Wednesday, 12 February 2014 06:59

Shale fuels move to 'self-configurable' control systems

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The concept of self-configuring process automation systems that do not require lengthy and costly support from IT specialists has moved a step closer to reality with a software development for the shale gas industry.
 
In a shale gas drilling operations, wells are added almost every day to maintain and increase production, with some fields having up to 5000 wells. As wells come on-line - or off-line for maintenance - IT engineers must frequently create new code and graphics to modify reports accordingly.

To reduce these demands, Invensys has developed software technology that enables administrators or field engineers to readily add wells to a control system, along with details of the equipment and operating parameters involved.
 
"They can add or subtract wells as they need to. They just go into the system, close that well off, and it is no longer in the report," John Gilmore, director of upstream oil & gas at Invensys, said in an interview with PIM.

"Changing the configuration, or adding say a compressor to that well, just means [ticking] check boxes," the Invensys expert added.

The product called Well Field Application is part of Invensys' Wonderware suite and is based on technology acquired six years ago from Pure Automation a small company that developed the basic concept.

According to Gilmore, Invensys has a number of clients for the application in the US, including two major players with 20,000 wells - but he was unable to disclose their names for confidentiality reasons.

"What we are really doing is taking a standard product, working closely with the owner to understand how he wants to run his business," said Gilmore. "We match and adapt the solution-set to meet his needs so that he can then take it from there.

"This is as opposed to saying 'I have got this great product, it will work, you will love it, now what do you want to do with it.' You have got to talk with the client to see what he wants to do."

Gilmore went on to cite a range of other potential applications for the software in batch processes and product mixing & blending. This included deployment at speciality chemicals plants, where a change of ingredient can lead to an entire control system being redefined.
 
"We want to automate that process to drive down the costs and make it a much more useful system for the end users," said Gilmore. "We are not there yet, but we are trying to move towards something that is much more configurable by the user,  as opposed to [only being] configurable by the IT people or other specialists."


Read 6365 times Last modified on Tuesday, 18 March 2014 18:13