Controllers extend oil platform life by ten years

An ABB Automation Tech (Instrumentation + Automation) product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Apr 21, 2008

New Fire and Gas and PSD Safety Systems from ABB will help extend the life of one of BG's major North Sea production platforms, as well as exploit new oil and gas reserves in the area.

Fire, gas and PSD safety systems from ABB will help extend the life of one of BG's major North Sea production platforms, as well as exploit new oil and gas reserves in the area.

BG's Armada platform is undergoing a major ICSS (integrated control and safety system) refurbishment that will see its fire and gas and PSD safety systems upgraded to the latest ABB Safeguard 400 controllers, extending its life by an extra 10 years from 2010 to 2020.

The ICSS upgrade will provide sufficient system capacity to accommodate the Maria oil and REV field gas projects which tie sub-sea wells into the Armada platform.

The Maria project will install Safeguard 400 safety systems for process shutdown and fire and gas detection in new panels certified to IEC 61508.

Tim Shepherd, Principal Control and Instrumentation Engineer for BG said "We already had an ABB automation system and the Safeguard 400 was the obvious choice, as it was compatible with the existing systems".

"We also liked the fact that the product is SIL-certificated and conforms to IEC 61608".

One of the key benefits to BG is 'system compatibility'.

The ICSS Safeguard upgrade uses the same application software as the original controllers, minimising upgrade costs, installation/commissioning time and risk.

"Familiarity for our operators was an important factor for us", says Shepherd.

"We haven't included all the features we could have, as familiarity with the displays and therefore a reliable operation was more important to us.

Staying with ABB also meant we needed to invest less in training and had no need to revise the support contract".

Colin Heath, ABB's Project Manager for Armada and Maria, says: "It has been an interesting project because there have been challenges tying in the new safety systems with the old ones, while maintaining the project schedule".

"We tested the system exhaustively before it was installed to ensure that all was working exactly to BG's requirements".

The challenge also involves working on a producing platform, with the need to keep disruption to a minimum.

ABB decommissioned the old kit and installed and commissioned the new equipment in a three-week shutdown in July 2007.

The project is being performed in two stages to minimise disruption, 60% now and the other 40% next year.

As well as providing modern process shut down and fire and gas protection, the Safeguard 400 system will provide more scope for future expansion.

The ICSS network for the Safeguard controllers has also been upgraded to 100/10BaseT Fibre/CAT5, providing more redundancy and thus a more robust network infrastructure.

ABB's Safeguard 400 series safety controllers combine the features of high-integrity programmable electronic control for safety applications with the functionality and software architecture of modern process control stations.