Home » Case Studies » Lube Oil Life Extended by 2.5X Across 21 Rigs in Multi-Year Agreement
Table of Contents
Case Study
Lube Oil Life Extended by 2.5X Across 21 Rigs in Multi-Year Agreement
Table of Contents
Background
Industry
Oil & Gas
Solution
Oil Quality
Management Solution
(OQMS)
Make & Model
Caterpillar
Diesel Engines
Asset
Land Rig
Objective
To reduce lube oil consumption, cut down operational expenses, and improve uptime by extending the oil drain interval of CAT engines without compromising equipment reliability.
Challenge / Problem Context
High cost of new lube oil due to frequent oil changes: Over ~$558,000 was being spent on lube oil changes across 21 rigs during the 3-year contract period.
Frequent lube oil contamination despite timely oil and inline filter changes: Contamination issues persisted even though standard maintenance practices were followed, leading to inefficiencies.
Delayed lab analysis reports: Oil sample reports from labs took 3–4 weeks, by which time the data was outdated and not useful for real-time decisions.
What Did We Do?
Addressing High Oil Costs: Deployed Neptunus’ Oil Quality Management Solution (OQMS), which combined a high-efficiency continuous bypass kidney loop filtration system with an online oil quality monitoring sensor to accurately measure oil health and remaining useful life.
Tackling Oil Contamination: - Implemented continuous oil filtration through OQMS, ensuring removal of impurities in real time and maintaining oil within usable quality limits. - Conducted confirmatory lab tests at 1000, 2000, and 2500 operating hours, validating sensor readings and proving oil remained within safe parameters even beyond traditional intervals.
Eliminating Delayed Lab Dependency: Connected sensors to an IoT-based cloud monitoring dashboard, enabling the customer to make real-time, data-backed decisions without relying on delayed laboratory results.
Results That We Achieved
On High Oil Costs: - Achieved direct annual savings of $3,715 per engine ($14,860 per rig). - Projected savings across 21 rigs over the 3-year contract period reached ~$936,000.
On Oil Contamination: - Extended oil change intervals confidently from 1000 hours to 2500+ hours (2.5x improvement), while maintaining oil health within acceptable limits. - Reduced oil-related OPEX (oil + inline filters) by ~60%.
On Lab Dependency: - Enabled faster, proactive decision-making with real-time oil condition visibility. - Reduced unnecessary oil changes, leading to additional indirect savings through lower maintenance, reduced logistics of dirty oil disposal, and improved rig uptime.
