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Hanna Oil, eLynx Ink Deal

September 11, 2001
Company Automates Well Checks
By Larry E. Binz, Times Record

One of the most time-and money-consuming tasks in the natural gas business is checking well sites daily to see if they are working properly.

Bill Hanna, president of Hanna Oil & Gas Co, believes his company has found a viable solution to that concern through an agreement with eLynx Technologies of Tulsa to automate wells in the Arkoma Basin.

"When one of our people has to travel as much as 200 miles round trip a day to check one of our wells, it's both costly and time consuming" Hanna said Monday. "We believe this new technology offers a more efficient way to check on our well sites."

Fort Smith-based Hanna Oil and Gas signed a one-year agreement with eLynx to provide real-time data collection, production reporting, monitoring and control for wells and compressors via the Internet, according to Chad miller, eLynx's director of business development.

Miller said the technology was developed by American Central Gas Technologies Inc, as a means of providing "information from the wellhead" over the Internet. He said eLynx is a wholly owned subsidiary of American Central.

Hanna said actual trips to well sites have been a long-standing daily routine for lease operators.

"Our Pumpers (lease operator) check wells daily to see how the volume of gas is flowing" Hanna said. Hanna Oil and Gas has about 150 well sites in the Arkoma Basin, which stretches from near Russellville to McAlester, Okla.

Ron Robbins, Hanna's operations manager, said each of the four lease operators log an average of 1000 miles per week on the road for a total of at least 200,000 miles per year. The eLynx system should reduce travel time and costs, Robbins said

"This system will cut our costs for travel at least in half and improve the safety of the wells by knowing if there is a problem" Robbins said.

Robbins declined to comment on the dollar figure of the company's financial agreement with eLynx.

Todd Davis, Hanna production technician, explained how the computerized system works Monday as he sat in Hanna Oil and Gas' field office on Phoenix Avenue.

"We can access information with a password on the Internet to check on a site without having to go (to the well) unless it becomes necessary," Davis said.

Davis said eLynx has offered Hanna Oil and Gas two kinds of communication technologies � cellular and microburst. Cellular operates like a cellular phone with a modem. Davis is in the process of programming 14 Arkansas well sites during the next 10 days.

"We hope to have as many as half of our well sites set up in the coming months," Davis said.

The microburst technology allows for "an alarm call-out system" 24 hours a day that "operates like a pager," sending out a signal that a problem exists at a given well site, Davis said.

Davis said the sites will be checked via Internet up to four times a day. If a problem arises at a site, a lease operator can correct the problem and then look up the well site on the Internet later to see if it is in good working order.

Downtime means loss of revenue, Davis said.

"When a compressor is not working, the flow of gas stops," Davis said. "The sooner corrections are made, the sooner the well can be pumping gas again."

Davis said eLynx can customize a company's network to provide information specifically for those desired points.