The region’s oil and gas industry is hungry for greater operational efficiency, Emran Hussain speaks to process automation & control experts from three industry-leading companies who believe they have the answers.
As major industries around the world reach various performance plateaus in their day-to-day operations, focus usually shifts to improving, adjusting and augmenting output. The oil and gas industry is no different in this respect and is constantly on the lookout to gain from enhancements in technology and procedures.
However, simply improving measurement instrumentation or process automation equipment for example is only part of the equation when it comes to improving overall productivity of a facility particularly in the Middle East.
Similar to other areas of the oil and gas industry in the region, specialist sector players such as process automation and control providers are having to face the possibility of a deficit in expertise in the near term as experienced workers near retirement.
With the oil and gas industry, much like other industries recovering from the effects of the economic downturn and with volatile oil prices seen in recent months, one thing is for sure, the drive to seek efficiency – and hitting stricter environmental targets – and bring down overall operating costs is as strong as ever.
Adaptability and Efficiency
Sudipta Bhattacharya is the president and CEO of the US$1.8 billion Texas-based automation and information service provider, Invensys Operations Management, he believes that adaptability particularly in the fast-moving information-reliant environment that now defines much of the oil and gas industry, is of paramount importance as it can dictate whether or not an order or contract is won, maintained or lost.
“Profitability comes from being able to ship products that are delivered on time and within the targeted costs,” he says.
“But now, even more importantly, profitability comes from being able to adapt to external disturbances, such as changes in oil supply, changes in energy costs and even weather patterns, and internal disturbances, such as asset unavailability and supply disruptions that can occur all across the value chain.”
He says that customers have to react to such disruptions in a way that will not negatively impact on their delivery schedule and production costs.
In addition to this, he believes that the ability to combine expertise in process automation and in real-time information management becomes essential to adding value to the industry.
A prime example of this is Invensys’ InFusion Enterprise Control System (ECS) which combines the two real-time information streams of the control system and the supply chain.
Bhattacharya is adamant that this holistic view of plant operations management is the future for plant operators.
“Only when you do this can you really manage the business and optimise profits because you are no longer managing production and managing the supply chain as two different decision loops,” he says Bhattacharya will find agreement with Honeywell’s Regional GM for the Middle East, Ged Blenkharn who says that because industry customers are constantly striving for optimisation and efficiency gains operationally, process automation and control providers must take a two-pronged approach.
“Change is an integral part of our business and this consists of two aspects: the first is to do with automation technology which is mainly driven by technology improvements in Commercial Off-The-Shelf hardware and software. The second aspect is the way we deliver these solutions,” he explains.
Bhattacharya is optimistic about demand for process automation systems in the oil and gas industry: “In recent years, offshore oil and gas companies have increased their spending on automation systems, more than many other sectors, which I think has to do with the current economic cycle. As we come out of the recession there’s going to be increasing energy demand, so we could see a spike in automation demand downstream.”
Operational Challenges
Some of the biggest issues the oil and gas industry is grappling with today are less to do with frontline work in exploration and production and more to do with ancillary services related to these operations.
Perhaps the main exception to this is the increasing complexity of drilling completions and development of sour fields in the region.
Emerson Process Management’s sales manager of Projects, Process Systems & Solutions for the Middle East & North Africa, JJ Condon thinks that the improved understanding of upstream field environment have got customers demanding tighter controls and better intelligence.
He says that, “Technologies like downhole measurement and the use of wireless to bring back more data points more cost-effectively help our customers to be simultaneously safer and more profitable.”
As regional customers increase in knowledge of their production and processing capabilities and requirements, they demand much more of process automation and control providers such as Emerson says Dubai-based Condon.
“With a number of the large projects now moving ahead we’ve experienced more aggressive deadlines. Our customers rely on us to work to these.
Technology like I/O on demand can significantly reduce the cost and execution time of an automation project by elimination of wiring changes as a result of last minute changes,” he says.
“Additionally, there is a trend towards remote facilities with lower manning levels. This means that operators need to understand what’s happening in their process more clearly, possibly remotely, in real time.
The days of having to ask someone to look at a gauge are over!”
Emerson has a fully-fledged manufacturing base in Dubai’s Jebel Ali free zone, its Rosemount pressure transmitter manufacturing facility, is able to produce around 100 units a day or 2500 units a year.
New Technology
The changing requirements of process plants particularly in the oil and gas industry pose certain challenges for process automation and control equipment and service providers, namely in the areas of information management and safety.
