Remote downhole, subsea controls next step for automation

Doing platform maintenance from shore

Jerry Greenberg
Contributing Editor

The Sable Offshore Energy Project will consist of one manned and two unmanned platforms, but even the manned platform will be remotely operated for 12 hours/day [23,095 bytes].
Unmanned, remotely operated platforms require less weight and accomodation than manned platforms [43,169 bytes].

Automation and control of systems and processes on offshore production platforms can translate into considerable savings for oil and gas companies in various forms. Control systems can result in more uptime for the platform, which translates into more production and thus higher cash flow for the platform; reduced manning; and better data gathering and communications of the data to sources onshore and other platforms.

While operators in the US Gulf of Mexico at one time were considered industry leaders in remote control of platforms, primarily centered around hurricane shut-in systems, European companies have taken the lead and now have some of the most sophisticated platforms in terms of automation and controls.

But some people contend that the offshore industry is only beginning to go through what the onshore processing industry went through 20 years ago. This is basically the view for the Gulf of Mexico as other areas of the world - Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia - are viewed by the automation industry as fairly sophisticated in their approach to automation and control systems.

Some oil and gas companies are upgrading and retrofitting existing platforms to take advantage of more recent technology of control and data systems. In the future, the offshore automation and control industry may not develop many more innovations than today, but it is trending toward integrating more of the processes and operations found on offshore platforms under one control system.

Control and cash flow

Automation of operations can result in less downtime as the automation process monitors and controls many of the functions of the platform operations, making detailed adjustments in many of the operations. But too complex a system can sometimes have adverse effects. "If you put too complicated a safety shutdown system on a platform," an engineer with a major operator in New Orleans said, "And you do not have proper control to go on top of that shutdown system, you can end up with a lot of false trips. You shut down (the platform) when you really don't need to shut down. And every shutdown costs the company money."

This becomes important when a company is operating a platform producing hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil and millions of cubic feet of natural gas daily. While not every platform experiences a shutdown every day, there are instances where platforms are shut down every few days or several times a week. The shutdown time can vary between a few minutes to a day or longer, depending upon the reason for the shutdown.

"A lot of the platforms shut down quite a bit," the engineer said. "And the larger platforms can cost a lot of money when they do."

"I think shutdowns are not that atypical on platforms," said Dennis Thomas, an engineer with Honeywell in New Orleans. "It's actually quite a common occurrence. It could be for various reasons, and not necessarily control-related. It could be an actual process issue - for example, they are bringing on another well - or there is a slug of sand or water in the separator causing the separator level to increase and trip. There are a lot of cases beyond the automation system."

"But the cost of the shutdowns can far outweigh the additional cost of the automation system," Thomas said.

Reduced manning, training

Automation can reduce manning requirements for production projects. For example, the Sable Offshore Energy Project (SOEP) offshore eastern Canada, will consist of three platforms, only one of which will be manned. The other two platforms will be remotely operated from either the manned central facility or from onshore.

But a unique feature of this project is that, while the central processing facility will be manned 24 hours per day, that platform, plus the other two platforms, will be remotely operated from shore for 12 hours per day. About 40 people will be on the central facility.

"There is a 12-hour period where the project is operated offshore," said Marcus Toffolo with Elsag Bailey (Canada), which is supplying the automation and controls for this project. "Then, that shift is off duty and they transfer control to the beach to be operated remotely by a telecommunications system."

"The operators wanted to go with reduced manning," Toffolo continues. "If you had to operate 24 hours offshore, which pushes up the size, weight, and accommodation requirements of the platform, plus the regulations, you would have to have a significantly higher number of people on the platform."

Peter Leszinsky, an engineer with Honeywell in Houston, agrees: "The driver in the North Sea and on newer platforms in other parts of the world is reduction of manning on the platform. If you design a platform to reduce manning, you can save on construction because you require fewer facilities such as living quarters, galleys, and other modules. And you put the experts onshore, rather than offshore, which costs less money.

"There is also reduced risk because of lower manning levels or no manning on remotely operated platforms," Leszinsky continued, " and that can result in reduced insurance costs."

"From shore, we can monitor and control all of the functions," Toffolo said. "We can open and close valves, divert flow, put new wells onto the test separator, and shut down the platform. The operators will have full transparent control of the system."

Elsag Bailey is involved in all four of the projects offshore eastern Canada, which includes SOEP, Hibernia, Terra Nova, and Panuke. The company says it has used a common philosophy for all of those. "This has been done for reasons of operator familiarity, reduced maintenance and spares costs, and reduced life-cycle costs," Toffolo said.

One of the benefits here is that the operator does not have to learn three separate systems. "You don't need as much documentation and you don't need as much training," Toffolo said. "You don't need as many spare parts and you have easier access to all of the data because it is all on one system."

Basically in an automatic oil and gas system, according to Toffolo, if there is a change in an operating requirement. For example, a reduction in the requirement of the gas to be fed to shore, the operator would change that point and then the control system would take care of everything automatically after that.

"In a steady state, when the platform is up and running, basically the operators of the system are redundant," said Toffolo. "They will still come into play when you have a failure of a mechanical device, but the idea is to have the facility operate on its own. The idea is automatic control. The operator is absolutely essential for day-to-day maintenance and observation, but the control system essentially automates all of the processes."

US Gulf automation

While the US offshore industry was once the leader in automation and controls, which earlier consisted primarily of remotely controlled shutdown systems for use in the event of hurricanes, they have fallen behind the technology now found on large North Sea platforms and on production facilities in Southeast Asia, Australia, and other parts of the world. There are several opinions on this shift.

