After speaking to operators and service personnel in the
field, we learned a few astounding facts about how essential the reliability of
the power generator is to production yields.
Specifically, generator problems account for at least 90% of downtime in
upstream operations. Generators will go down
at any time of day, but most operators only find out during their daily site
visit—which is why most of the leasing companies we visited were on the phone
starting with the first shift around 8am.
Most operators expect you to send out a service technician within two
hours of that first call (mostly because that’s how long it takes to drive
across the field), and they all want the generator back up in three hours. We also learned that there is a huge surge of
generator orders around the coldsnap of the year. In an environment where temperatures
routinely range
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| Diesel Fuel Gelled on a Fuel Filter |
Diesel generators also have another unique problem: diesel theft.
One of the smaller operators we visited told us they had lost $350k worth
in stolen diesel in the last 3 months (or an estimated $3M for the year).
E&P operators aspire to use flare gas to run their
generators, but the natural gas generators adapted for this purpose have higher
failure rates. Most of these NG
generators have propane available on site for backup, but the primary cause of
failure is of course due to the fact that flare gas has inconsistent fuel
quality, which beyond causing engine shutdowns also shortens their life. One supplier told us he only expects his
fleet of generators to last 12-18 months before he will have to overhaul or
replace them. The quality of flare gas
is so poor, one major generator vendor won’t sell their generators without
first evaluating a test sample for examination in the lab. If the results come back as poor, they will
not provide a generator. If the results
come back positive, they will sell the product without a warranty. In addition, the availability of these
generators is less than 90%.
Needless to say, the systems used by the industry are subpar. Technologies do exist to bring improve the
availability of flare gas burning generators, but the costs don’t currently
justify their implementation, and the sub-par availability is the biggest
barrier to the implementation of conventional reciprocating generators. The technology we are developing here at
Dynamo is built to solve the numerous problems here.
