As operators grapple with the growing complexity of plant operations, technology providers give Pipeline Magazine their perspectives on effective automation strategies
PROCESS automation is an important enabler for oil and gas companies seeking the best, most efficient operations, in accordance with their health, safety and environmental targets. The adoption of effective strategies in this area is crucial for organisations in the energy sector, whether they work in the upstream, midstream or downstream sub-sectors.
For the past year or so, increasing numbers of end-users have been developing partnerships and alliances with automation vendors in addressing the growing complexity of their automation processes.
The main automation contractor (MAC) concept between operators and vendors is gaining favour, highlighting the operators’ need to roll out successful automation strategies with an overarching theme to improve optimisation and integration.
Experts suggest spending wisely on automation gives better returns than similar investments in any other aspect of a plant, as a modern automation system allows better decisions to be made in real-time and permits the optimised planning of turnaround activities.
Real time optimisation
“Given today’s rapidly changing demand patterns, varying business environments along with increasing cost-pressures, the onus of automation strategy is on business optimisation and the focus is shifting to business automation and not just process automation,” says Franco Restelli, MENA president of Invensys.
“The focus must be on the product being made and not just the process that makes it,” he adds. “The automation system must facilitate real-time interaction between the field and the board room.”
Invensys believes there should be real-time linkages between corporate targets such as revenue and margins that are defined periodically, through to production metrics like temperature and pressure.
“This real time information flow must be supported by ensuring continuous operation of processes and systems by means of continuous monitoring and automated asset management systems,” Restelli explains.
This helps build greater collaboration across organisations and improves visibility and responsiveness from the plant floor to the executive office, creating sustainable change and improved performance.
“Our focus has continually been on converging the real-time and transactional worlds to ensure that,” Restelli says. “Our solutions offer real-time measures that provide the right information at the right time so the right people can take the right actions.”
Its solutions also enhance control of refining and petrochemical processes and enable optimisation of individual process units and the entire plant. In effect, this would minimize process unpredictability and achieve significant improvement of overall plant performance.
“This will allow operators to see the direct results of their actions as well as be better aligned with business objectives,” Restelli says.
Invensys was recently awarded the multi-billion dollar grassroots contract to implement an integrated refinery information system (IRIS) for Saudi Aramco Total Refining & Petrochemical Company (SATORP), an advanced 400,000 bpd joint complex in Jubail.
As part of the system, the automation giant rolled out the solution by integrating both horizontal and vertical processes – linking enterprise resource planning (ERP), operations and control systems.
The IRIS will manage the new refinery’s supply chain, planning and scheduling functions, also overseeing its operations management, performance management and business process optimisation functions.
“It’s a very modern approach,” Restelli says. “What is challenging is that they are doing it before the plant is implemented, before the information systems are installed there – it’s like putting staff into an office that doesn’t yet exist.”
“While in general, an operator will require four to five years to optimise the information inside a plant, they basically want to start the plant having this infrastructure already in place,” he adds.
Role of IT
Automation specialists are learning how to go beyond simply providing corporate IT-based business systems with information to collaborating and creating new ways to improve operation and efficiencies.
Stephan Klein, VP and head of O&G services for SAP, believes efficiency for oil and gas operators requires their automation strategies to be built around safe and reliable operations, visual monitoring of assets and incorporated business analytics.
“To achieve this type of strategy, the operator would need to define a technical architecture,” Klein explains.
It should include a network strategy, an integration strategy, data management tools, as well as appropriate applications to capture and manage data from process control devices measuring the process parameters.
This means that greater data volumes are required more quickly and in more user-friendly applications to facilitate faster decision-making. Dashboards and analytics are the key deliverables in this regard, while technical foundations for data management and mobility are emerging quickly.
Klein stresses this strategy is also driving the need for more convergence between automation and IT.
“Traditionally, IT and Plant IT have had very little interaction and operate as silos,” Klein says. “For IT to add value to process automation, it must educate itself on the application requirements of the Plant IT space.”
SAP’s current approach to process automation strategies revolves around integration via Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (MII), SAP Plant Connectivity, management of large data volumes (SAP’s In-memory computing technology, HANA) and business analytics.
“Traditional IT applications tend to be transaction-orientated, whereas Plant IT systems deal with managing process variables in real time,” Klein says. “Having a better understanding of the Plant IT environment is the first and most important step in opening the dialogue between the two silos.”
Integration drive
Bjarte Pedersen, ABB’s regional division manager of process automation, believes that a successful automation strategy should offer integration of disparate systems into one efficient, reliable and safe operation.
ABB, which traditionally provides integrated electrical solutions for rotating machinery, such as compressors and pumps, has proven itself in designing and carrying out integrated engineering over the years, particularly in midstream oil and gas.
“An effective automation strategy is really to have integrated services by keeping production running, maximizing system lifecycles, optimising process performance and delivering operational excellence,” Pedersen says.
He believes its focus on power automation systems ensures functionality and the integration of low-voltage switchgears, drives and motors in modern production plants.
“One of the key concerns among operators is energy efficiency,” he says, highlighting power management as a key way for oil and gas operators to reduce their energy consumption.
In terms of integration, Pedersen also hails the growth of Ethernet communications at the controller level in increasing the number of protocols for industrial automation, particularly the Foundation Fieldbus High Speed Ethernet (HSE).
Closing statements
“Successful automation strategies will provide the right combination of sustained and safe production, the ability to perform predictive maintenance and agility amid changing market conditions, providing a true control valve to business value visibility across the organisation,” says Franco Restelli of Invensys.
SAP’s Stephan Klein stresses: “First one needs to define business objectives and requirements. It is critical to decide how much automation and how much decision support is ultimately required for the processes to be run efficiently.”
Finally, ABB’s Bjarte Pedersen says: “Operators can optimise a good control design with an integrated approach, particularly in maintenance. To have one solution is the key.”
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