Sweechee Lee, general manager of Emerson Process Management China, outlines the successful implemetation of plant-wide digital automation at the $2.7 billion Shanghai SECCO Petrochemical Complex.
Emerson Process Management undertook the huge task of providing the digital automation at one of the largest integrated petrochemical complexes in China. Shanghai SECCO Petrochemical Company selected Emerson as its digital automation partner for the $2.7 billion, 10-plant ethylene cracker complex.
Located in the Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park about 50 kilometres from Shanghai, the complex will annually produce 900,000 tonns of ethylene and more than 2 million tonnes of other related petrochemical products used in the plastics and synthetics industries.
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“Our facilities and expert personnel at Pudong enabled us to partner effectively with SECCO, shaping a cutting edge solution,” said Sweechee Lee, general manager, Emerson Process Management China.
“We were also able to call upon Emerson experts among our more than 4,000 global engineering and technical service professionals, particularly from centres in India and Singapore.”
Emerson installed PlantWeb digital architecture throughout the SECCO complex, which contains 47,000 control loops, 40,000 instruments, and some 13,000 intelligent devices networked in the world’s largest Foundation fieldbus installation.
Fieldbus is an all-digital, open communications approach that connects measurement and control equipment such as sensors, actuators and controllers in processing applications.
Rather than using a centralised project organisation run by an overall project contractor, SECCO – a joint venture between Innovene (formerly BP), Sinopec, and Shanghai Petrochemical Corporation (SPC) – chose an integrated project management team approach, under which each key plant in the complex had a lead project contractor.
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As the main automation supplier, Emerson not only engineered and implemented the automation and control systems, but also helped manage multiple international and local suppliers for each of the 10 plants in the facility.
The Emerson-SECCO team wrote the engineering functional design specifications for the facility, which ensured that identical approaches were taken to engineering in each of the 10 plants.
As Main Instrument Vendor (MIV), Emerson communicated and enforced conformance and standardisation in all the processes in each of the plants, a vital step to maintaining long-term operating efficiency of the integrated complex.
“With so many contractors, SECCO realised that partnering with one main automation supplier early – that is, using the MIV approach – would be critical for the success of the project,” commented Danny McHugh, process control manager styrenics, SECCO.
The MIV approach provided integration and teamwork for the project, and helped facilitate communication and optimised operations throughout the construction and on into the operation of the facility.
SECCO also implemented a centralised control room – the command centre for all operations personnel in the facility – that oversees the main ethylene cracker and nine downstream derivative plants.
Emerson’s PlantWeb digital architecture with Foundation fieldbus technology enables economical communications and wiring for the centralised control room, collecting, analysing and sharing operations and diagnostics information for the 750 operations, engineering, and maintenance personnel staffing the SECCO site.
To reduce risks and raise the safety and production levels of the integrated complex, SECCO included PID control in the Foundation fieldbus field devices, making the installation the largest installed fieldbus plant in the world and the largest control in the field installation.
“This project proves that Foundation fieldbus works, and works on a large scale,” said Stuart Mounfield, project engineering manager, control systems, SECCO. “The technology works and it’s robust.”
Intelligent Device Manager, a key PlantWeb tool used during engineering and commissioning, enabled economies in setup and configuration of the intelligent devices.
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During regular operation, AMS Suite technologies will receive diagnostic information from the digital field devices and provide advanced information about the health of all components to maximise plant reliability and availability.
The AMS Suite software resides on ten DeltaV automation systems that operate as part of PlantWeb, co-ordinating the control strategies across the complex and communicating over the digital network to Emerson’s Fisher valves with Fisher Fieldvue digital valve controllers, Rosemount measurement and analytical devices, and Micro Motion Coriolis flowmeters.
A safety instrumented system was integrated into the open digital plant architecture, as well as a CCTV system between the control room and outstations.
“When you look at the complexity of building 10 units at one time, and asking all of them to start up in a short timeframe with minimum disruption, it’s pretty amazing,” said Jack Brinly, deputy project director at SECCO.
“At the beginning, we saw no probability of finishing in early 2005, but we were able to finish three months earlier than originally planned, and Emerson deserves much of the credit for making that happen.”
“On such a massive and centralised scale, this is probably the first project of its kind ever,” said Zhang Ziliang, SECCO project director. “In practice, the performance of the complex is outstanding. We have achieved our objectives, and on the whole it is very satisfying.”
According to SECCO, the integrated complex project has a world class safety record, with no major accident and zero fatalities during construction, which included more than 50 million man hours of labour. The site also boasts leading environmental standards.
“We are honoured to be part of the partnership that has made the SECCO project successful,” said Mike Train, president of Emerson Process Management, Asia-Pacific.
“It is gratifying that Emerson’s engineering and project management expertise, and the technology of PlantWeb with foundation fieldbus played a key role in helping SECCO realise its vision.”
