designs and deploys industry-specific technology solutions for asset-intensive industries such as the telecoms, utilities, oil and gas, transportation and other market sectors. The company helps clients streamline their operations and businesses through its portfol io of solutions, managed services, and consultancy practice.

Giza Systems’ teams of over 1,100 professionals are spread throughout the region with anchor offices in Cairo, Riyadh, Dubai, Doha, Nairobi, Dar-es-Salaam, Abuja, Kampala and New Jersey, allowing it to service an ever-increasing client base in over 40 countries.