Oil & Gas Solutions

Expert Maintenance Enhances Total Cost of Ownership

By Danielle Foelber | Posted October, 2023

As oilfield service providers and operators push their hydraulic fracturing equipment harder and longer, uptime is critical. Any unplanned downtime compromises efficiencies – and cuts into profitability. Oil and gas businesses can significantly reduce ownership and operating costs when utilizing experts to properly maintain and monitor equipment.

Pump Replacement Was the Norm

The oil and gas industry’s workforce challenges have resulted in the loss of decades of equipment and maintenance knowledge as crew members retire. Coupled with the difficult task of intimately understanding all brands of machinery and a diverse array of routine maintenance requirements, minimizing non-productive time (NPT) is difficult to say the least.

An oilfield services provider operating in the Permian knew this all too well. Maximizing uptime in a near continuous-duty operation often made it challenging to perform maintenance. This led to a high capex as pumps were replaced rather than maintained or repaired. 

Caterpillar’s meticulous predictive maintenance schedule and efficient filtration system significantly enhanced equipment performance. The uniform distribution of blue dots underlines improved consistency in systematic oil sampling (SOS) results, differentiating between customer-managed and Cat-managed WS 335 frac pumps.

Unplanned Downtime Eliminated


Caterpillar offers expert fleet managers and product support engineers that know how to obtain the best performance for all OEM equipment from the engine to the pump and beyond. Through computer monitoring and running precise algorithms 24/7/365, the Caterpillar team quickly recognized impending failure modes and provided warnings about key issues such as unit filtration bypass and abnormal system vibration which reduced the NPT the oilfield services provider previously experienced due to equipment failures.

While identifying these warning signs preemptively is important, how you address them is even more critical. Armed with real-time unit data and detailed sampling records, the oilfield services provider’s maintenance plan was adjusted and recalibrated for optimal operational behavior to maintain the equipment’s performance.

With maintenance performed correctly and regularly, the oilfield services provider significantly reduced capex and optimized total cost of ownership (TCO) as its crews no longer needed to swap failed pumps with new. Crews and Caterpillar’s team noted that equipment longevity doubled as pumps clocked more than 10,000 hours, compared to only lasting 3,000 to 4,000 hours previously. The Caterpillar team not only simplified parts supply and maintenance but also eliminated nearly all equipment-based NPT for the pumps, resulting in a 50% planned NPT reduction and elimination of unplanned downtime. 

With consistent and reliable equipment performance each day, the oilfield services provider observed that it saved more money the more it integrated Caterpillar preventive maintenance expertise into its operations.

Experts You Can Trust with Your Operations

While equipment failures in the field can’t be completely eradicated, failures can be predicted to mitigate them and prevent them from affecting operations.

Collaborating with a services provider you can trust – especially when it comes to advanced maintenance planning – can have a positive impact on the bottom line. Using worldwide testing standards generates accurate results as well as a trend analysis you can depend on. Experts that handle every type of fluid and application are uniquely equipped to merge fluid data with other vital condition monitoring information to deliver insights into equipment health, performance and location regardless of the OEM to optimize operations for controlled costs.

Learn more about the advanced technologies Caterpillar experts used to achieve these impactful results here and here.

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