Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical Industry: Remote Facility Management

What is the challenge the oil, gas and petrochemical industry face?

The oil, gas and petrochemical industry is a highly competitive and asset-heavy sector. In the process of oil and gas production, there are few challenges that will coerce the industry to change how they work:

Overwhelmingamounts of data

It takes a lot of time for petroleum engineers to collect and integrate massive amounts of data stored in separate departments or facilities.

Aging facilities and legacy systems

Upgrading complex facilities and systems which require continuous monitoring and maintenance costs a lot of manpower and financial resources.

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Hazardous environments

From production and transportation, to refining and processing, these operations take place in hazardous environments and require reliable products to ensure safety and efficiency.

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Reliable IIoT Solutions for Remote Monitoring

Leveraging over 40 years of experience in the automation industry, Advantech has designed different solutions for the oil, gas and petrochemical industry to monitor and anticipate possible equipment failures in real time to prevent equipment downtime and minimize operational costs.

Equipment Maintenance

Remote diagnostics and maintenance providing advanced warnings of equipment problems

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How the Solutions Work

Upstream: Exploration/Production

Midstream: Transport/Storage

Downstream: Refining/Distribution

This system is created to help monitor the status of drilling in oil field. Devices, such as Torque, voltage and current sensor, connect to remote I/O ADAM-6017, which is in turn connected to industrial Ethernet switch EKI-7710E for data transmission. The EKI-7710E series supports Advantech’s X-Ring Pro technology, which ensures that a backup circuit is established within 20ms to compensate for errors such as broken links.

Water well also plays an important role in oil drilling. To extend the distance of networks and integrate the data collected from water well, media converter EKI-2541SI is implemented and connects to EKI-5526I in oil well and water well.

To monitor the condition of separators, sensors on the separator can connect to ADAM-3600, which is an intelligent RTU with multiple wireless function capability, multiple I/O selection, and supports flexible communication protocol for edge application of data collection, preprocessing and transmission to cloud.

ADAM-3600 can also connect to ADAM-6000 series which are in turn connected to equipment such as torque and voltage regulator in remote site to ensure real-time remote monitoring.

EKI-7710E is a managed Ethernet switch which connects PLCs to monitor equipment operations at pump stations, and transmit data to a central control room. The EKI-7710E is equipped with X-Ring which can achieve ultra high speed recovery time of less than 20 ms to ensure network stability.

To manage surveillance of the stations, EKI-7710E connect to EKI-2710MPI-5G PoE injector, which is ideal for setting up IP security cameras.

Media converter EKI-2541M is also implemented to extend the distance of networks and integrate the data collected by remote I/O in remote pumping station.

This monitoring system was placed every 30 km (18.6 mi) in 80 pump stations along a cross-continental pipeline. The pump stations themselves feature diverse installed sensors for metering pressure and temperature. These sensors are linked to a PLC which is connected to UNO-1372GH for data processing, and an FPM-8151H which enables local pump status checking by technicians. These devices are then connected to an EKI-7708, which transmits data back to a central control room through fiber optic cabling.

This system helps monitor and transmit temperature, pressure, flow, and vibration data in an oil pipeline. Sensors are connected to a series of ADAM modules— ADAM6017, ADAM-6018 and ADAM-6050. These modules help process and transmit data to a control room using EKI- 5528I.

The more than 400 Liquefied Natural Gas storage facilities connected to this system necessitate local tank control and remote monitoring. A PLC is installed to handle local tank control. Also, ADAM-6015 RTD input Ethernet module, and ADAM-6017 analog input Ethernet module are used for collecting pressure, liquid levels, and temperature data.

Data related to control and monitoring is then processed by UNO-1372GH and is accessible in the central control room through EKI-7708G Ethernet switches.

WISE-2410X can be mounted on rotating facilities in petrochemical plants. It provides operational status by cross-comparison of RMS speeds and eigenvalues against ISO 10816-3 standards and vibration characteristic values. By utilizing LoRaWAN, this turnkey predictive maintenance solution provides long-range bidirectional communication between sensors and gateways, thereby requiring fewer devices to be installed in the field.

TPC-125H helps manage data gathered by fuel dispenser meters. ADAM-4117 analog input modules gather tank levels and pressure information. ADAM-4150 digital input/output modules are in charge of triggering alarms and toggling pump on/off. The modules are integrated with UNO-1372GH and transmit all information via EKI-5525I Ethernet switch to a designated location.

ADAM-3600 Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) is an ideal edge DAQ platform for local emergency control tasks as well as data acquisition and logging. It utilizes diverse I/O interfaces to gather data on several remote devices. It then preprocesses and converts data through communication protocols.

Finally it transfers data via an EKI-5525I unmanaged Ethernet switch. EKI-5525I enables secure real-time monitoring in a control room. This solution provides a safe and secure environment for gas compression and transportation.

Success Stories

Advantech Routers Secure Remote Data Upload for Oil and Gas Industry

The BB-SL306 routers are installed with EKI-2525I switches in cabinets beside the pump jacks, providing network connectivity for field equipment such as cameras, PLCs, RTUs, and other devices. The expansion slots on the EKI-2525I mean that these units are highly effective as hubs for field devices and routers.

Both BB-SL306 and EKI-2525I support a wide operating temperature range (-40 to 75°C), making them suitable for applications in harsh environments. With this solution, field equipment data could be uploaded to the central platform.

Monitoring Oil and Gas Equipment in Hazardous Environments with Wireless Mesh Sensing

Wzzard Wireless Mesh product family from Advantech provides a stable, wireless platform to connect sensors on tanks and pumps to Advantech SmartSwarm Gareway. The Gateway seamlessly runs third-party data connector software to send data to the company’s OSI PI server.

This solution helps the company monitor tank conditions, pump status and additional equipment, all with little disruption to existing process controls to maintain safety and avoid process downtime.

Advantech’s Edge Solutions Enable Real-Time Oil Tanker Monitoring

Advantech ESRP-PCS-ADAM3600 units—which are installed on the front, middle, and rear parts of pipelines that lie on the left and right sides of piers connecting tankers to shores—use their I/O interfaces to gather data on temperatures, water flow, and weather conditions. They then preprocess this data, convert it through communication protocols, and upload it over a 4G wireless network to the ACP-4000 in the control room for visualization and other computation processes.

OPC UA Enabled SCADA Monitoring Solution for Gas Stations

ADAM-4000 serial I/O modules are installed to acquire data from sensors deployed at underground tanks for detecting gasoline leaks and possible contaminations of soil. The data will be sent to UNO-410, a rugged computer featuring anti-explosion protection, via Modbus.

ADAM-3600 iRTU with WISE-EdgeLink gateway software, deployed in the gas station office, will collect data from all sources, convert the data into OPC standard, and upload the data to the remote SCADA server with encryption and sign-in certificate—the innate security features provided by OPC UA.