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Energy & Utilities

Downstream Logistics Optimization

AWS Downstream Logistics Optimization | Amazon Web Services

Downstream and midstream energy facilities include a complex network of personnel, equipment, processes, and infrastructure. Maintaining base operations involves safe, reliable, and efficient movement of hydrocarbons into and out of sites to support the manufacturing and delivery of products to market.

The management of logistics operations is largely handled with paper-based and manually-intensive workflows, exposing companies to increased financial and field risk. Hydrocarbon distribution networks are diverse, and companies must effectively monitor, analyze, and optimize continuous operations.

The advent of energy-focused cloud technology now gives the industry the capability to improve the visibility and management of operations – orchestrating critical processes, automating workflows, and allowing cross-functional personnel to work efficiently together. AWS’ Downstream Logistics Optimization is a cloud-native solution to improve the tracking, analysis, forecasting, and optimization of hydrocarbon logistics operations. By combining geospatial intelligence and machine-learning services, the solution improves how schedulers, operators, and field personnel manage logistics operations of feeds, intermediates, and products - to improve business costs, field efficiency, utilization, and lower risk.

Solution Components

AWS downstream logisitics optimization

Track movements across pipelinesshipsrailcars, and trucks.

Monitor for anomalies and notify relevant personnel.

ETA predictions based on real-time variables.

Enable operational changes for field efficiency and incremental value.

Integrate with business applications and Contact Center.

Value Drivers

The value drivers are:

  • Higher Utilization
  • Improved Agility
  • Lower Operating Cost
  • Incremental Margin Profit
  • Lower Field Risk

Customer Case Study

Challenge:

TC Energy planners used to spend days and weeks to manually analyze, review and validate information from disparate sources to optimize available pipeline capacity. The company wanted to improve safety and cost-efficiency of operations, create a seamless transfer of information, and provide operational recommendations to controllers for real-time optimization of pipeline performance.

Solution:

Leveraged data from existing OT systems in an Operations Data Lake, and applied Machine Learning services like Amazon SageMaker to build a forecasting model for optimizations. The solution was also able to forecast scenarios based on market conditions and provide anomaly detection and alerting for gas controllers. The company also used an intelligent document processing workflow powered with Artificial Intelligence to ingest historical paper-based data to aide with operational planning and regulatory compliance.

Impact:

  • Optimization of pipeline capacity and asset utilization
  • Anticipated fuel cost savings and operational efficiencies
  • Processed 20M+ record images (ensure safety, maintenance, regulatory compliance)
Multiple large industrial pipelines in the oil and gas industry, with a blurred background suggesting depth and infrastructure complexity.
"TC Energy logo with blue and green abstract swoosh design."
We can now maximize capacity from our existing system to serve our customers’ needs immediately, instead of building new facilities.”

Joe Zhou

Director of Capacity Management, TC Energy

Learn More

Better Operational Decision Making Through Machine-Learning

TC Energy Maximizes Operational Capacity by Innovating on AWS

TC Energy builds an intelligent document processing workflow to process over 20 million images with Amazon AI

How to get started

Phase 1: Discovery

Activities

  • IT Security Review
  • Data Source Identifications
  • Process Flow Discovery

Outcomes

  • IT Security Approval
  • Finalize Data Strategy
  • Infrastructure Inputs into Planning
  • Define Engagement Score

Phase 2: Align

Activities

  • Connectivity Identifications
  • Source Prioritization
  • Build RACI
  • Define Models, Anomalies, User Stories

Outcomes

  • Draft Architecture
  • Define RACI
  • Define Analytics/ML strategy

Phase 3: Launch

Activities

  • Build Architectures
  • Build Dashboards
  • Implement and Validate Analytics/ML
  • Solution Training
  • End-to-End Workflow Testing

Outcomes

  • Implement Solutions
  • Implemented Dashboards
  • Deploy Use Cases

AWS Solutions Library

Visit the AWS Solutions Library so you can learn how to get started with Downstream Logistics Optimization and other solutions for the energy industry.

Technology Partners

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