Company Profile
Aker Kvaerner is a leading
international subsea oilfield equipment company that designs,
manufactures and installs wellhead equipment, Xmas trees, production
control systems and related products and services.
Situation
While
‘plug and play’ is not a phrase normally associated with oil and gas
industry technology, Kvaerner Oilfield Products (KOP) recognised that
its clients need seamless integration with many manufacturers’ topside
systems. KOP subsea systems
wanted to offer OPC and protocol connectivity to any system topside,
giving efficient and reliable operation of subsea wellheads and valves,
and flexibility in the choice of topside system supplier.
Statoil’s
Kristin field is the first to benefit from KOP’s major investment in
software technology, a new ‘OPC gateway’, which gives clients the flexible automated control
of subsea wellheads, chokes and valves, using the hardware provided by
any manufacturer of topside equipment, and simultaneous access to a
wealth of reservoir data in real time.
“KOP’s
subsea systems control and monitor the well and reservoir conditions for
oil and gas operators the world over,” says Paal Helsing, managing
director of KOP Ltd in Aberdeen. “We worked with Statoil to develop and
install this flexible and advanced interface for the subsea control
system on Kristin, which is a high pressure, high temperature field in
300m of water. At 15,000psi and up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, Kristin is
a world first and a real challenge for many new subsea technologies .
The new gateway will give Statoil a wide range of options for hardware
and software during the life of the field, and greater control of the
asset.”
Solution
Developed
on a fast-track programme, Measuresoft worked with KOP to design and
develop the gateway software in a mere four months, as against a normal
two-year timescale for similar projects. As well as providing Statoil
with an open interface to KOP subsea systems, Measuresoft and KOP have
developed the technology to international safety standard, Safety
Integrity Level 1.
The
delivered solution is scaleable. It provides a hierarchical view of
subsea equipment and can be configured using XML systems and tools. The
subsea communications is highly reliable with the ability to acquire and
control over redundant links. The OPC server communications can be
controlled using OPC data eliminating the requirement for customized
project development.
Benefits
“Clients will see major savings in time and manpower through the
application of the new KOP gateway technology,” says Paal Helsing. “We
expect to halve the normal 30-week configuring time to 15 weeks, a great
saving on such high-cost projects. As well as enhancing safety standards
across all projects, our integrated gateway has at a stroke standardised
our quality to impressive levels. This has changed the way we do things,
and our clients are benefiting.”
KOP’s gateway offers a range of important oil field and reservoir data
to customers through remote links, assuming security is integral to the
link. Subsea engineers in Aberdeen can analyse temperature, pressure and
operational data on the Kristin field from anywhere in the world, a huge
saving in both time and cost compared to flying the engineer offshore to
the work site.
Operational data, like sand content, flow rates, temperature, and
pressure is readily accessible, real time and to high degree of
accuracy. Reservoir optimisation depends on the data and the rapid
response to it.
Moving away from tailored, custom-built subsea systems gives oil and gas
operators the freedom to combine any company’s hardware and software yet
find compatibility across systems and suppliers for reservoir monitoring
and analysis. Based on KOP’s systems, the new gateway provides the
technical basis for the connectivity of automation software with control
hardware and field devices, and will allow remote control of subsea
systems using satellite technology if required.
KOP subsea systems will automatically configure to various suppliers’
topside systems, hence the plug and play analogy, according to Paal
Helsing. KOP believes that it is time to move away from the bespoke
systems of the past and ensure smooth interface with any supplier’s
products and systems.
 |
 |
|
