Product category:
Process Monitoring and Optimisation
News Release from: Invensys Process Systems | Subject: Gassco pipeline
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 29 August 2006
Savings for Europe's main gas pipeline
operator
Invensys Process Systems is in the advanced stages of delivering a major automation project to improve capacity for Europe's biggest gas transport operator
Invensys Process Systems is in the advanced stages of delivering a major automation project to improve capacity for Europe's biggest gas transport operator Based in Norway, Gassco is pipeline capacity allocator for the Gassled joint venture between oil and gas companies operating on the Norwegian continental shelf
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 23 Jun 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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The company currently transports about 15% of Europe's natural gas through approximately 8000 km network of pipelines.
A key part of this transport network is the Karsto processing complex north of Stavanger.
Operated by Statoil, Karsto is one of the world's largest producers of liquefied natural gases, including ethane, propane and butane.
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To improve commercial management of the asset, Gassco require the ability to plan and operate the maximum available capacity.
Meanwhile Statoil, the technical services provider, need a solution that is able to optimise the plant in real time to the objectives determined by Gassco in terms of capacity utilisation and availability.
The project has posed numerous challenges for Invensys Process Systems.
Karsto is a complex facility with many line-ups and cross-overs.
It requires high heat integration and imposes significant energy costs on its operators.
The 3PM project (Plant, Performance and Planning Model) has been designed for use by multiple users, each of whom have differing skill sets, yet need to access to a unified, reconciled view of the same information, albeit presented in different formats.
Planning staff needed access to production targets, capacity forecast to allocate shippers.
Operations staff needed real time performance monitoring and optimisation data.
Process controllers required real time access to hard and soft constraints to troubleshoot the process.
While engineering staff required access to maintain the system and keep it current while the system was still running.
With so many different users located across two distinct sites - Karsto and Haugesund, there is a demand to provide data availability whilst preserving data security, limiting access to financial and technical information to authorised personnel.
The Invensys solution is based on the company's proven Rigorous On-line Modelling with Equation-based Optimisation (ROMeo) software.
ROMeo is designed to enable plant engineers and management to model complex process units and optimise operations on a plant-wide or complex-wide basis.
The system uses a combination of real time data and current economic objectives to precisely replicate plant operations.
The system will also be able to determine the location and cause of operating constraints and problems.
The Invensys Process System solution provides Gassco two modes of operation - online and offline - while a security model ensures limited access to sensitive commercial and technical information.
In its online mode, ROMeo uses real time information generated from the assets operations to calculate the optimised set-points using a rigorous thermodynamic model and an accurate prediction of the constraints.
Results and key model data are stored in a central data repository for later use by offline users such as planners and process engineers.
In the offline mode, ROMeo can be used for capacity forecasting and strategic planning to serve the "use of" Gassled.
Through a web interface, users are able to work with a copy of the very latest online model resembling the actual performance and configuration of the process equipment across the asset.
This capability improves user familiarity with current operations as well as allowing them to import data from the current operating conditions and run case studies for planning purposes.
Initial pre-FAT runs of the model already indicate increases in performance are available.
Off-line, benefits will be derived through improved capacity forecasting and ability to back allocate processing costs to individual shippers ('un-bundling').
ROMeo is expected to have a profound influence on online decision support, predictive maintenance and real time material balancing across the terminal.
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