CASE STUDY

Rig Owner Extends Lube Oil Change Interval from 1,000 to 3,300 Hours, Saving $108,000 Over 3 Years with Oil Quality Management.

Oil and Gas

Real-time oil quality monitoring sensor

Caterpillar make diesel engines

High cost of new lube oil due to frequent oil changes on 5 CAT diesel engines onboard an offshore Rig Long response time
(typically 8-10 weeks) for lab reports on oil samples, and the data by then is outdated.
Based on their previous experience, the rig team was manually extending the oil change interval from the OEM recommended 1000 hours to 2000 hours. However this was not a data-backed decision and lube oil contamination was frequent.
The team regretted the lack of real-time visibility of the oil quality
~USD 80,000 was being spent on new oil over the 3 years contract period per rig.

Neptunus has been a preferred partner to this customer for engine maintenance across their multiple rigs
The Customer deployed Neptunus’ online oil quality monitoring sensor (part of Neptunus’ Asset Reliability Management solution) on all 5 engines of 4 rigs.
This sensor installed in the oil line continuously monitored oil quality and displayed overall oil quality index (combined reflection of 22 parameters like viscosity, moisture, oxidation, particles etc.), temperature and the remaining useful life of oil. Using IIoT interface & cloud, this data can also be remote monitored & trended
This helped the customer make a confident data-backed decision to extend the oil change interval to 3300+ hours. This
was 3 times the standard OEM interval, and 1.5 times of the existing practices.

Early warning of lube oil contamination! Lube oil related issues cause 54% of machine failures and these are potentially
prevented by real-time monitoring. (Ref: Noria Corporation)
On one rig, actual savings over initial 12 month period of deployment of solution = $1800/engine = $9000
Benchmark savings over the standard OEM oil change recommended interval per engine ~$110,000 (67% saving of
standard lube oil spend per engine of $160,000 over 3 years)
For 4 rigs, projected savings for this Customer over the 3 year contract = ~$108,000
Saving logistical hassles of disposing dirty oil, while being environmentally responsible.