Keeping the Lights On: A Proactive Approach to Electrical Reliability in Oil & Gas In the demanding world of oil and gas operations, the continuous and reliable performance of critical electrical equipment isn't just a convenience—it's the backbone of productivity and safety. Motors, transformers, and switchgear are the unsung heroes, but their failure can lead to significant downtime, production losses, and even hazardous situations. This post outlines a structured, cost-effective strategy to prevent, diagnose, and mitigate failures in these essential assets, ensuring your operations run smoothly and efficiently. Understanding the Enemy: Common Failure Modes and Root Causes To combat failures, we first need to understand how and why they occur. Here's a quick look at the most frequent issues: Equipment Top Failure Modes Primary Causes Induction Motors Bearing wear, stator winding faults, rotor bar fractures Overloading, misalignment, voltage imbalance, contamination ...