Know what’s happening at your wells.
Right now most well maintenance simply runs on a schedule. Much like well monitoring, your team will go out to wells at regular intervals to make sure everything is working the way it should be, fix anything that’s broken, and take note of anything that seems like it could become a problem.
The other way most maintenance is currently done is after an incident. Basically, when you see a problem, it’s time to fix it. Your wells are tough pieces of equipment that are built to last. And that’s a good thing, because when you’re monitoring your wells manually and an incident happens, it can be weeks (or months) before you discover the malfunction.
Scheduled or reactive maintenance works fine. Engineers are talented people, and they’ll likely catch any warning signs of major problems with the wells, and know how to fix them on the spot. But it’s expensive. According to McKinsey, maintenance accounts for 10-15% of total production costs at most oil sites.
