Product category:
Process Control: SCADA, ERP, MES and networks
News Release from: MatrikonOPC | Subject: SPDC well monitoring
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 26 January 2006
OPC enabled real-time access to remote
field data
Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) produces 43% of Nigeria's oil and is the pioneer and leader of the Nigerian petroleum industry
Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) produces 43% of Nigeria's oil and is the pioneer and leader of the Nigerian petroleum industry Operating in the Niger Delta and adjoining shallow offshore areas, Shell has over 3,000 kilometers of pipelines, 87 flowstations, 8 gas plants and more than 1,000 wells
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 22 May 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) monitors and controls its upstream production process from over 1,000 wells via DCS systems, Fisher ROC RTUs, and Modbus based PLCs.
SPDC collects field data in a central location by linking to their DCS, RTUs and PLCs via satellite and radio.
Initially, a UNIX-based system facilitated the RTU and PLC data collection process by using various custom interfaces to communicate with the remote RTUs and PLCs.
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This legacy system soon outlived its usefulness.
Limitations included difficulty in producing reports, a restricted number of concurrent users and bugs in the software.
As well, the system did not use a standards-based communication infrastructure, so the number and type of applications available to access, report on, and trend the process data were limited.
Besides, the system was not user friendly and very difficult to maintain and configure.
It also did not allow for remote device configuration.
For SPDC to continue using their UNIX system, they would require custom interfaces.
SPDC then demanded a more robust infrastructure that would give them the required scaleability and flexibility to improve their process management.
Custom interface development was expensive and time consuming, not to mention that SPDC would then be "locked" into their existing vendor, thereby constraining their business process.
OPC: Standards-Based Platform for Growth.
SPDC had two options.
One was to keep their existing infrastructure and develop the custom applications they needed.
The second was to replace their legacy system altogether.
SPDC decided on the second option because everything they needed was available as commercial-off-the-shelf software.
The MatrikonOPC standard-based connectivity solution created a truly scaleable system.
The communication technology they selected was OPC.
OPC is a published communication standard that enables many vendors to interface with each other; consequently, it provided Shell with a flexible and scaleable platform for growth and a best of breed solution.
SPDC replaced their proprietary UNIX-based system with a standards-based Windows and OPC-based system.
They installed the MatrikonOPC Server for ROC to interface with the RTUs, and the MatrikonOPC Server for Modbus to interface with their PLCs.
The new Windows system collected the field data via OPC, and stored the data in a local Process Historian from OSIsoft.
Since OSIsoft PI was already enabled with OPC, interfacing with the MatrikonOPC software was seamless.
This enabled Shell to use PI ProcessBook for reporting, trending and visualisation from all their wells.
The SPDC Process Control Engineer Kikelomo Afolabi said, "MatrikonOPC proved to be a cost effective, easy to integrate and robust solution providing true interoperability that aligned well with the Shell need for scaleability".
MatrikonOPC Server for ROC.
Access to the SPDC RTUs and PLCs historically was very limited.
Effective data access, monitoring, and analysis now enables SPDC to generate accurate reports faster and more readily than before.
The MatrikonOPC standards-based connectivity solution created a truly scalable system. Request a free brochure from MatrikonOPC ...
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