Product category:
Data acquisition Software and Communications
News Release from: MatrikonOPC | Subject: Matrikon OPC Server
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 30 January 2006
OPC going well with Shell
Shell Petroleum Development of Nigeria replaces Unix based data collection system with one based on OPC standards.
Shell Petroleum Development of Nigeria produces 43% of Nigeria's oil and is the leader of Nigeria's petroleum industry Operating in the Niger Delta and adjoining shallow offshore areas, Shell has over 3000km of pipelines, 87 flowstations, eight gas plants and more than 1000 wells
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 4 Mar 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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Shell monitors and controls its upstream production process from the wells via DCSs, Fisher ROC RTUs and Modbus based PLCs.
The field data is collected centrally by linking to the DCSs, RTUs and PLCs via satellite and radio.
Initially, a Unix-based system facilitated the data collection process by using various custom interfaces to communicate with the remote RTUs and PLCs.
But it had limitations including difficulty in producing reports, restricted number of concurrent users and bugs in the software.
And 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.
If Shell was to continue using its Unix system, it would require custom interfaces.
Shell also wanted a more robust infrastructure that would give it the required scalability and flexibility to improve process management.
Custom interface development was expensive and time consuming, and it would have locked the firm into its existing vendor.
It thus decided to replace the legacy system because everything it needed was available as commercial-off-the-shelf software.
The system it selected was a standards-based Windows and OPC-based setup.
OPC is a published communication standard that lets many vendors interface with each other.
It installed a Matrikon OPC Server for ROC to interface with the RTUs, and a similar server for Modbus to interface with the PLCs.
The 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 OPC software was seamless.
This let Shell use PI Process Book for reporting, trending and visualisation from all its wells. Request a free brochure from MatrikonOPC ...
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