was to put in larger pumps and higher horsepower drives – in
fact, 4160 V variable speed drives with modulation rectifiers for
motor control. The modern variable speed drive offers not only
the performance requirement, but reduced energy consumption
and improved reliability. Importantly for the customer in
question, this was delivered and commissioned across four
separate sites in a very short window by experienced engineers
from a global solutions team.
Information flow
Keeping that simplicity thought in mind, arguably the biggest
development in what automation technology can deliver in
recent years has as much to do with the flow of information as
it does with the flow of oil or gas.
The information age has by no means passed the world
of pipelines by. The whole oil and gas industry has seen the
benefits that increased data collection and visualisation has to
offer, and the right automation vendor can now offer bespoke
DCS solutions that are built from ‘off-the-shelf’ technologies,
which simply integrate with existing equipment via modern
standardised communication protocols. One huge advantage
to this is the standardisation of engineering requirements in
upgrading systems – particularly when the vendor’s systems can
work with existing assets from other manufacturers.
Managing assets as large and complex as pipelines tends to
mean that the flow of information over great distances is very
important. In the case of the next example of a recent project,
an expansion programme became an opportunity to improve
both information and oil flow.
The customer in this case was a major oil pipeline
consortium looking to manage its pipelines as efficiently
as possible. The pipeline, which began shipping crude oil
to international markets in 2001, had an initial capacity of
28.2 million tpy. An expansion project, (10 new pump stations, six
new 100 000 m
3
storage tanks, a third offshore loading system
and some pipe replacement) will allow the consortium to
increase its initial capacity 2.5 times, reaching its original design
capacity of approximately 67 million tpy. Using a more familiar
metric, full expansion will see a capacity of at least 1.4 million
bpd with the potential for 1.6 million bpd.
The capacity figures are truly astronomical but, it has to be
said, are not out of the ordinary for the oil and gas business.
However, what does present a major challenge, especially for
pipeline control and automation, is the geographical scale of the
construction. Controlling 1500 km of pipeline is no mean feat.
The consortium’s stockholders came to a common decision
to use programmable automation controllers (PACs). In total,
the pipeline uses 200 of them located in five pump stations,
87 block valves and in the marine terminal and tank farm. The
PACS are complemented by Ethernet modules, ControlNet
modules and 1756-series I/O Modules. The SCADA pipeline
management system links all the structural elements using high-
speed fibre optics in combination with a satellite backup along
the pipeline’s entire route. It is used to manage unattended or
remote facilities and give centralised control of the pipeline
system. It also provides leak detection and dynamic modelling
online as well as a training simulator and dynamic model offline.
The SCADA operational interface also generates reports and
records for determining shipped product, system performance
and operational strategy while helping to monitor and control
the quality of crude oil received into the pipeline, minimise
operating and maintenance costs, and help increase overall
system reliability.
Again, the reliability and durability of the modern hardware
solutions, alongside powerful processors, memory and software
are at the root of the advantages offered by a modern
automation solution. The best solutions also allow ease of
programming and configuration and a worldwide customer
support network as well as easy installation and configuration
protocols, with detailed installation manuals and on hand 24/7
customer support. As with any infrastructure of this kind, one of
the primary aims of the installation is maximum possible uptime
and a global spares carrying capacity from your vendor is also a
great advantage.
Real-time visualisation
Real-time information exchange is critical to making real-time
business decisions – decisions that improve responsiveness,
increase productivity, reduce costs and helps verify regulatory
compliance. With a modern, integrated suite of scalable,
modular software applications, pipeline operators have access
to all the information needed to configure, control and optimise
production. Surpassing traditional DCS functionality, the latest
solutions also meet system, control and plant-wide information
needs from a globally distributed database.
Simple, user friendly interfaces can provide an operator with
all the tools necessary to operate the plant with high resolution
graphic displays tailored to specific needs. Operators can view
individual pipes or flows and the complete system in real-time,
to build comparisons and assess how production is running. With
access to historical data, using reporting and playback tools,
pipeline operators are also empowered to constantly monitor
situation analyses from process and safety condition data against
examples of when the system was running most efficiently. This
can also help to indicate where elements of the system may not
be reaching peak performance and highlight issues before they
cause expensive downtime.
Safety and optimisation
I’ve mentioned the high financial stakes associated with
downtime for numerous customers, but safety failures can
have catastrophic consequences. Modern systems offer the
opportunity to improve safety and reach safety legislation
requirements in such a way as to make pipelines more efficient.
This final project example demonstrates how.
The customer in this case is a gas extraction and production
plant located off the European coast. The site comprises two
offshore platforms, coupled to an onshore central control room
(CCR). The facility’s role is to treat gas using existing pipelines
that connect the onshore treatment plants to the offshore
platforms. The customer needed to implement a control system
and an emergency shut down and fire and gas (ESD/F&G)
solution for the offshore platforms and the onshore CCR. The
key objective of the installation was to create a user-friendly,
integrated control and safety system (ICSS) that provides the
highest availability and reliability according to IEC 61511 SIL3 rules.
106
World Pipelines
/
AUGUST 2015
