Oil & Gas Monitoring

How do you monitor wellhead pressure remotely?

Remote wellhead pressure monitoring mounts a pressure sensor and transmitter on the tubing, casing, or flowline and reports readings to the cloud several times a day, with alarms when pressure crosses a threshold or changes too fast.

Manual gauge rounds sample a well once every one to three days, and everything between visits is a blind spot. Scheduled readings turn those snapshots into a trend line, and the trend is where early warnings show up:

• Tubing–casing differential shifts: a changed relationship between the two points to a tubing leak or packer failure.
• Rising casing pressure: a steady annulus build can mean a compromised barrier, which is a safety issue as much as an equipment one.
• Flowline backpressure spikes: a sharp rise often means hydrates in cold or wet gas service; a slower climb points to paraffin.
• Artificial lift anomalies: erratic suction or discharge pressure can signal gas lock or a failing downhole component.

What can you monitor at a tank battery?

At a tank battery you can monitor oil and produced water tank levels, thief hatch position, separator pressure, temperature, and flow, all reporting through a hazardous-location-rated gateway.

The F200 is certified for Class I, Division 1, Group D hazardous locations, so it installs inside the classified area around the tanks. For the full sensor-to-dashboard picture, see our tank level monitoring guide.

• Oil tank level: inventory for hauling, plus high-level alarms before an overfill lifts a pressure relief valve or forces vapor out of a hatch.
• Produced water tank level: fill-rate trends that schedule water hauls before the tanks back up.
• Thief hatch position: a switch on the gateway's digital input reports when a hatch opens and when it closes.
• Separator pressure: threshold and rate-of-change alarms for upsets that can end in venting.
• Temperature and flow: temperature through a threaded thermowell, and flow meters through the F200's 16 MHz pulse counter.

How does tank monitoring help with EPA Quad Ob and Quad Oc?

Tank and pressure monitoring supports Quad Ob and Quad Oc compliance by flagging open thief hatches, overfills, and pressure upsets and logging a timestamped record, but it does not measure methane and does not replace the AVO and OGI surveys the rules require.

Quad Ob (NSPS OOOOb) covers sources built, modified, or reconstructed after December 6, 2022. Quad Oc (EG OOOOc) covers existing sources through state plans, with compliance expected by March 2029. Under both, tank covers and every opening on them, including thief hatches, must stay closed and sealed except during active loading, sampling, inspection, or maintenance. An open thief hatch is one of the most common ways a compliant tank battery falls out of compliance.

Hatch alerts catch a hatch left open after gauging, level alarms catch an overfill before it vents, and the logged history answers "what was the site doing, and when?" for inspections, annual reports, and Super-Emitter Program notifications. This is an engineering overview, not legal advice. Our article on EPA Quad Ob and Oc methane rules covers the timeline and requirements in detail.

Which level sensor works best for crude oil and produced water tanks?

Non-contact radar is the usual choice for crude oil and produced water tanks because it reads through vapor, foam, and temperature swings without touching the liquid.

Ultrasonic signals depend on the air above the liquid, so vapor and temperature changes in a sealed production tank throw them off. Radar isn't affected the same way. Some low-dielectric oils return a weaker radar signal, so the sensor should be selected for the product. Where inventory reconciliation needs the highest accuracy, magnetostrictive float sensors are a common alternative. Our radar vs. ultrasonic comparison goes through the field conditions one by one.

How does remote monitoring change a pumper's route?

Remote monitoring turns a fixed gauging route into an exception-based one, so pumpers drive to the wells and tank batteries that crossed a threshold or need a haul instead of checking every site on a schedule.

Fewer gauging trips also means fewer thief hatch openings, which removes one of the main ways hatches end up left open. When someone needs a reading right away, an on-demand ping returns a near-live value from an XSync unit in seconds. Sites without reliable cellular coverage stay connected over satellite, which every XSync model supports.

The return comes from avoided failures as much as saved miles: one prevented workover typically pays for monitoring hardware across an entire field. Our wellhead pressure monitoring ROI article walks through a real failure scenario with and without monitoring.

Which LevelCon products fit oil and gas sites?

Oil and gas deployments typically pair XSync P on wellheads with an F200 gateway at each tank battery, adding XSync R radar where nothing should touch the liquid.

The digital oilfield tour shows where each device sits on a producing facility.

• XSync P: pressure sensing and cellular in one solar-powered unit that threads directly onto the wellhead, flowline, or separator. CID1 (certification applied for).
• F200: tank battery gateway for level sensors over 4–20 mA, RS-485, or Modbus, plus thief hatch switches. Class I, Division 1, with 5+ years of unattended operation at two reports per day.
• XSync R: 60 GHz radar level sensing and connectivity in a single device, at ranges up to 5 meters. CID1 (certification applied for).
• XSync T and XSync DP: temperature on tanks and pipelines, and differential pressure across filters and flow elements. Both CID1 (certification applied for).
• Automation: pump, valve, and compressor control tied to sensor readings, with fail-safe defaults and SCADA integration over Modbus and REST API.