Triconex safety systems for Horizon Oil Sands

Edited by the Processingtalk editorial team Aug 5, 2005

Invensys selected by Canadian Natural Resources to supply Triconex safety and critical control systems at the Horizon Oil Sands Project, using Tricon V10 TMR triple modular redundant control systems

Tricon triple modular redundant architecture will be used for all Horizon Oil Sands Project emergency shutdown, boiler management and fire and gas system applications.

Canadian Natural Resources Limited ("Canadian Natural") has selected Invensys Process Systems to provide Triconex safety and critical control systems and related services for Phase I of the C$6.8 billion Horizon Oil Sands Project ("Horizon Project") under construction in Northern Alberta, Canada.

The Horizon Project is a large grassroots mining, bitumen extraction and upgrading facility for production of synthetic crude oil.

Invensys was chosen as the preferred supplier to Canadian Natural for all emergency safety shutdown, boiler management and fire and gas safety systems throughout the Horizon Project, one of the largest oil extraction projects in Alberta's Athabasca oil sands region.

Canadian Natural is building the project in three Phases.

For the Phase I, Invensys is supplying 38 latest-generation Tricon V10 TMR triple modular redundant (TMR) control systems.

The Triconex safety and critical control systems will be used to protect processes and business units within the Horizon Project's bitumen extraction and upgrading facilities as well as in the cogeneration plant and several remote facilities.

In addition to Tricon safety and control systems, the Invensys direct purchasing agreement with Canadian Natural includes Triconex training, integration and installation services.

The Tricon is an industry-certified state-of -the-art fault tolerant controller based on triple-modular redundant (TMR) architecture for safety and critical control applications.

The TMR architecture employs three isolated, parallel control systems and extensive diagnostics integrated into one system.

The system uses two-out-of-three voting to provide high integrity, error-free, uninterrupted process operation with no single point of failure.

The Tricon controller redundant control functions and diagnostics are embedded and transparent, and the system behaves as a single control device to the engineer or operator.