"Control systems were extremely large and extremely expensive," the major oil company engineer said, "So you couldn't justify them on a small four-pile platform that was flowing only 100 b/d. A lot of the platforms have been here for years before any of this technology was available, so it is easy to understand why the Gulf is behind on the times."

Some control engineers believe that European production platforms use automation to a degree that is unnecessary, and wastes money during the process.

"It's an American cultural thing," says Leszinsky. "They just did not embrace automation technology at anywhere the same rate as other parts of the offshore game."

"Although some operators are starting to look at more complex control systems in the Gulf of Mexico," says Thomas, "there still is an attitude in the Gulf that says, 'Those guys in the North Sea just waste money hand over fist. They spend way too much money on automation systems. We can do it for half that price and we have been doing it for half the price.

"The Gulf of Mexico was really leading the technology. They were talking about doing the remote hurricane evacuation and shut-in many years ago," Thomas continues. "So they were somewhat industry leaders, if you will, in the application of the technology. But they just didn't see the value of spending more money on an automation system than what they had been doing."

But the Gulf of Mexico operators are not doing the same thing as North Sea operators, says Thomas. "Keep in mind that North Sea platforms are more sophisticated. The platforms are larger and handle quite a bit higher production than anything in the Gulf. So it's the production volumes that help them warrant the control systems. Not only are the monetary losses high should they shut-in, but the environmental loss and risk is much greater."

"There are literally hundreds of small platforms in the Gulf which are more individual and specialized," the major oil company engineer said. " Then you go to the North Sea or even the West Coast of the US and what you have is a small handful of extremely large facilities. You can justify large, dedicated control systems on the facilities."

"But you're seeing some really sophisticated systems being put on some of the new, huge deepwater facilities here in the Gulf by operators such as Shell and Chevron," he said. "There are only a few of those right now. But some operators are going back and retrofitting some of their larger facilities because there is more money at stake if it shuts down when it doesn't need to shut down."

"My complaint concerning the lack of auto mation has to do with the return on the dollar to the company, not from a safety aspect," the engineer continued. "However, if you put too complicated a shutdown system on a platform, and if you do not have proper controls to go on top of that shutdown system, you have a lot of false trips. As a result, the platform shuts down when you really didn't have a danger problem. Every time you shut down, you have cost the company money.

"That's not to say that platforms in the Gulf are unsafe," he added. "The systems in the Gulf may be old or archaic, but they're designed in such a way that the platforms are extremely safe. The Minerals Management Service pretty much regulates that."

"If an unmanned facility shuts in, we make someone go over there and put their hands on it to make sure that it's okay. It costs money if you have to send someone over there by boat or helicopter. If the weather is bad and it's going to be the next day before someone can get over there, a day's worth of production is lost on the whole facility."

But Gulf operators are looking toward the future with the need for larger and more complex production systems in the deepwater US Gulf. However, they may still not embrace the amount of automation installed on platforms in Europe.

"Most of the major oil companies are going through an evaluation period where they are trying to decide what it is they are going to do," Thomas said. "But certainly in the beginning of that evaluation, there is still the attitude that says what they do in the North Sea is too expensive and not justified. And what they're looking to do is something more than what is being done today in the Gulf, but less than what is being done in the North Sea.

"But, I think that if the operators were to do the cost-benefit justification and the risk analysis," Thomas continued, "they would find that they have all the same drivers to do it the same way that it's done in the North Sea."

Future trends

The industry is trending toward integrating more of the processes and operations under one control system. The idea is to have a facility operate on its own, utilizing a control system that essentially automates all of the processes. "There isn't a lot more that can be automated, but there is perhaps more that could be connected or integrated," said Toffolo.

Leszinsky agrees: "This is something the European designers are putting into their platform designs. They are integrating fire and gas systems, integrating all the compressor controls, the skid controls, and other components."

He also thinks downhole intelligent completions should be implemented into the control system. "The companies would put down the mechanical and hydraulic technologies to divert the flows and drawdown on different depletion areas," Toffolo said. "We would put in the automation of those functions - such as signals and controls - to allow changing over without shocking the wells, if you have to change over gradually."
Another item that may be in the future for platforms is maintenance programs. In addition to utilizing automation of processes to reduce manning levels, "supplying a new level of communications between the platform and shore so the people there can do maintenance from shore" is another aspect, said Per Henning Kittilsen with Siemens in Norway.

"People are beginning to be more interested in maintenance programs," Thomas with Honeywell said. "Our company and others are talking about systems that are predictive in nature in terms of maintenance. Instead of just replacing a pump every 5,000-10,000 hours, for example, the operators can run the pump to within a few hours of failure and then replace it at the best possible time."

Information technology is also becoming more advanced. "The next step is tighter integration of all the information with the actual operating business," Leszinsky said. "We're providing software for the Hibernia platform that will total all of their production and send the information back to the corporate mainframe computer."
"What we see is not only the opportunity to tie platforms back to the corporate office," Thomas says, "But to the other segments of the business as well. The oil companies want to get a handle around their entire business. They want to trace their production from the time it comes out of the ground, through the platform, the pipeline and to the gas plant."

"They want to see what's happening at the gas plant and be able to make modifications to the operation if necessary based on real time data. And finally, they want to follow the product all the way to the retail market."

"Companies are beginning to put into place infrastructure to be able to do all of that," Thomas said. "I think you're going to see some rather large investments in that area."

Author

Jerry Greenberg is a contract writer, based in Houston. He has 18 years experience in the offshore industry, including 11 years as an observer, analyst, and reporter. He also has worked with several offshore drilling contractors in marketing and communications for seven years. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected] or fax at 281-568-0254.