Keywords: ABB, Integrated Operations, Oil & Gas, Production Optimization, Asset Management, Condition Monitoring.
Summary
ABB provides packaged remote operations management solutions for each of the vertical industries in which it participates. According to ABB, the company designed its oil & gas industry solution, Integrated Operations (IO), to bring people, processes, and technology together to help companies increase production and lower operating costs. IO also addresses other challenges such as safety and environmental health. IO, ABB's solution for the "digital oilfield," can change the way enterprises work by providing a proactive approach to operation and maintenance employing real-time data to help stakeholders make better-informed and more timely decisions.
What Is Integrated Operations?
ABB recently briefed ARC Advisory Group on its Integrated Operations solution for the oil & gas industry. Here, "integrated operations" refers to the use of technology to integrate people and work processes across both geographical and discipline barriers. According to the company, IO aims to address some of the critical issues facing the oil & gas industry. With many brownfield projects entering tail production and greenfield projects located in increasingly harsh and remote environments, operating costs can increase significantly. This creates the need for greater efficiency to keep operating costs as low as possible and improve profitability.
Oil & Gas Industry Challenges
ABB can leverage its broad range of production, optimization, asset management, and safety products and solutions to offer vertical-industry- specific solutions that address industry-specific challenges. IO for oil & gas addresses challenges such as increasing operational costs, decreasing production capacity utilization, safety, environmental health, and operating in remote and harsh environments.
IO maps well to ARC's Remote Operations Management concept. With today's information and communications technology, experts located at great distances from the physical assets can help support multiple offshore operations. Tools such as videoconferencing and 3D visualization enable better collaboration between onshore and offshore groups. IO facilitates smart collaborative decisions based on real-time data, enabling smarter operations and a proactive approach for maintenance.
The IO portfolio includes:
Asset Management and Condition Monitoring
The oil & gas industry has inherently high operational costs due to the complex, geographically dispersed assets employed to extract and refine products. ABB's proactive condition monitoring approach helps minimize unplanned downtime and reduce operational costs. One of the main focus areas of ABB's approach is to monitor not only smart field devices, but also electrical distribution, mechanical, and static equipment, providing a more complete view of plant assets.
ProcessInsight, a new software condition monitoring and production optimization application developed jointly by ABB, Statoil, and academic institutions, provides an advanced approach to online and offline fault detection based on general signal analysis principles. Another fault detection and analysis technique utilizes statistical data modeling to represent normal operating conditions. A third technique employs frequency analysis to detect plantwide disturbances.
Information and Alarm Management
Efficient management of operational performance is becoming increasingly important as operational complexity increases. To answer this challenge, ABB offers a portfolio of products for managing key operational aspects such as alarms, safety and operational support. These products — AlarmInsight, SafetyInsight and OperationInsight — allow remote management and support for key operational work processes. For example, AlarmInsight puts alarm management data directly into the hands of the people who need it most. Users can access alarm history, alarm system key performance indicators, and operator assistance documentation through the existing System 800xA displays and through portal-based web-interfaces on a corporate intranet.
Flow Assurance and Production Optimization
ABB's Flow Assurance and Optimization System focuses on flow control and monitoring during startup and normal operation to help ensure stable production, avoid hydrates, minimize sand production, and minimize risk of sand erosion/corrosion. The application uses mathematical models to analyze flow through pipelines and provides input to production optimization programs. ABB's patented Active Flowline Control (AFC) provides valuable information for production optimization, helps protects wells against rapid pressure changes, and works to stabilize wells and pipelines.
IT Topology and Infrastructure
The IO suite also addresses issues related to transferring information between different systems. IO's interface solution connects various systems to aid data transfer. It can work as a standalone application or integrate with other systems. It supports various interface protocols such as OPC DA/AE, SQL, and Modbus, as well as many proprietary protocols. ABB provides technology and consultancy services to help address the critical needs of data integrity, security and availability.
Performance Solutions and Services
Since many oil & gas companies no longer have adequate internal engineering resources, ABB provides process control-related performance services that complement the owner-operator's own capabilities. ABB specialists can work with client personnel to identify and prioritize improvement opportunities. This includes a complete audit capability designed to find root causes of process variations. The ABB specialists can recommend and help implement appropriate improvements, including appropriate changes to control logic.
Issues with IO
ABB acknowledges that successful collaboration among offshore and onshore personnel can be challenging, with organization and culture change playing important roles. ABB partners with owner-operators to help gain the acceptance of these new work methods using a systematic approach for change management. This helps organizations establish standard work processes with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and tools.
Conclusion
ARC defines asset performance management (APM) as solutions that manage information to optimize asset availability and utilization, while simultaneously balancing operational constraints to improve financial results. Clearly, many of the tools incorporated into IO can help owner-operators in the oil & gas industry improve the production and asset availability of their new and existing assets, while keeping an eye on critical issues that can make or break profitability.
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