Canadian firm MCloud Technologies, a provider of asset management combining IoT, cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI), has started connecting its first oil and gas facility in western Canada for heat exchanger optimisation.

This follows the company’s announcement in June that it would be acquiring Australia-based Kanepi Group, a supplier of software to the oil and gas industries.

Heat exchangers require costly maintenance, often tens of thousands of dollars per year for each unit. They are pervasive, underserved industrial assets, usually found in the dozens per site at power stations, petrochemical plants, petroleum refineries, mineral processing plants, pulp and paper mills, and natural gas processing plants.

MCloud says it can generate monthly recurring revenues for every connected heat exchanger over ten times that of a connected HVAC unit in a commercial building.

The company’s AssetCare product helps facility operators maintain assets based on actual operating conditions rather than a fixed schedule, optimising exchanger throughput and reducing maintenance and downtime costs by up to half. In western Canada alone, the company’s existing oil and gas customers operate hundreds of facilities with 15 or more heat exchangers per site, making up an immediately addressable local market of over 10,000 connectable heat exchangers.

“Bolstered by our recent acquisition of Kanepi, we are pleased to see the rapid adoption of AssetCare for heat exchanger optimisation by our oil and gas customers,” said Russ McMeekin, MCloud president and CEO. “As the only viable cloud- and AI-based heat exchanger optimisation solution on the market today, we expect to connect at least 1000 heat exchangers as part of our roadmap to 70,000 connected assets by the end of this year with a plan to become the industry standard in 2021.”

MCloud uses AI and analytics to curb energy waste, increase energy production and get the most out of critical energy infrastructure. Through its AI-powered AssetCare platform, it offers complete asset management in five segments: commercial buildings, renewable energy, healthcare, heavy industry and connected workers. IoT sensors bring data from connected assets into the cloud, where AI and analytics are applied to increase their performance.

Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, with offices in twelve locations worldwide, the MCloud family includes an ecosystem of operating subsidiaries that deliver IoT, AI, 3D and mobile capabilities, all integrated into AssetCare. It has over 100 blue-chip customers and more than 51,000 assets connected in thousands of locations worldwide.