Innovation Leadership
PROJECT DIRECTED BY
WRITTEN BY
Connor Love
Jay Benmehidi
Rocsole
Innovation Leadership Business Enquirer takes a closer look at cleantech industry leaders Rocsole as they help innovate the resources sector.
T Mika Tienhaara, CEO, Rocsole
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Issue 105 · Business Enquirer Magazine
he oil and gas industry is undergoing a wave of disruptive change that is changing the rules of the game. Not that this should come as any surprise: from price volatility to COVID-19, and of course the global drive to go green, oil and gas operators are facing threats and scrutiny from all sides. To survive let alone thrive, it is clear that they
must evolve and innovate – a requirement that is easier said than done, bearing in mind the traditional nature of the sector. Whilst it has taken time for some oil and gas executives to come round to the idea, owing to the industry’s ingrained ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’ mindset, disruptive new tech startups are bringing new solutions to market that are simply too promising to overlook. In particular, leaders that are seeking to gain or maintain a competitive edge are focusing on finding pioneering new solutions to improve operational process efficiencies – an area of expertise for which Rocsole’s pioneering range of products and services have proven to be well-suited. “The market for industrial automation is enormous and growing, the same goes for digitalisation and AI/machine learning area to create actionable in-
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Smart Processes Feature sights. Incumbent solution and service providers have a different technology level lacking the capabilities we are providing,” explained Rocsole’s charismatic CEO, Mika Tienhaara. He continued: “These are exciting times. If we look at the oil and gas sector, we see a strong push for ESG measures and need for higher efficiency and decarbonisation, so the timing with our scaling up couldn’t be better. We will still need hydrocarbon production and products for a number of years, what I think needs to be a top priority is to make it as efficient and clean as possible in the processing. This is an area that has been lagging behind, but with the technology and tools we are utilising, it is now possible to go to the next level. So I believe the status quo “monster” doing nothing, is not applicable. We will see big changes in the next years.” Since the company first opened its doors for business in 2012, Rocsole - with the backing and support of industry giants like Shell and Repsol - has succeeded in creating a portfolio of agile solutions which utilise its award-winning Deposition In-Line Inspection (DILI) systems –
technology that allows clients to inspect pipelines for deposition build-up thickness, type, and location though the use of tomographic technology.
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The market for industrial automation is enormous and growing, the same goes for digitalisation and AI/machine learning.
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Rocsole
Through its success in utilising electrical tomography, Rocsole is able to forensically analyse what is happening inside equipment such as subsea pipelines and detect potential deposit build up that could disrupt flows of oil and gas. Furthermore, upon discovering any such deposits, the Rocsole team is then able to make the necessary adjustments needed to solve the issue. “What we have detected, and based on our years of field operations experience, is that the most common cause for critical processing equipment failures is faulty instrumentation. This in turn results
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Smart Processes Feature
What we have done is to implement and make electrical tomography industrially tough, to work in real-time continuously without the need of the typical maintenance activities that support the true digital transformation, eliminating unnecessary manual work processes that are creating bottlenecks. Basically we provide our solutions with own proprietary sensors and software. We work internationally with some 20 active markets.”
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Based on our years of field operations experience the most common cause of critical processing equipment failure is faulty instrumentation.
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Let’s look into the science of this in a little more detail: DILI technology is reliant on tomographic measurements to analyse deposit conditions inside pipelines. A DILI sensor will travel through a pipeline, during which it will collect detailed information on deposit build-up thickness, type, and location. Unlike traditional methods that have been used by the industry, tomography is non-invasive, and it works in virtually all process environments, minus the need for production shutdowns, and the reporting of results can be completed quickly via AI/ML-based data processing. How quickly you might ask? Well according to Rocsole, results are also available by up to three hundred-times faster when compared to traditional incumbent reporting methods – so minutes, rather than weeks. From a maintenance reduction standpoint, this is invaluable because, for pipeline operators, fast results turn-around mean drastically less production downtime. Naturally the return on investment that such efficiency improvements can yield are vast indeed. In terms of what the future holds for Rocsole and the wider industry, it would be safe to say the genie has been let out of the proverbial bottle.
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Issue 105 · Business Enquirer Magazine
Going forwards, embracing continuous technological innovation and augmenting new ways of doing things to operations will be essential for the oil and gas industry as the energy transition and Industry 4.0 increasingly changes the world around us. Granted, there is much talk of the rise of renewables and the green energy revolution that is underway, however as Mika and many others in academia and the business world acknowledge, oil and gas isn’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future. It’s still going to be here tomorrow. So with this in mind Mika and the Rocsole team plan to carry on working toward their primary strategic goal: to ensure that where oil and gas operations take place, IOCs can go about their business to the highest levels of operational excellence and efficiency, and ensure that the release of pollutants and emissions are kept to an absolute minimum. Mika concluded: “Our plan is to grow with a clear strategy, we have a strong focus and know what applications provides unrivalled customer value. We are growing in the oil and gas upstream sector, where we have an expansive road map, in parallel we are in piloting and concept phase for various manufacturing industries. The coming year will start to show on the impact we can make in industries and speaking for the whole team, I think we are very excited about this.
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Our plan is to grow with a clear strategy, we have a strong focus and know what applications provide unrivalled customer value
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in frequent unplanned shutdowns, excess carbon emissions and highly inefficient plants.
Rocsole
I think in general that we have an exciting journey ahead – it is very much about building cooperations to enable game changing innovative solutions to make a big impact in industry. We look at further collaborations on the commercial side.” www.rocsole.com
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Rocsole www.rocsole.com
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