Five gases, one plant, one accounting system

The setup

A helical pipe fabricator in the UAE — one of the larger pipe-production sites in the region — runs five industrial gases through its plant:

• Natural gas — for pre-heating, post-weld heat treatment, and process heating.
• Acetylene + oxygen — for oxy-fuel cutting of plate and pipe sections.
• Argon — shielding gas for TIG and MIG welding.
• CO₂ — shielding gas for MIG/MAG welding on carbon-steel pipe.

Each gas came from a different supplier on a different billing schedule, and — critically — the only reliable measurement on most lines was the supplier's inlet meter. What happened between the inlet and the welding bay, cutting bay, or heat-treatment furnace was invisible. Monthly bills arrived; the plant paid them; nobody could answer "how much natural gas per metre of pipe?" or "where did last week's extra argon go?"

The challenge

• Five distinct gas streams, each with its own distribution, its own supplier, and its own billing cadence.
• Inlet meters only — no internal measurement at zone, bay, or equipment level.
• No per-shift, per-production-line, per-weld-station attribution of any gas.
• Leak detection was entirely reactive — a hissing fitting had to be heard, or a pressure drop had to be noticed.
• No way to verify the supplier invoice against measured consumption.
• Different parts of the plant already had meters (installed over the years by different vendors / integrators); other parts had none at all.

Objectives

• Instrument the full gas-flow network across the factory for all five gases.
• Integrate the existing meters wherever present (no rip-and-replace); install new meters only where there was no measurement.
• Deliver per-gas, per-zone real-time accounting under one dashboard.
• Alert on abnormal flow patterns in real time so leaks surface in hours, not weeks.
• Verify supplier invoices against the plant's own measured consumption.
• Build audit-ready evidence for sustainability reporting and GHG inventory.

What SEnergy IoT did

Results

• Up to 20% of line losses identified and arrested. Leaks on acetylene and shielding-gas lines that had been invisible for years surfaced in the first weeks of monitoring and were fixed within days.
• Crucial gas accounting delivered — per gas, per zone, per shift, per product line. The plant now knows what each metre of pipe actually costs in gas.
• Supplier invoice reconciliation — measured consumption vs supplier bill became an audit line item. Discrepancies became negotiable instead of silently paid.
• No rip-and-replace capex — the existing meters were brought under the SEnergy platform; new meters were added only where there was no measurement.
• Audit-ready evidence trail for sustainability reporting and GHG scope-1 inventory.

Platform & integrations