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OPC UA Defined and How It Impacts Oil & Gas

    By Melissa Topp, ICONICS

    Over the past decade, software vendors have used Object-Oriented and Service-Oriented Architectures to design products that are both scalable and reliable. However, these successful architectural models only recently started to be used for the exchange of information in offshore oil and gas production.

    More recently, the ability to collect and analyze exponentially growing sets of data is at an unprecedented level, due to the wide adoption of Big Data. At the same time, mobile devices are transforming the way…

    Offshore Oil and Gas : Secure, Safe

      By Greg Hale, Industrial Safety and Security Source

      Attendees and exhibitors at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) 2014 in Houston in early May talked about all issues related to the booming oil and gas market, but at the end of the day, safety and security always ended up a main topic of conversation. And it needs to be.

      For good reason as users fret about their hundreds of millions, if not billion, dollar investment and want to keep their platforms up and running so they can make as much product, and profit, as possible. Being able to communicate from the well head all the way through to the enterprise – through disparate systems — remains a vital concern for…

      Protecting Industrial Control Systems from Cyberattack

        By Owl Computing Technologies

        As operations and critical infrastructure components become increasingly digitized, the threat to these structures moves from physical threats and attacks to cyber assaults. This means that your electronic perimeter is now as – if not more – important as the physical fence you have around your facility. But there’s a critical problem.

        When you have a physical gate, fence, or barrier, your facility is isolated from the outside world. There are actual gatekeepers controlling the flow into and out of your plant, which impedes movement speed but nevertheless moves everything where it needs to be.

        With a cyber system, this is…

        Real-time Drilling Data Collection & Analysis

          By Steve Sponseller, Kepware Technologies

          Most of the general public is unaware that there is an automation revolution happening in the exploration and drilling segment of the Oil & Gas Industry. Like most automation endeavors, this revolution is being driven by the demand for improved efficiency, accurate reporting, and escalated safety requirements.

          The fast-paced drilling taking place in current shale gas exploration and production sites requires improved process efficiency. Shale gas is a revolution in and of itself, with promises of lower energy costs and less carbon dioxide emissions than traditional hydrocarbon energy sources. Improved efficiency demands are a result of the wide geographic spread of shale plays and the need for multiple wells to drill and frack in order to tap into the gas that is trapped in the shale rock. Companies are also performing advanced analytics on their drilling operations, which allows them to predict…

          Fractionation Plant Boosts Efficiency with Ignition & OPC UA

            By Inductive Automation

            Enerchem International Inc. is a leader in the production and distribution of hydrocarbon drilling and fracturing fluids. Staying ahead of the curve with new technologies, Enerchem has been utilizing the SCADA software platform Ignition by Inductive Automation® at their Slave Lake facility in Alberta Canada for over 5 years.

            Taking full advantage of Ignition and its built-in, cross-platform OPC-UA server, system integrator Kyle Chase – CEO of Kymera Systems – helped Enerchem build a cost-effective system that has increased the…

            Events Update

              The OPC Foundation conducts and attends several events throughout the year that showcase OPC technology and its member’s solutions. See what’s coming up next and what you may have missed.

              New Product Releases

                Check out the latest product releases from our members:

                ● Matrikon Releases Industrial Data Logger

                ● MatrikonOPC Releases the OPC UA Proxy

                ● TeslaSCADA – First Certified Android OPC UA SCADA