Invensys’ Bhattacharya who strongly believes in being able to make quick and effective enterprise-wide decisions, says there is a lot of growth opportunity in providing “plant floor information for making smart business decisions.”
“The problem today is that the plant floor is disconnected from the rest of the enterprise. That is where you have a lot of value leakage. But if I am able to understand the plant floor really well and am able to use that information wisely, I will make faster, smarter decisions,” he explains.
“It’s about information management that lets you make smarter decisions,” he adds.
Bhattacharya points to the multimillion-dollar contract that Invensys won for the PetroRabigh integrated oil refinery and Petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia.
The project required a plant information management system to integrate with SAP and other applications, and to improve performance management by tightly integrating control systems with production and corporate business functions and objectives.
For the project, Invensys deployed its open industry-standard-based InFusion ECS to consolidate real-time data for planning, scheduling, operations management, production and other tasks on a single platform.
Invensys’ solution now covers the entire PetroRabigh complex of 23 plants. As the Integrated Main Automation vendor of the Shah Gas Development project in Abu Dhabi, Honeywell is providing the instrumentation, control and safety system, fire detection, and security and telecom system for this major gas project.
Its OneWireless field sensor technology will be installed at the site to deal with the high Hydrogen Sulphide content present in the gas field.
Virtualisation of plant environments is proving to be a strong incentive for cost-conscious operators, according to Honeywell’s Blenkharn who says that it “focuses on improving the total cost of ownership of the control system by removing dependencies on the operating systems and the PC [process control] hardware.”
Invensys’ EYESIM software presents contextualised data and information in a virtual environment which is designed to the exact layout and specifications of the plant operator’s real world facility.
In addition to helping to train ‘green hands’ without exposing them to the potentially hazardous plant environment and at lower costs, virtual plant simulators such as this can help overcome the region’s cultural barriers of allowing female personnel on plant sites.
Training and Knowledge transfer
Training of the next generation of plant engineers and operators is a major issue for all involved in the industry.
Knowledge transfer from the outgoing batch of skilled personnel to new recruits is something all providers in this industry have to take a proactive role in.
Honeywell’s Blenkharn echoes the sentiments of energy industry experts on the difficulty in hiring experienced workers in the region.
However he takes this challenge in his stride when describing Honeywell’s approach: “It is difficult to acquire experienced local engineers due to various reasons.”
“This gave us an opportunity to organise a dedicated development programme where we ran two long term training programmes for university graduates, which we call JETPro (Junior Engineer Training Programme), Blenkharn says.
“We truly believe that localising manufacturing and project delivery in-country, by having more local Honeywell engineers, will generate higher customer satisfaction and show our long term commitment to the industry and the respective country,” he adds.
Honeywell’s investments are focused on industry business requirements, as well as social development and the environment. It has collaborated with universities for joint development programmes to develop both technology and people.
“Many of our customers have felt the pain of experienced people leaving our industry without the necessary transfer of knowledge to the younger generation. Industry requires we do more with less,” Emerson’s Condon weighs in.
“We have applied a Human Centred Design approach to improve areas like data interpretation and hardware installation to allow more informed decision making and reduce installation time,” he explains.
Closing the experience gap and in the shortest amount of time is a matter of providing real-time business performance guidance and decision support in training systems according to Invensys’ Bhattacharya.
“The result is that the experience gap can be closed much more efficiently than previously believed and the overall profitability of the operations as well as the safety of the plants can be significantly improved.”
Growth areas
The Middle East oil and gas industry continues to be a core market for process automation and control systems providers. Invensys has made multibillion dollar investments in production facilities in the region such as its Engineering Center of Excellence in Cairo, Egypt employing 500 engineers to support its regional and global projects.
“Globalisation has led to a lot more homogeneity, and that’s where the opportunities – and risks – are,” Bhattacharya explains adding that “Refining companies, whether in Saudi Arabia, the United States or China, have similar aspirations. They all want to drive and achieve operational excellence.
“Intelligent oil fields are an exciting area for the industry. Many of the oil and gas companies are pushing their engineering groups to identify pilot projects. Others have already adopted an intelligent approach to existing fields,” says Condon.
He adds that being innovative does not simply mean building “a bigger, faster version of what went before,” but to have a game changer.
“Delivering the intelligence of field devices to the right place in an actionable, timely way ultimately improves plant performance,” he adds.
